Posts tagged “Qualified-Immunity Appeals”

In Washington v. City of St. Louis, the Eighth Circuit vacated a denial of qualified immunity because the district court misstated and misapplied the summary-judgment standard. The Eighth Circuit thought this was a legal issue over which it had jurisdiction in a qualified-immunity appeal.

But I’m not sure. Most (if not all) reversible summary-judgment decisions can be characterized as misunderstandings or misapplications of the summary-judgment standard.…

In Graber v. Doe II, a panel of the Third Circuit split on whether federal officials could immediately appeal the Bivens question without a qualified-immunity appeal. It’s the second decision in recent memory to reject a pure Bivens appeal. And this time, at least one judge was willing to hold that the Bivens issue was immediately appealable via the collateral-order doctrine.…

In Pettibone v. Russell, the Ninth Circuit categorically held that it could address the Bivens question as part of a qualified-immunity appeal. In the course of doing so, the court rejected its older cases holding to the contrary.…

Although there is a concerted effort to reform or abolish qualified immunity, the prospects of doing so are uncertain. In a new article, I argue that if if qualified immunity remains in its current or a similar form, reformers should target qualified-immunity appeals. Although courts and commentators have occasionally criticized qualified-immunity appeals, they often fail to see how much damage these appeals have done.…

When a district court denies qualified immunity at summary judgment, defendants have a right to appeal. But the scope of that appeal is limited. With rare and narrow exceptions, the court of appeals lacks jurisdiction to review the genuineness of any fact disputes—i.e., the facts that (according to the district court) a reasonable jury could find.…

The Bivens question asks whether a damages action exists for a federal official’s unconstitutional conduct. In Wilkie v. Robbins, the Supreme Court held that courts of appeals can address the Bivens question as part of an appeal from the denial of qualified immunity. But the Bivens question standing alone has not been deemed immediately appealable.…

Fact-based qualified-immunity appeals—that is, appeals from the denial of immunity in which a defendant challenges the factual basis for the immunity denial—are a problem in the courts of appeals. With rare and narrow exceptions, the courts of appeals lack jurisdiction over these appeals. Defendants nevertheless take these appeals with some frequency, adding wholly unnecessary complexity, expense, and delay to civil-rights litigation.…

Civil-rights plaintiffs sometimes sue both the government officials who injured them and the municipal entity (city, school, county, etc.) that employed the officials. (The claims against the municipalities are often called “Monell claims,” after the Supreme Court decision that governs them.) While individual government officials can invoke the qualified immunity defense, municipalities cannot.…

With rare exceptions, defendants appealing from the denial of qualified immunity at summary judgment cannot challenge the factual basis for the immunity denial. Yet defendants regularly flout this limit on the scope of interlocutory qualified-immunity appeals. They appeal from the denial of immunity to argue that the district court erred in determining what a reasonable jury could find.…

Jurisdiction over appeals from the denial of qualified immunity can be complex. In Mitchell v. Forsyth, the Supreme Court held that defendants can immediately appeal these denials via the collateral-order doctrine. Ten years later, in Johnson v. Jones, the Supreme Court limited that right to appeal when the district court denies immunity at the summary-judgment stage.…