# Jensen v. City of Oxnard

> Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit · May 28, 1998 · 145 F.3d 1078

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6969419

## Case

- **Full name:** Jennifer JENSEN, individually and as Administrator of the Estate of James Rex Jensen, Jr., and Lindsey Elizabeth Jensen and Katelyn Melisa Jensen, minors by and through Jennifer Jensen, guardian ad Litem v. CITY OF OXNARD Chief Harold Hurtt, individually and as Chief of Police Stan Meyers, individually and as Assistant Chief of Police Tom Cady, individually and as Assistant Chief of Police John Crombach, individually and as Commander Bill Lewis, individually and as Sergeant Daniel Christian, individually and as Sergeant and Does 1 through 100, inclusive
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
- **Decided:** May 28, 1998
- **Citations:** 145 F.3d 1078; 1998 WL 270083
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Wallace
- **Judges:** Hawkins, Trott, Wallace
- **Cited by:** 105 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6969419

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- concluding the allegation that an officer engaged in a Fourth 26 Amendment seizure “by intentionally shooting at a figure he mistook to be an armed criminal” 27 stated a viable excessive force claim
- rejecting 6 “contention that traditional state workers’ compensation law precludes . . . § 1983 claim[s]”

## Opinion text

WALLACE, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
For the reasons stated in part II, I concur in the affirmance of the holding of the district court that the appellants are not entitled to qualified immunity as a matter of law, and, therefore, the district court properly denied the motion to dismiss the action. I would not get to the merits of the action under part I.
The Supreme Court has limited what we may decide on appeal to the question of immunity separate from the merits of the underlying action. Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 529 , 105 S.Ct. 2806 , 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985). “An appellate court reviewing the denial of the defendant’s claim of immunity need not consider the correctness of the plaintiffs version of the facts, nor even determine whether the plaintiffs allegations actually state a claim. Ml it need determine is a question of law: whether the legal norms allegedly violated by the defendant were clearly established at the time of the challenged actions____” Id. at 528 , 105 S.Ct. 2806 . “[T]he legal determination that a given proposition of law was not clearly established at the time the defendant committed the alleged acts does not entail a determination of the ‘merits’ of the plaintiffs claim that the defendant’s actions were in fact unlawful.” Id. at 529 n. 10, 105 S.Ct. 2806 . We have also recognized that the proper inquiry in an appeal similar to this is only whether there is qualified immunity, not whether the complaint states a claim. Figueroa v. United States, 7 F.3d 1405, 1409 (9th Cir.1993).

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/6969419. Public record. Not legal advice.