recognizing "that our regular policy of avoidance sometimes does not fit the qualified immunity situation because it threatens to leave standards of official conduct permanently in limbo" and explaining that merits rulings in immunity-barred cases are "self-consciously designed . . . with this Court's permission" to "establish[] controlling law and prevent[] invocations of immunity in later cases"
How later courts described this case
- recognizing "that our regular policy of avoidance sometimes does not fit the qualified immunity situation because it threatens to leave standards of official conduct permanently in limbo" and explaining that merits rulings in immunity-barred cases are "self-consciously designed . . . with this Court's permission" to "establish[] controlling law and prevent[] invocations of immunity in later cases"
- recognizing that a party who prevails on the bottom line may have enough of a “personal stake” to challenge an adverse ruling the court made along the way
- explaining that government officials have a stake in the outcome of a case “independent of any future suit brought by a third party” because a ruling that its conduct is not constitutional will change their behavior
- holding, in the limited context of qualified immunity, that a prevailing party may challenge an adverse finding that has a “significant future effect on the conduct of public officials”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
*1138 SEPARATE OPINIONS
Justice Scalia,
concurring.
I join the Court’s opinion, which reasonably applies our precedents, strange though they may be. The alternative solution, as Justice Kennedy suggests, see post, at 727, 179 L. Ed. 2d, at 1146 (dissenting opinion), is to end the extraordinary practice of ruling upon constitutional questions unnecessarily when the defendant possesses qualified immunity. See Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194 , 121 S. Ct. 2151 , 150 L. Ed. 2d 272 (2001). The parties have not asked us to adopt that approach, but I would be willing to consider it in an appropriate case.