Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-89-01374/USCOURTS-ca10-89-01374-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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• 

FI LED 

U~itf!d States Court of Appeal• 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS T""nth Ci:a1it 

TENTH CIRCUIT JUN 1 ~ 1991 

&OBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

O. GEORGE SPECHT, Jr. and JUNE ) 

B. SPECHT, ) 

) 

Plaintiffs-Appellees, ) 

) 

v. ) 

) 

ROGER JENSEN, DOUG MARTIN, ) 

and DON OWENS, ) 

) 

Defendants-Appellants. ) 

No. 89-1374 

(D. Colo. No. 82-Z-809) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

Before ANDERSON, BALDOCK, and EBEL, Circuit Judges. 

As the latest installment in an almost Dickensian legal saga, 

defendants bring this S 1983 action before the Tenth Circuit for 

what will be our fourth opinion since 1987. Defendants now 

contend that the district court, on remand, wrongly rejected their 

motion for swmnary judgment. Because we are reluctant to write 

yet another chapter in this already lengthy volume of litigation, 

and because we find the district court's application of the "law 

of the case" doctrine to be persuasive, we affirm the district 

court's denial of defendants' motion for swmnary judgment. We 

therefore remand to the district court for resumption of the new 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall not 

be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, except 

for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of the case, 

res judicata, or collateral estoppal. 10th Cir. R. 36.3. 

Appellate Case: 89-1374 Document: 010110119446 Date Filed: 06/13/1991 Page: 1 
• trial mandated by this court in Specht v. Jensen, 863 F.2d 700, 

702 (10th Cir. 1988). 

FACTS 

This case began in 1982 when the Spechts sued defendant 

police officers for improperly searching Mr. Specht's office and 

the Spechts' home. The suit was based on 42 U.S.C. S 1983, as 

well as various state tort claims, and resulted in a jury verdict 

totalling $234,000. One of the defenses asserted by the 

defendants at trial was a "good faith defense," which was 

obviously intended as a claim for qualified immunity. The defense 

was submitted to the jury under a three-part instruction that 

required the jury to find both subjective good faith and objective 

reasonableness before it could find for the defendants on that 

defense. Although Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800 (1982), had 

eliminated the subjective good faith element from the qualified 

immunity defense, defendants did not object to that jury 

instruction. The jury obviously found against the defendants on 

this defense, since it returned a general verdict for the 

plaintiffs. 

Following the jury verdict, defendants filed a j.n.o.v. 

motion which asserted, inter alia, that they were qualifiedly 

immune from suit. The j.n.o.v. motion did not object to the jury 

instruction, but it did correctly assert that under Harlow v. 

Fitzgerald the proper standard for evaluating a qualified immunity 

claim was "objective" reasonableness. Defendants argued that, as 

a matter of law, they were entitled to qualified immunity because 

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Appellate Case: 89-1374 Document: 010110119446 Date Filed: 06/13/1991 Page: 2 
the evidence established that they had met the Harlow standard. 

The district court disagreed and denied their j.n.o.v. motion 

without explanation. 

On appeal before the Tenth Circuit, defendants did not assert 

that the jury instruction was plain error. Instead, they focused 

on the j.n.o.v. motion and argued that it should have been granted 

because, as a matter of law, they met the Harlow test. The Tenth 

Circuit panel rejected that argument and affirmed the verdict in 

all respects, including the district court's order denying the 

j.n.o.v. motion. Specht v. Jensen, 832 F.2d 1516 (10th Cir. 1987) 

("Specht I"). With regard to the qualified immunity issue, the 

panel specifically concluded that the "undisputed facts undermine 

defendants' assertion that their conduct ..• was objectively 

reasonable as a matter of law" -- the prerequisite for a finding 

of qualified immunity. Id. at 1525. 

Without vacating the panel opinion, the Tenth Circuit granted 

limited rehearing en bane, Specht v. Jensen, 837 F.2d 940 (10th 

Cir. 1987) ("Specht II"), and held that the trial court's 

admission of certain expert testimony constituted reversible 

error. Specht v. Jensen, 853 F.2d 805 (10th Cir. 1987) ("Specht 

III"). The en bane court specifically noted that "this case is 

before the court for rehearing .fill bane of one issue; in all other 

respects the panel opinion stands." Id. at 806. The en bane 

court remanded the case to the initial panel to address a 

previously unconsidered cross-appeal. Id. at 810. The panel, in 

turn, remanded the case back to the district court for a new 

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trial. Specht v. Jensen, 863 F.2d 700 (10th Cir. 1988), cert. 

denied, 488 U.S. 1008 (1989). 

Once back in district court, the defendants sought to pursue 

qualified immunity as an affirmative defense and filed a motion 

for summary judgment to that effect. Defendants argued that the 

original proceedings addressed in Specht I involved only the issue 

of good faith immunity, which is distinguishable from the 

qualified immunity defense asserted in their motion for summary 

judgment on remand. The district court denied defendants' motion, 

concluding that the issue of qualified immunity had already been 

resolved against defendants in Specht I and that the subsequent 

Tenth Circuit rulings in no way affected that determination. 

Defendants now appeal that interlocutory ruling. 

ANALYSIS 

Under the judicial doctrine known as "law of the case," 

courts are precluded from reconsidering issues which have already 

been decided at an earlier stage of litigation. This doctrine is 

designed to preserve judicial resources and to "bring about a 

quick resolution of disputes by preventing continued re-argument 

of issues already decided." Gage v. General Motors Corp., 796 

F.2d 345, 349-350 (10th Cir. 1986). As this court noted in 

Cherokee Nation v. Oklahoma, 461 F.2d 674, 678 (10th Cir. 1972) 

(quoting Munro v. Post, 102 F.2d 686, 688 (2d Cir. 1939), the 

"rule that a lower court must follow the decision of a higher 

court at an earlier stage of the case applies to everything 

decided either expressly or by necessary implication." See also 

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• 

Fox v. Mazda Corp. of America, 868 F.2d 1190, 1194 (10th Cir. 

1989). 

Although defendants attempt to argue that the qualified 

immunity defense raised on remand is somehow distinct from that 

considered in Specht I, there can be no doubt that the Specht I 

decision -- either "expressly or by necessary implication" --

addressed this issue. The district court denied defendants' 

j.n.o.v. motion which clearly asserted qualified immunity under 

the Harlow test, and the Tenth Circuit affirmed that order of 

denial. Furthermore, after carefully evaluating the undisputed 

facts of the case, the Specht I panel concluded that defendants' 

claim of objective reasonableness was not supported by the 

undisputed facts in the record. 832 F.2d at 1525. Such a finding 

clearly defeated any assertion of qualified immunity, be it on a 

motion j.n.o.v. or a pretrial motion for summary judgment. 

Although the en bane court vacated the judgment of the Specht I 

court, it specifically stated that the panel opinion would stand 

in all respects other than the expert testimony issue. 853 F.2d 

at 806. 1 Thus, it is quite obvious that the district court was 

bound to follow the Specht I conclusion on qualified immunity. 

1 Even without this language, the Specht I panel's qualified 

immunity discussion would have remained valid for law of the case 

purposes. According to Tenth Circuit Rule 35.6 (Effect of 

Rehearing En Banc), "[u]nless specifically otherwise ordered, the 

effect of granting a rehearing en bane is to vacate the judgment, 

stay the mandate, and restore the case on the docket as a pending 

appeal. The panel decision is not vacated unless ordered by the 

court." Thus, without express language to the contrary, the panel 

opinion remains valid for establishing the law of the case. 

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• 

• This is precisely what the district court did. See Transcript at 

3.2 

CONCLUSION 

For the reasons set forth above, we AFFIRM the district 

court's denial of summary judgment and REMAND for resumption of 

the new trial mandated by this court in Specht v. Jensen, 863 F.2d 

700, 702 (10th Cir. 1988). 

2 

Entered for the Court 

David M. Ebel 

Circuit Judge 

As icing on the cake, the district court judge stated that -- as the judge who had tried the first case -- she agreed with the 

Tenth Circuit's conclusion that the evidence did not support a 

claim of qualified immunity under the objective reasonableness 

test of Harlow. 

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