A $10 million wrongful-death lawsuit filed against the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office and a deputy who fatally shot a Vero Beach doctor’s wife in 2017 will not go to trial Tuesday as scheduled.
U.S. District Court Judge Donald Middlebrooks last week notified attorneys for both sides that he was delaying the start of the trial until after the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether to review an appeals court’s ruling that reinstated Dr. Dudley Teel’s lawsuit.
Middlebrooks dismissed the lawsuit in 2019, ruling that Deputy Jonathan Lozada’s shooting of Susan Teen was justified. His decision, however, was reversed in September by the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The appeals court issued a strongly worded, 22-page opinion that restored Dr. Teel’s lawsuit and described Lozada’s lethal actions in the July 2017 shooting of a 62-year-old, suicidal woman in her bedroom as “wholly unnecessary.”
Lozada’s attorneys responded in April by filing a 33-page petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the 11th Circuit’s ruling.
Todd Norbraten, serving as co-counsel to Guy Rubin of the Stuart-based Rubin & Rubin law firm representing Dr. Teel, said he wasn’t surprised by Middlebrooks’ decision to postpone the trial, which was to be held at the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce.
He said the Supreme Court has requested a response to Lozada’s petition, and one will be filed in the coming weeks.
“The justices want our position on why they should not hear the case, not an argument on the actual issues,” Norbraten said.
The petition contends the 11th Circuit judges misapplied the law in denying Lozada qualified immunity – as a law enforcement officer carrying out his duties – from civil claims for his use of deadly force against Susan Teel, and adds that they “improperly judged” Lozada’s conduct in hindsight.
“They’re arguing that the 11th Circuit made a mistake in how they evaluated the case, and they’re asking the Supreme Court to reverse that ruling,” Rubin said after the petition was filed. “They want the Supreme Court to reinstate the district court judge’s decision to dismiss the case.”
Phone calls to the Fort Lauderdale office of Lozada’s attorney, Summer Barranco, went unreturned.
Middlebrooks had selected the Teel case to serve as a “pilot” for the resumption of jury trials in this area.
“If the Supreme Court decides to take the case, we could be looking a year or two down the road,” Rubin said, adding that he doesn’t expect the trial to be rescheduled for another three to nine months.
According to the USCourts.gov website, the Supreme Court agrees to hear only 100 to 150 of the 7,000-plus petitions it receives each year, and it usually does so only if a case “could have national significance, might harmonize conflicting decisions in the federal circuit courts, and/or could have precedential value.”
Rubin said he doesn’t expect the high court to take this case.
“Not only does the Supreme Court accept very few cases, but the 11th Circuit didn’t publish its ruling in this case, so it can’t be used as a binding precedent in other cases,” Rubin said.
“If it can’t be used as a precedent, why would the Supreme Court review it or overturn it?”
Rubin said the Supreme Court is more likely to wait for a post-trial appeal, if Lozada loses the case.
“If we go to trial and win, the defendants still can appeal the verdict and take it all the way to the Supreme Court,” Rubin said. “But if we go to trial and lose, the case goes away.
“There’s no reason for the Supreme Court to rule now.”
Besides, Rubin added, “once the justices read the facts, I don’t think they’ll want to encourage police to act the way Lozada acted in this case.”
The shooting occurred shortly after 8 p.m. on July 26, 2017, when Lozada responded to a 911 call for help at the Teels’ Carriage Lake home, where Susan Teel had attempted to commit suicide by slashing her wrists.
According to Sheriff’s Office reports, Lozada entered the house and spoke briefly with Dr. Teel, who told him his wife of 40 years was upstairs “trying to kill herself with a knife.”
Lozada, who had been a deputy for five years at the time of the incident, pulled his gun as he climbed the stairs and confronted the petite, 62-year-old woman in a second-floor bedroom.
The initial Sheriff’s Office report stated Susan Teel was holding a knife and taunted the deputy before she “lunged” at him, prompting him to shoot her three times in the chest.
In January 2018, a grand jury declined to indict Lozada on criminal charges.
