Title: Lawson v. Garcia

State: wyoming

Issuer: Wyoming Supreme Court

Document:

Lawson v. Garcia1996 WY 38912 P.2d 1136Case Number: 95-137Decided: 03/15/1996Supreme Court of Wyoming
 

Officer ROGER LAWSON, 

Appellant (Defendant), 

 

v. 

 

CHARLENE GARCIA,  

Appellee (Plaintiff).

 

Appeal 
from the District Court of Laramie County; The Honorable Edward L. Grant, 
Judge.

 

Representing 
Appellant: 

Terry L. Armitage, Cheyenne.

Representing 
Appellee: 

Anthony F. Ross of Ross & Ross, P.C., 
Cheyenne.

 

Before GOLDEN, C.J., and 
THOMAS, MACY, TAYLOR and LEHMAN, JJ.

TAYLOR, Justice. 

[¶1]      We are asked to 
determine whether a police officer enjoyed qualified immunity under the facts of 
this case. The district court concluded that the police officer did not enjoy 
qualified immunity and, therefore, refused to grant his motion for summary 
judgment. We conclude that the police officer was entitled to summary judgment 
since his actions were not violative of clearly established law when he 
acted.

 

[¶2]      
Reversed.

 

I. 
ISSUE

 

[¶3]      The parties' 
statements of the issue are practically identical:

 

I. Was appellant/defendant Lawson entitled to summary 
judgment as a matter of law, based upon the doctrine of qualified 
immunity?

 

II. 
FACTS

 

[¶4]      The following 
recitation of facts is based upon the undisputed facts as demonstrated by the 
summary judgment materials and states those facts in the light most beneficial 
to the nonmoving party affording that party the benefit of all favorable 
inferences that may be drawn from them. The non-moving party in this case is 
appellee, Charlene Garcia (Garcia). From February 22, 1990 until February 24, 
1990, Garcia was held captive by her estranged boyfriend in Cheyenne, Wyoming. 
On February 24, 1990, Garcia escaped and eventually contacted the Cheyenne 
Police Department. Officer Roger Lawson (Lawson) was dispatched to investigate 
Garcia's case. Garcia informed Lawson that her ex-boyfriend broke into her 
sister's house, where she was house-sitting, on February 22, 1990 and held 
Garcia against her will until February 24, 1990. Further, Garcia informed Lawson 
that her ex-boyfriend repeatedly raped her and physically abused her during her 
confinement.

 

[¶5]      The physical 
evidence corroborated Garcia's claims. The back door of her sister's home showed 
signs of forced entry; there was a broken statue that Garcia claimed her 
attacker threw at her, hitting her in the shoulder; there was a fist-sized hole 
in the wall; and Garcia had bruises on her arm and head. Lawson was made aware 
of this physical evidence. In spite of the overwhelming evidence, Lawson refused 
to have a rape kit performed on Garcia and further informed her that neither he 
nor the Cheyenne Police Department could do anything about the matter since it 
was a boyfriend/girlfriend situation and it would be her word against his. 
Lawson did not collect any evidence while he was at Garcia's sister's home. 
However, while continuing the investigation, Lawson did take the opportunity to 
discuss the size of a mutual acquaintance's breasts and to invite Garcia to go 
out for a beer with him.

 

[¶6]      Lawson ultimately 
sought advice concerning how the situation should be reported, but could find no 
one in the Cheyenne Police Department to advise him. Unable to find an 
experienced officer, he performed his own research and concluded that there was 
no basis for felony charges. Finally, Lawson wrote a citation and complaint 
charging Garcia's assailant with disturbance of the peace.

 

[¶7]      Lawson was 
suspended by the Cheyenne Police Department, and other officers within the 
department were placed in charge of the investigation. However, the charges 
filed with the district attorney's office were eventually dismissed for lack of 
evidence. Garcia filed a complaint on February 11, 1993, and later amended that 
complaint to include a cause of action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging 
that Lawson violated her constitutional right to equal protection under the law. 
Lawson filed a motion for summary judgment claiming, among other things, that he 
was immune from suit pursuant to the doctrine of qualified immunity. The 
district court refused to grant that motion, and Lawson filed this interlocutory 
appeal.

 

III. 
DISCUSSION

 

A. 
STANDARD OF REVIEW

 

[¶8]      Lawson is 
entitled to summary judgment if there are no material facts in dispute and he is 
entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Adkins v. Lawson, 892 P.2d 128, 130 
(Wyo. 1995) (quoting Sandstrom v. 
Sandstrom, 884 P.2d 968, 971 (Wyo. 1994)). When reviewing a motion for 
summary judgment, we place ourselves in the same position as the district court 
and employ the same materials used by that court. Id. We review those materials in the 
light most favorable to the non-moving party and give that party the benefit of 
all favorable inferences that may be drawn from those materials. Id.

 

[¶9]      Whether a public 
official is entitled to qualified immunity is a question of law. Furnace v. Oklahoma Corp. Com'n, 51 F.3d 932, 935 (10th Cir. 1995). As such, the issue is reviewed de novo. Id. Normally, the denial of a motion for 
summary judgment is not an appealable final order. Equality Bank of Evansville, Wyo. v. 
Suomi, 836 P.2d 325, 330 (Wyo. 1992). However, denial of a motion for 
summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity is an appealable final 
order. Lucero v. Mathews, 901 P.2d 1115, 1118 (Wyo. 1995).

 

[¶10]   Qualified immunity is, of course, 
an affirmative defense; but once it is raised, the plaintiff has the burden of 
proving that the federal rights allegedly impaired by the defendant were clearly 
established at the time the alleged conduct occurred. Rodgers v. Horsley, 39 F.3d 308, 310 
(11th Cir. 1994). To prove that a right was clearly established, the plaintiff 
must demonstrate that in light of pre-existing law, the unlawfulness of the 
alleged violation would have been apparent to a reasonable official. Trigalet v. Young, 54 F.3d 645, 647-48 
(10th Cir.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. 
___, 116 S. Ct. 340, 133 L. Ed. 2d 238 (1995) (quoting Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S. Ct. 3034, 3039, 97 L. Ed. 2d 523 (1987)). "For the law to be 
clearly established to the point that qualified immunity does not apply, the law 
must have earlier developed in such a concrete and factually defined context to 
make it obvious to all reasonable government actors, in the defendant's place, 
that `what he is doing' violates federal law." Lassiter v. Alabama A & M University, 
Bd. of Trustees, 28 F.3d 1146, 1149 (11th Cir. 1994). Qualified immunity 
will be stripped only if pre-existing law would compel a reasonable official, in 
the defendant's position, to conclude that what the defendant was doing was 
unlawful under the circumstances. Id. 
at 1150.

 

B. EQUAL 
PROTECTION CLAIM

 

[¶11]   The determinative issue in this 
case is whether, in February of 1990, the state of the law was such that a 
reasonable police officer in Lawson's position would have been compelled to 
conclude that Lawson's cursory investigation was unlawful. In other words, we 
must determine whether, in February of 1990, it was unlawful for a police 
officer to conduct a perfunctory investigation into an alleged first-degree 
sexual assault committed by the victim's ex-boyfriend.

 

[¶12]   Police refusal to provide equal 
access to police protection was, of course, unlawful in February of 1990. See Watson v. City of Kansas City, Kan., 
857 F.2d 690, 694 (10th Cir. 1988) (holding that police may not discriminate in 
the provision of police protection). However, we can find no law, much less any 
pre-February 1990 law, standing for the proposition that a citizen is entitled 
to have a police officer perform a "quality investigation" or to have a police 
officer investigate a domestic assault as aggressively as he or she might 
investigate any other type of assault. The law clearly prohibits police from 
discriminatorily refusing to provide the same level of police protection to 
victims of domestic violence as is provided to victims of other assaults. Id. However, we are not at liberty to 
expand that rule to include a right to a "quality investigation" of domestic 
assaults. The doctrine of qualified immunity almost always protects the 
defendant in the absence of a bright line rule staked out by prior case law. Lassiter, 28 F.3d  at 1150. Garcia has 
failed to demonstrate that there was a bright line rule in effect in February of 
1990 that rendered the perfunctory investigation performed by Lawson 
constitutionally defective. Therefore, the 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim must 
fail.

 

IV. 
CONCLUSION

 

[¶13]   Since Garcia failed to demonstrate 
that Lawson violated a clearly established federal right, Lawson is entitled to 
invoke the defense of qualified immunity. Therefore, Lawson's motion for summary 
judgment must be granted. The district court's decision to deny Lawson's motion 
for summary judgment is reversed.

 

LEHMAN, Justice, files a dissenting opinion. 

LEHMAN, Justice, dissenting. 

[¶14]   I dissent.

 

[¶15]   The majority opinion is correct 
when it states: "The law clearly prohibits police from discriminatorily refusing 
to provide the same level of police protection to victims of domestic violence 
as is provided to victims of other assaults." Where I part company with the 
majority is with the reasoning which follows: "However, we are not at liberty to 
expand that rule to include a right to a `quality investigation' of domestic 
assaults."

 

[¶16]   If an officer does not conduct the 
same level of investigation of a reported assault by a victim of domestic 
violence as they would with a victim of other assaults, they may be 
discriminatorily refusing to provide the same level of police protection. An 
investigation is not an expansion of police protection, it is only a part of 
it.

 

[¶17]   The district court was correct in 
its result that factual issues exist regarding Garcia's claim that she was not 
provided the same level of police protection. Therefore, I respectfully 
dissent.