Case law

Mee v. Ortega

967 F.2d 423 · Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit · Jun 18, 1992

Accordingly, "summary judgment in favor of a defendant seeking qualified immunity is appropriate only if the constitutional standards governing the challenged conduct were not clearly established." Rex v. … Ortega on the basis of qualified immunity. "[T]he plaintiff cannot simply identify a clearly established right in the abstract and allege that the defendant has violated it." Hilliard v.

Gratsch v. Hamilton County

12 F. App'x 193 · Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit · Apr 3, 2001

a given set of facts violates clearly established law.” ’ Id. … As discussed above, evaluation of a qualified immunity claim involves answering two questions: 1) did the plaintiff suffer a deprivation of his clearly established constitutional rights; and 2) did the defendant act in an

Don Blankenship v. Joe Manchin, Iii, in His Individual Capacity and in His Official Capacity as Governor of the State of West Virginia

471 F.3d 523 · Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit · Dec 20, 2006

Finding a constitutional violation of a clearly established right, the district court denied the application of qualified immunity. This appeal followed. II. … As Blankenship’s complaint alleges a constitutional violation of a clearly established right, qualified immunity does not attach to the Governor’s actions.

Ober v. Evanko

80 F. App'x 196 · Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit · Oct 21, 2003

The District Court denied Appellants’ motion, finding that Appellants violated Ober’s clearly established First Amendment rights and, thus, were not entitled to qualified immunity. … Qualified immunity shields “government officials performing discretionary functions ... from liability from civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of

Teresa Buchanan v. F. Alexander

919 F.3d 847 · Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit · Mar 22, 2019

The qualified immunity inquiry comprises two questions: (1) “whether the defendant violated the plaintiff’s constitutional rights” and (2) whether that right was clearly established. 32 “We now have discretion to skip the … That is because of the second part of the qualified immunity inquiry, which requires a plaintiff to show that any violation of rights was clearly established at the time the conduct occurred.

Pam Pino v. E.P. Higgs, Curt Faust, Marcella Wolf, Jim Naranjo, Harlan Weiss, Pablo Hernandez

75 F.3d 1461 · Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit · Feb 5, 1996

Qualified immunity shields public officials from § 1983 liability if their actions did not “violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Harlow v. … In other words, a party attempting to avoid summary judgment based on qualified immunity “is obliged to present facts which if true would constitute a violation of clearly established law.”

Jerauld ex rel. Robinson v. Kroger

353 S.W.3d 636 · Court of Appeals of Kentucky · Aug 5, 2011

Thus, Kroger could also use the defense of qualified official immunity. … Clearly, his actions were of a discretionary nature. We believe the acts undertaken by Kroger were discretionary in nature and entitled him to qualified official immunity.

Bailey v. Board of County Commissioners of Alachua County

956 F.2d 1112 · Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit · Mar 31, 1992

To defeat a qualified immunity defense, Bailey was required to show that the defendants violated a clearly established statutory or constitutional right of which a reasonable person would have known. Mitchell v. … The district court reasoned that the law became “clearly established” on that date; thus, Caldwell and Hayes were not entitled to summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity.

Webb v. Jackson

583 So. 2d 946 · Mississippi Supreme Court · Jun 26, 1991

As to that section of the Complaint, Officer Jackson enjoys qualified immunity since the misconduct alleged does not fall within one of the three exceptions to qualified immunity. … Officer Jackson is protected by qualified immunity and the City of Newton by sovereign immunity on that issue.

McLenagan v. Karnes

27 F.3d 1002 · Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit · Jun 30, 1994

Rizzo, supra, is our leading case addressing the issue of qualified immunity in the excessive force context. … Simply put, under Virginia law, sovereign immunity is not available to a defendant whose culpability extends beyond mere negligence. *1009 Sovereign immunity, like qualified immunity, is only available to public officials

Zieper v. Metzinger

392 F. Supp. 2d 516 · District Court, S.D. New York · Aug 22, 2005

Amendment, I must consider whether the defendants have established that they are entitled to qualified immunity. … I conclude that such an inquiry would be too narrow, and conflates the “clearly established” prong of the qualified immunity inquiry with the “reasonable officer” prong.

Houston v. Partee

776 F. Supp. 1309 · District Court, N.D. Illinois · Nov 6, 1991

Now the other defendants named in the Fifth Amended Complaint — four police officers (collectively the “Officers”) — have moved to be dismissed on immunity grounds, this time under the doctrine of qualified immunity. … Instead the question is whether the plaintiff had a clearly established right against that defendant, who had a correspondingly clearly established duty not to infringe that right.

Pennington v. Hobson

719 F. Supp. 760 · District Court, S.D. Indiana · Aug 4, 1989

Only those public officials who can show that their conduct was not violative of any of the plaintiffs clearly established rights are entitled to qualified immunity. Harlow v. … In the qualified immunity analysis, the issue was whether a reasonable police officer would have known that the arrest violated clearly established law.

Conway v. Pasadena Humane Society

45 Cal. App. 4th 163 · California Court of Appeal · May 8, 1996

would violate a clearly established constitutional *178 or statutory right. … Further, an officer’s unreasonable ignorance that he has violated a clearly established right does not save his claim of qualified immunity. (Gilker v. Baker (9th Cir. 1978) 576 F.2d 245, 247 ; Coleman v.

Mason v. Village of Babylon, New York

124 F. Supp. 2d 807 · District Court, E.D. New York · Dec 20, 2000

clearly established constitutional rights. … At the very least, McManus is clearly entitled to qualified immunity on the false arrest claim. McManus was informed of an outstanding warrant and acted thereupon.

Whalen v. Massachusetts Trial Court

397 F.3d 19 · Court of Appeals for the First Circuit · Feb 4, 2005

Moreover, the individual defendants claimed the shield of qualified immunity, arguing that Whalen did not have a clearly established constitutional right to a hearing before a budget-driven termination of his position' — … The “Clearly Established Right” and “Reasonableness” It is beyond debate that, as a general matter, the constitutional right to due process claimed by Whalen was clearly established at the time he was laid off.

Fabrikant v. French

328 F. Supp. 2d 303 · District Court, N.D. New York · Jul 30, 2004

The qualified immunity doctrine insulates a governmental official performing discretionary functions from liability so long as his “conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which … were ‘clearly established’ at the time it was taken.”

Schuler v. City of Boulder

189 F.3d 1304 · Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit · Sep 7, 1999

Quiller and Kotowski filed the instant appeal challenging the district court’s order which denied their qualified immunity defense and held that their actions taken against Schuler violated clearly established constitutional … Spurlock, 798 F.2d 1313, 1318 (10th Cir. 1986), and held that in June 1992, the law was clearly established so as to defeat a qualified immunity defense there.

Estate of Decedent Lolomania Soakai v. Abdelaziz

137 F.4th 969 · Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit · May 16, 2025

Because the law was clearly established before the date of the car chase that defendants’ conduct was unconstitutional, defendants were not entitled to qualified immunity. … While creative, this doesn’t prove clearly established law. We should have granted qualified immunity to the Officers on this new substantive due process claim.

Scheuerman v. City of Huntsville, Al

499 F. Supp. 2d 1205 · District Court, N.D. Alabama · Jul 23, 2007

Parnell, 193 F.3d 1263 , 1268 *1215 (11th Cir.1999) (quoting Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818 , 102 S.Ct. 2727 ). 84 In analyzing a qualified immunity defense, district courts are to consider only the “clearly established law and … The law can be clearly established for purposes of qualified immunity “only by decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, or the highest court of the state where the case arose.”