Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca2-12-02634/USCOURTS-ca2-12-02634-1/pdf.json

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

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DEBRA ANN LIVINGSTON, Circuit Judge, dissenting:

The majority misapplies the Supreme Court’s qualified immunity cases, first

subjecting police officers to “the burdens of broad‐reaching discovery” in the

absence of clearly established law supporting its strained theory ofliability, Mitchell

v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 526 (1985) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818

(1982)) (“Unless the plaintiff’s allegations state a claim of violation of clearly

established law, a defendant pleading qualified immunity is entitled to dismissal

before the commencement of discovery.”); accord Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223,

231 (2009)(noting thatthe “‘driving force’ behindcreation ofthe qualifiedimmunity

doctrine was a desire to ensure that ‘insubstantial claims’ against government

officials . . . be resolved prior to discovery” (quoting Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S.

635, 640 n.2 (1987)), and then standing the objective reasonableness doctrine on its

head.   In so doing, it threatens the ability of police departments in this Circuit

lawfully and reasonably to police large‐scale demonstrations and to make the

necessary on‐the‐spot judgments about whether arrests are required in the face of

unlawful conduct threatening public safety.  Respectfully, I dissent.  

The New York City Police Department (“NYPD”) officers who policed the

movement of thousands of “Occupy Wall Street” protesters from Zuccotti Park to

the Brooklyn Bridge on October 1, 2011, brought these many people (who did not

obtain a permit before their march)through downtownManhattan safely and, so far

as the Second Amended Complaint (the “complaint” or “putative class action

complaint”) alleges, withoutincident.  Amidstloudandinsistent chants of “Take the

Bridge! Take the Bridge!,” demonstrators at the head of the march thereafter defied

police instructions to use the Bridge’s footpath and instead led a subset of protesters

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onto the Bridge’s roadway – a vehicular artery that constitutes both a major route

for  daily traffic moving between lower Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn and,

during emergencies, for the movement of first responders.  As a result, some 700

demonstrators who took to the roadway (among the thousands who did not) were

arrested.  

The putative class action complaint is devoid of allegations that even one of

these many protesters suffered any indignity at the hands of police – any indignity,

that is, apart from the fact of arrest while obstructing all traffic on the Brooklyn

Bridge.  The majority determines, nevertheless, that some 40 officers making arrests

that day are not entitled to qualified immunity, at least at the motion to dismiss

stage.  But the majority can point to no clearly established law supporting its theory

of potential police liability: which is, in essence, that because police escorted these

unpermitted demonstrators to the Bridge, sometimes assisting them in crossing the

street against the light, police thereby incurred a “constitutional obligation to warn

protesters of a revoked invitation to march on the roadway,” apparently by using

sound amplifying equipment adequate to the majority’s taste.  Maj. Op. 18 n.8.

CitingCox v. Louisiana, 379U.S. 559 (1965),the majority claims that because:(1) some

of the 700 may not have heard the repeated police instructions to stay off the Bridge

roadway; and (2) police may have “implicitly” (if inadvertently) “invited the

demonstrators to walk onto the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge,” Maj. Op. 3, by

assisting them in crossing streets and then falling away before the insistent throng

at the Bridge’s base, discovery must be had as to whetherthe 40 police officers “had

sufficient knowledge of plaintiffs’ perceptions of the officers’ actions” – so that

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police “acted unreasonably,” Maj. Op. 19, in believing they had probable cause to

arrest.  But Cox does not suggest – much less clearly establish – any such thing.

And that is for the best.  Police are called upon to shepherd demonstrators

through busy city streets and, to do so safely, they sometimes overlook infractions

(such as the absence of a permit) either to expedite the movement of large and

sometimes raucous crowds, to minimize disruption to others, or simply to avoid

unnecessary confrontation with people out to have their say.  The majority’s “rule

of Cox” suggests that in so doing, police will henceforth repeatedly incur the costs

of class action inquiry into the question whether their conduct implicitly invited

laterillegality by demonstrators and whether officers had “knowledge of plaintiffs’

perceptions of the officers’ actions” so as to defeat probable cause for subsequent

arrests.   To avoid the costs of civil litigation in such a fantastical world, police

managers would be wise to counsel officers to arrest at the first infraction

(irrespective of any risk this might pose), to disregard nothing, and thereby to

suppress much FirstAmendment expression.  Thus,ina case like this, arrests should

have begun, perilously, when the obdurate protesters in front first stepped onto the

Bridge roadway –  or perhaps when marchers first stepped foot on a city street.1

1 The New York Civil Liberties Union, in an amicus brief, urges the panel not to

reach the question whether New York City Administrative Code § 10‐110(a) (providing in

relevant part that “[a] procession, parade, or race shall be permitted upon any street or in

any public place only after a written permit therefor has been obtained from the police

commissioner”) applies to marches conducted wholly on the sidewalks.  Although both

parties appear to have agreed below that § 10‐110(a) applies to sidewalk marches (so that

the unpermitted Occupy demonstrators were subject to arrest from the start), the issue

need not be decided here, since the Occupy marchers who were arrested were on the

roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge – a location, incidentally, for which a permit is clearly

required.

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This is not the law of qualified immunity.  As the Supreme Court said only

last Term, “[r]equiring [an] alleged violation of law to be ‘clearly established’

‘balances . . . the need to hold public officials accountable when they exercise power

irresponsibly and the need to shield officials from harassment, distraction, and

liability when they perform their duties reasonably.’” Wood v. Moss, 134 S. Ct. 2056,

2067 (2014) (quoting Pearson, 555 U.S. at 231) (ellipsis in Wood).  The “dispositive

inquiry,” the Supreme Court said, “is whether it would have been clear to a

reasonable officer” in the position of those on the Bridge “that their conduct was

unlawful in the situation they confronted.” Id. (quoting Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194,

202 (2001)) (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted).

The majority turns this standard upside down, asserting that qualified

immunity at the motion to dismiss stage is appropriate only if, taking as true the

plaintiffs’ allegations, “no officer who participated in or directed the arrests could

have thought” that police were violating the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.  Maj.

Op. 23.  Alluding to the supposed “Rashomon‐like quality” of this case, Maj. Op. 26

n.14, the majority concludes that extensive inquiry into the police officers’

“knowledge of plaintiffs’ perceptions of the officers’ actions,” Maj. Op at 19, is

required before it can be determined if the defendants are entitled to have this case

dismissed.  Butthe majority is wrong.  The plaintiffs have not alleged facts plausibly

suggesting that a reasonable police officer would have believed she was violating

the Constitution by arresting those “OccupyWall Street” demonstrators who posed

a threat to public safety by occupying the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge.  Not

even close.  In such circumstances, the officers are presently entitled to qualified

immunity.  It’s a shame they are being denied its protections.

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I.

At the start, the majority contends, erroneously, that my conclusion that this

complaint should be dismissed “do[es] not rest . . . on the allegations of the

complaint, but rather on an . . . analysis of ‘facts’” from the photographic and video

exhibits.    Maj. Op. 25.    But the majority acknowledges – as it must – that the

plaintiffs’ photographs and videos are attached to their complaint and that the

defendants’ videos have been “incorporated into the Complaint” by reference.  Maj.

Op. 4.    These photographs and videos are thus part of the complaint, see Intʹl

Audiotext Network, Inc. v. Am. Tel. & Tel. Co., 62 F.3d 69, 72 (2d Cir. 1995) (“The

complaint is deemed to include any written instrument attached to it as an exhibit

or any statements or documents incorporated in it by reference.” (brackets and

internal quotation marks omitted));see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 10(c) (“A copy of a written

instrument that is an exhibit to a pleading is a part of the pleading for all

purposes.”), and Supreme Court precedent requires that we consider them, see

Tellabs, Inc. v. Makor Issues & Rights, Ltd., 551 U.S. 308, 322 (2007) (“[C]ourts must

consider the complaint in its entirety, as well as other sources courts ordinarily

examine when ruling on Rule 12(b)(6) motions to dismiss, in particular, documents

incorporated into the complaint by reference. . . .” (emphasis added)).  Moreover,

contrary to the majority’s claim, the analysis here as to why these officers are

presently entitled to qualified immunity is in no way dependent on my adoption of

“various inflammatory facts gleaned” from videotapes offering “differing and

partial perspectives” on the events of the day.  Maj. Op. 24.  Rather, it proceeds from

the complaint’s allegations, as supplemented by basic, indisputable facts depicted

in the photographs and videos.  Those facts are presented here.

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*   *   *

On October 1, 2011, after camping in lower Manhattan for almost two weeks,

supporters of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement staged an unpermitted march

through lower Manhattan.  The protesters planned to march from Zuccotti Park to

the Brooklyn Bridge Park.  Aware of these plans, the NYPD deployed substantial

resources, including dozens of patrol officers, as well as officers on bicycles,

motorscooters, motorcycles, in police cruisers, and in other types of vehicles, to

accompany the mass of people, which numbered in the thousands, as they marched.

Police officers escorting the marchers north from Zuccotti Park provided them with

a steady stream of oral and visual directions, ordering them repeatedly, as depicted

in the video footage, to stay on the sidewalks and to keep within pedestrian

walkways. The police also on occasion restricted the movement of traffic and

pedestrians along the unpermitted route, facilitating the protesters’ movement

across streets while at the same time ensuring not only the safety of protesters, but

also that of the New York City residents and visitors among whom the march was

staged.  At other times, and again as shown in the video footage, police officers

formed human “walls” between protesters and the street to keep the protesters out

of vehicular traffic and to keep vehicles away from the protesters.

The protest proceeded from Zuccotti Park to the entrance of the Brooklyn

Bridge without incident, so far as the complaint alleges, and despite the thousands

involved.  The video footage of the trek from Zuccotti Park to the Bridge further

establishes, beyond peradventure, that the police permitted the demonstrators to

march only on the sidewalk, and not in the street, except at crossings.  “Nobody is

walking in the street; everyone is walking on the sidewalk,” said one officer with a

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bullhorn.  “Folks, I need everyone to walk on the sidewalk.”  The putative class

action complaint at no point alleges that protesters were permitted to march on the

streets, except when crossing, on the way to the Brooklyn Bridge.  As the very first

protesters reached the entrance to the Bridge, moreover, these protesters marched

directly onto theBridge’spedestrian walkway, apparently atthedirectionof officers

and in compliance with the general instructions throughout to stay out of traffic.2

But not so otherprotesters, who wantedto march overthe vehicularroadway.

Several of them, two holding a red flag that said, “PEOPLE NOT PROFITS,” headed

onto the roadway ratherthan the pedestrian promenade. They motioned for others

to follow.  The crowd on the roadway grew and within a few moments, a group of

twodozen or more protesters had positioned themselves on the roadway andbegun

to chant.  A large group quickly amassed there; the resulting congestion restricted

2 The majority posits that my assertion that “some protesters lawfully headed onto

the pedestrian walkway of the Bridge . . . is hardly established fact.”  Maj. Op. 25.  But this

fact is both pled in plaintiffs’ complaint and shown clearly in the plaintiffs’ photographs

attached thereto.  See Second Amended Complaint ¶ 87 (“[T]hose in the front of the march

crossed Centre Street and moved to the pedestrian walkway or promenade ofthe Brooklyn

Bridge.”); id.¶88 (“When the front section ofthe march encounteredthe narrow pedestrian

walkway of the bridge, there was a natural congestion as the large group began to file onto

the smaller walkway.”); id. ¶ 100 (“hundreds of persons upon the pedestrian walkway”);

id. ¶ 104 n.2 (“The original front of the march had entered onto the pedestrian walkway

with several hundred others.”).  Indeed, the plaintiffs’ class action complaint cites two of

its own pictorial exhibits and asserts that these pictures show this very thing.  Id. ¶ 88

(alleging that exhibit B depicts a “large number of marchers entering and on the pedestrian

walkway); id. (alleging that exhibit C depicts the “pedestrian walkway packed with

marchers while [the] roadway remains clear”).  Thus, at this stage, it is indeed a fact that

we take as given in assessing the complaint.  The majority’s criticism of my dissent for

asserting that “some protesters lawfully headed onto the pedestrian walkway” is

bewildering.    

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vehicular traffic, which began to form behind the protesters, as well as pedestrian

traffic both onto the Bridge and at its base.

The majority asserts that because the Bridge’s pedestrian walkway is narrow

and demonstrators depicted in the videos appear to have pooled on Centre Street,

at the Bridge’s base, officers initially “could quite plausibly have decided to channel

the ballooning mass of protesters onto the Bridge roadway in order to keep the

march moving towards its end on the other side of the East River.”  Maj. Op. 25.  To

be clear, the complaint does not allege any such thing (which is irrelevant to the

qualified immunity analysis herein in any event), nor does the video or

photographic evidence depictit.  The incorporated video material does clearly show,

however, that NYPD Captain Jack Jaskaran, after briefly conferring with fellow

officers, approached the by now sizable crowd on the roadway with a bullhorn and

stated, “Ladies and gentlemen, you are blocking the roadway.  You need to go to the

sidewalk.”  Plaintiffs contend that this command was not audible to many in the

roadway.    But there is no dispute that Jaskaran said (consistent with police

instructions throughout the march to remain on the sidewalk): “You are obstructing

traffic.  You need to get on the sidewalk.”

Despite this repeated warning, the crowd remained on the roadway, faced by

a small number of officers who were standing farther up the roadway to the Bridge.

The crowd now chanted “Whose streets?  Our streets!”  This chant was loud enough

to be audible to the entire crowd at the base of the Bridge.  Once begun, the chant

continued for another minute during which other protesters, disregarding the

assembled (and loudly chanting) group on the roadway, proceeded up the

pedestrian promenade.  

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Captain Jaskaran then gave a third warning, asking the wayward protesters

to leave the roadway.  Around this time a shirtless protester with a large red star on

his back, who was standing at the front of the crowd, turned his back on the officers

to face the assembled throng.  He stood silently with his fist raised.  The crowd

standing on the roadway had grown considerably by this point.  The protesters

continued to chant: “Whose streets? Our streets!”  A spontaneous cheer erupted.

Shortly afterward, the demonstrators ceased chanting “Whose streets?  Our

streets!” and began loudly and vigorously screaming, “Take the Bridge!”    The

shirtless man had by now turned to face the police, fist stillraised.  Captain Jaskaran

again announcedthattheprotesters were obstructing vehiculartraffic, andhe stated

that if they refused to move, they would be placed under arrest: “You are

obstructing vehiculartraffic.  You are standing in a roadway.  If you refuse to move,

you are subject to arrest.”  Jaskaran identified himself, using the bullhorn, as an

NYPD captain.  He ordered all protesters to leave the roadway and stated that if the

protesters refused to leave they would be arrested and charged with disorderly

conduct.    Demonstrators, including those standing directly in front of Captain

Jaskaran, continued to chant, “Take the Bridge! Take the Bridge!”  The man without

a shirt, fist still raised, asked Captain Jaskaran to confirm the charge the protesters

would face. When informed that those refusing to leave would be charged with

disorderly conduct, he replied, “Just disorderly?”

Further signaling their intention to march on the Bridge’s roadway, whether

permitted by police or not, the protesters at the front of the crowd, facing police,

linked arms.   The shirtless man stood in front of them, fist stillraised.  The front line

of the protesters moved forward several feet to align itself with the shirtless man.

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Nine protesters, arms linked, continued slowly walking forward, the crowd

following behind.  A spontaneous cheer then erupted from the crowd.  Police can

thereafter be seen in the video footage walking in front of the demonstrators along

the side of the roadway.  The plaintiffs allege that the officers “led” them up the

roadway.  But not a single named plaintiff alleges that he or she saw any NYPD

officer leave his position blocking the Bridge’s roadway and invite demonstrators

onto it.    Instead, the named plaintiffs allege simply that they followed other

protesters onto the Bridge.

Cartraffic, meanwhile, continued to enterthe Bridge’s roadway from a ramp

ahead of the protesters.  Officers can be seen in the video footage redeploying to

stop the vehicular traffic – and thus to protect the safety of the demonstrators –

before demonstrators reached the ramp.  The protesters in front continued to link

arms as the mass of people moved further onto the Bridge, filling up the roadway.

Asdemonstrators approacheda secondrampfrom which cars were still entering the

Bridge, police walked beside and in front ofthe demonstrators, at one pointforming

a human line between the cars entering the roadway and the protesters moving up

it.  Protesters continued to chant as car horns sounded.  Eventually, all vehicular

traffic ground to a halt.

The demonstrators marched up the roadway, still chanting “Whose streets?

Our streets!,” until the police formed a line partway across the Bridge, halting the

march.  When those in the front of the march had stopped a few feet in front of the

police, Captain Jaskaran announced: “Ladies andgentlemen, since youhave refused

to leave this roadway, I have ordered you arrested for disorderly conduct.” The

crowd responded by chanting, “Let us go!”    The officers began arresting the

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protesters.  There was some jostling as the police made arrests.  Some protesters

climbed up to the promenade in an apparent effort to avoid being arrested.  There

are no allegations of any injuries or use of excessive force during these arrests,

however, which numbered over 700.  

Nine of the arrested protesters, on behalf of a putative class of all those

arrested that day, brought a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim against the City of New York,

former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, and the

NYPD officers involved in their arrests.  The protesters seek both compensatory and

punitive damages from the arresting officers, along with attorneys’ fees, alleging

violations of plaintiffs’ First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights and

bringing state law claims forfalse arrest, negligence, gross negligence, andnegligent

supervision.  The district court granted a motion to dismiss as to the City, Mayor

Bloomberg, and Commissioner Kelly, rejecting plaintiffs’ claim to have plausibly

alleged a pattern of “indiscriminate mass false arrest” and noting that out of the

thousands of protesters marching that day, only the 700 who proceeded onto the

Brooklyn Bridge’s vehicular roadway were arrested.  Garcia v. Bloomberg, 865 F.

Supp. 2d 478, 492‐93 (S.D.N.Y. 2012).  The district court denied the motion to dismiss

the claims against the individual police officers, however, determining that

plaintiffs had plausibly alleged that by “turn[ing] and . . . walking away from the

demonstrators and onto the roadway” at the base of the Bridge, police had thereby

issued protesters “an implicit invitation to follow” that deprived officers of the

protection of qualified immunity in carrying out arrests, at least at this stage.  Id. at

489. The officers timely appealed.

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II.

Qualified immunity is an affirmative defense designed to “protect[ ] the

[defendant public] official not just from liability but also from suit . . . , thereby

sparing him the necessity of defending by submitting to discovery on the merits or

undergoing a trial.”  X‐Men Sec., Inc. v. Pataki, 196 F.3d 56, 65 (2d Cir. 1999).  The

majority characterizes my conclusion that these officers are presently entitled to

qualified immunity as an “unwarranted conclusion[ ]” that ignores the procedural

posture of this case.    Maj. Op. 24.    But the Supreme Court has, by its own

description, “repeatedly stressed the importance of resolving immunity questions

at the earliest possible stage of the litigation.”  Wood, 134 S. Ct. at 2065 n.4 (emphasis

added) (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted); see also Saucier, 533 U.S. at

200 (stating that a ruling on qualified immunity “should be made early in the

proceedings so that the costs and expenses of trial are avoided where the defense is

dispositive”), overruled on other grounds by Pearson, 555 U.S. 223 (2009).  Indeed, only

last Term the Supreme Courtreversed the denial of a motion to dismiss on qualified

immunity grounds, for the very reason present here: that protesters in the context

of a demonstration had failed to “allege[ ] violation of a clearly established . . .right”

based on the “on‐the‐spot action” of law enforcement agents engaged in crowd

control.  See Wood, 134 S. Ct. at 2061, 2066.

3

3 The Secret Service agents sued in Wood for alleged First Amendment violations

were charged with protecting the President and, in that capacity, required protesters to

move “some two blocks away” from a restaurant at which the President had made a “last‐

minute decision to stop.”  Id. at 2060‐61.  The Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit’s

decision affirming the district court’s denial of a motion to dismiss on the ground that the

plaintiff protesters had failed to allege the violation of any clearly established law.  Id. at

2061.  

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Qualified immunity shields officers from suits for money damages provided

that their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional

rights of which a reasonable person would have been aware.  See Harlow, 457 U.S.

at 806‐07.  It provides a broad shield, protecting “all but the plainly incompetent or

those who knowingly violate the law.”  Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341 (1986).

Liability is precluded, moreover, if government actors “of reasonable competence

could disagree on the legality of the action at issue in its particular factual context.”

Manganiello v. City of New York, 612 F.3d 149, 165 (2d Cir. 2010) (internal quotation

marks omitted).  Thus, an officer is protected by qualified immunity unless (1) his

conduct violated “clearly established constitutional rights,” Holcomb v. Lykens, 337

F.3d 217, 220 (2d Cir. 2003) (quoting Weyant v. Okst, 101 F.3d 845, 857 (2d Cir. 1996)),

and (2) it would have been unreasonable for him to have believed otherwise, see

Manganiello, 612 F.3d at 165.   As set forth below, this test, fairly applied, dooms

plaintiffs’ allegations as a matter of law.

A.  The Complaint Alleges No Violation of Clearly Established Law

The standard for “clearly established law” is a familiar one: the right “must

be sufficiently clearthat every reasonable official would have understood that what

he is doing violates that right.”   Reichle v. Howards, 132 S. Ct. 2088, 2093 (2012)

(brackets and internal quotation marks omitted).    In other words, “existing

precedent must have placed the . . . constitutional question . . . beyond debate.”

Plumhoff v. Rickard, 134 S. Ct. 2012, 2023 (2014) (emphasis added) (internal quotation

marks omitted).  In this Circuit, we look to whether (1) the right was defined with

reasonable clarity, (2) the Supreme Court or the Second Circuit has confirmed the

existence of the right, and (3) a reasonable defendant would have understood that

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his conduct was unlawful.  Young v. Cnty. of Fulton, 160 F.3d 899, 903 (2d Cir. 1998).

Further,  a determination of whetherthe right at issue is “clearly established” “must

be undertaken in light of the specific context of the case, not as a broad general

proposition.” Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201.  “This is not to say that an official action is

protected by qualified immunity unless the very action in question has previously

been held unlawful, but it is to say that in the light of pre‐existing law the

unlawfulness must be apparent.”    Anderson, 483 U.S. at 640 (internal citation

omitted).

The majority does not afford the NYPD officers who policed the “Occupy

Wall Street”demonstrationthis basicprotection.  Themajority contends that a single

Supreme Court decision – Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 559 (1965) – established the rule

that (as the majority puts it) “when officials grant permission to demonstrate in a

certain way, then seek to revoke that permission and arrest demonstrators, they

must first give ‘fair warning.’”  Maj. Op. 14.  This is an interesting lesson to draw

from Cox, which discusses neither arrest nor fair warning by police.  See Cox, 379

U.S. at 572.  Indeed, Cox does not even address the Fourth Amendment, nor the

question of probable cause – the legal issue of consequence to whether these police

officers are entitled to qualified immunity – but the different issue of whether a

citizen may be punished for a crime, consistent with due process, for undertaking

conduct “which the State had clearly told him was available to him.” Cox, 379 U.S.

at 571 (quoting Raley v. Ohio, 360 U.S. 423, 426 (1959)) (internal quotation marks

omitted).  At any rate, it is not necessary to squabble over the majority’s ”rule of

Cox” to determine whether plaintiffs have adequately alleged its violation.   See

Pearson, 555 U.S. at 227 (holding that in conducting qualified immunity analysis,

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courts need not determine whether an official’s conduct violated constitutional

rights before addressing whether such rights are clearly established).    Even

accepting the majority’s view of the matter, Cox sets forth no clearly established right

which these officers are plausibly alleged to have transgressed.

The facts of Cox make this abundantly clear.    The appellant in Cox was

convicted pursuant to a statute that prohibited picketing or parading “near a

building housing a court” with the intent, inter alia, of influencing judges, jurors,

witnesses, or court officers in the discharge of their duties.  379 U.S. at 560.  There

was no question in the case that the appellant had staged a protest in the vicinity of

a courthouse, with the requisite intent.   The problem in Cox, as laid out in the

Supreme Court’s opinion, was that “the highest police officials” of Baton Rouge, “in

the presence of the Sheriff and Mayor,” had given the appellant express permission

to stage his protest where he did, on the west side of the street, directly across from

the court.  Id. at 571.  The Supreme Court concluded that in these circumstances,

Cox’s conviction violated due process because protesters “were affirmatively told

that they could hold the demonstration on the sidewalk of the far side of the street,

101 feet from the courthouse steps” – in effect, “that a demonstration at the place it

was held would not be one ‘near’ the courthouse within the terms of the statute.”

Id.   This affirmative authorization was thus integral to the Supreme Court’s holding

that it would be “an indefensible sort of entrapment by the State” to punish a citizen

for engaging in an activity that “the State had clearly told him was available to him.”

Id. (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks omitted).  For Cox states expressly

that if the appellant had staged his demonstration in the very same spot without this

express authorization, “or a fortiori, had he defied an order of the police requiring

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him to hold this demonstration at some point further away,” the matter “would be

subject to quite different considerations.”  Id. at 571‐72.

Cox, then, is a very different case from the one alleged in this class action

complaint.  For plaintiffs here do not and cannot allege that the police provided

them any express, clear, and undisputed grant of permission to be on the Brooklyn

Bridge roadway.  The majority, moreover, concedes this point – arguing not that

such affirmative permission is adequately alleged, but that some demonstrators

(basically, those not in front, and allegedly unable to hear Captain Jaskaran’s

instructions) might simply have inferred they had permission from the fact that

vastly outnumbered police officers did not block their entrance onto the roadway

and may have earlier assisted them in crossing streets against the light.  In effect, the

majority takes a due process right (a right not to be entrapped by government

officials who expressly assure that conduct will not constitute a violation and then

seek to punish for it) and converts it into a Fourth Amendment right not to be

arrested in circumstances in which no such assurance has been afforded, and on the

theory that the police here had a constitutional obligation to provide over 700

demonstrators with “additional, louder, or clearerinstructions,” Maj. Op. 18, before

reacting to the fact that these demonstrators, warned throughout the march to stay

on the sidewalk, elected instead to “take” the Brooklyn Bridge roadway.

This newly discovered Fourth Amendment right is neither the due process

right recognized in Cox nor a clearly established rule derived from Cox.  Cox does

not involve (or even mention) the Fourth Amendment.  Nor can the majority’s rule

be derived from Fourth Amendment first principles.  The Fourth Amendment only

requires that officers have “a reasonable ground for[the] belief” that an arrestee has

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committed a crime. Maryland v. Pringle, 540 U.S. 366, 371 (2003).    No implied

permission through inaction can be used to negate this reasonable belief.  See Town

of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748, 761 (2005) (officers have “discretion in

deciding when and where to enforce city ordinances” (internal quotation marks

omitted)).  There is similarly no clearly established authority forthe proposition that

First Amendment interests, however important, trump the operation of ordinary

Fourth Amendment law, cf. Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, 436 U.S. 547 (1978), much less

traffic regulations.  Simply put, the basis for the majority’s constitutional rule is a

constitutional puzzle, and I cannot see how this is clearly established law of which

a reasonable officer would be aware.

   To be clear, a protester who didn’t hear police admonitions to leave the

roadway and who believed police had granted him permission to cross the Bridge

amidst traffic might well establish a defense to the charge of violating New York’s

disorderly conduct statute, which criminalizes obstructing traffic with “intent to

cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk

thereof.”  N.Y. Penal Law § 240.20(5).  But the possibility that some protesters might

have a mens rea defense to the charge of disorderly conduct establishes neither that

police lacked probable cause to arrestthem northat plaintiffs have plausibly alleged

as much.    For Cox sets forth no clearly established constitutional right to the

“additional, louder, or clearer instructions” that the majority apparently believes

should have issued at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge.  The majority’s claim to the

contrary notwithstanding, its “rule of Cox” is simply not clearly established law.

Moreover, even if there were any doubt whether Cox covers the general

situation described above – and there is not – there is no doubt that Cox does not

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coverthe claims outlined by the nine named plaintiffs in this case.  Although wholly

ignored by the majority, none of the named plaintiffs allege that they received even

an implicit grant of permission from any officer before entering the Brooklyn Bridge

roadway.  Instead, all of the plaintiffs (many of whom specifically allege that they

marched on the sidewalk to get to the Bridge or heard officers “frequently issue[ ]

directives to stay on the sidewalk”) state that they followed the crowd in front of

them onto the roadway and fail to allege any explicit orimplicit signals from officers

to the effect that this was permitted:

• Plaintiff Becker “did not see or hear any police at [the] time” when he

“reached the bridge.” He “followed the people in front of him forward,

entering the roadway of the bridge because he happened to be on the

right side of the crowd.”  J.A. 169.

• Cartier “followed the march.  He did not hear any warnings, orders,

directives or indications from police that following the march was not

permitted.”  J.A. 169‐70.

• Crickmore was “[f]ollowing and within the body of the march” when

he “entered upon the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge.  He was given

and heard no orders or warnings not to be upon the roadway.”  J.A.

170.

• Feinstein “only” saw officers “[w]hen crossing the streetfrom City Hall

Park to the Brooklyn Bridge.”  She “continued to follow the crowd and

entered the roadway as she followed the people ahead of her.”  J.A.

170.

• Garcia“followed the march.”  J.A. 171.

• Osorio “followed the march forward.  He did not see or hear any police

at this time.  [He] did not realize he was on the roadway of the bridge

until[later].”  He only “subsequently saw police officers walking on the

side of the crowd in the roadway.”  J.A. 171.

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• Perez “marched in the same direction that she observed the escorting

police officers to be walking.”  J.A.171.

• Sova followed “several hundred persons entering the roadway,” and

“did not hear any orders or directives not to proceed or follow the

march on the roadway.”   It was only after he was “on the bridge

roadway” that “he observed officers alongside the march.”  J.A. 172.  

• Umoh “followed the marchers proceeding on the right, which

happened to be on the roadway. . . .  As she entered the roadway[,] . . .

[she] did not see any police officers.”  J.A. 172.

Markedly absent from this putative class action complaint is any allegation that a

single named plaintiff even saw the police officers at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge

prior to walking onto the roadway – a prerequisite, one would think, to these

officers having “invited [plaintiffs] onto the roadway and then arrested [them]

without fair warning of the revocation of this invitation.”    Maj. Op. 23.    The

plaintiffs allege only that they saw the police officers after they had entered the

vehicular roadway of the Bridge.   

The fact that each of the named plaintiffs did nothing more than follow the

crowd onto the roadway (amidst insistent chants, it should be noted, of “Take the

Bridge!”) destroys their claim that police violated any clearly established rule

emanating from Cox by arresting them.  For even if the majority were correct (and

it is not) as to the clearly established rule it finds in Cox – namely, that a loud and

clear warning is constitutionally required before a demonstrator’s arrest whenever

police may be argued to have implicitly, if inadvertently, signaled permission to

commit an offense – surely it cannot be argued to have clearly established that police

may not arrest someone who receives no grant of permission from police at all

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(actual or apparent), but merely follows another citizen’s lead in engaging in

unlawful conduct.  

Nor does the majority gain any refuge of clearly established law from our

decision in Papineau v. Parmley, 465 F.3d 46 (2d Cir. 2006).  The majority simply

misreads it.  Papineau, contrary to the majority’s claim, did not “reiterate” any fair

warning requirement from Cox and did not even cite Cox except in a footnote, and

for a proposition not relevant here.  The plaintiffs in Papineau challenged neither a

conviction nor an arrest, but asserted claims of excessive force and interference with

First Amendment rights in connection with a demonstration that took place on

private property.  See 465 F.3d at 57‐58.  Because the protest occurred on private

property, the plaintiffs in Papineau did not need (or receive) any sort of permission

from the police to conduct their protest.  Thus, Papineau is simply not germane to the

“rule in Cox” that the majority finds to be clearly established.4

  

4 The majority also relies on two out‐of‐circuit cases, noting that a right may be

“clearly established if decisions by this or other courts clearly foreshadow a particular

ruling on the issue, even if those decisions come from courts in other circuits.”  Maj. Op.

12 (quoting Scott v. Fischer, 616 F.3d 100, 105 (2d Cir. 2010)).  To the extent these cases are

apposite, they extend Cox beyond its due process holding and agree on neither the

constitutional right at stake nor its contours.  These cases cannot foreshadow the law of

which a reasonable officerin this circuit should be aware, cf. Weber v. Dell, 804 F.2d 796, 801

n.6, 803‐04 (2d Cir. 1986) (finding a right clearly established when this circuit’s previous

cases foreshadowed the rule and seven other circuits found the right established),

rendering applicable the general rule that “[w]hen neither the Supreme Court nor this

Court has recognized a right,the law of our sister circuits and the holdings of district courts

cannot act to render that right clearly established,” Pabon v. Wright, 459 F.3d 241, 255 (2d

Cir. 2006).

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B.  The Complaint Alleges No Objectively Unreasonable Conduct

Even if the majority were right as to the scope of clearly established law,

moreover, qualified immunity still shields these officers from money damages in

this class action suit.  For even when constitutional privileges “are so clearly defined

that a reasonable public official would know that his actions might violate those

rights,” qualified immunity is still appropriate “if it was objectively reasonable for

the public official to believe that his acts did not violate those rights.” Kaminsky v.

Rosenblum, 929 F.2d 922, 925 (2d Cir. 1991); see also Magnotti v. Kuntz, 918 F.2d 364,

367 (2d Cir. 1990).  Qualified immunity therefore allows for “reasonable mistakes”

in an officer’s application of law to fact. Saucier, 533 U.S. at 205.

Contrary to well‐settledprecedent,themajoritydispenses with thisprotection

for the police officers at the Brooklyn Bridge.  The majority asserts that qualified

immunity would be appropriate at the motion to dismiss stage in this case only if,

based on the plaintiffs’ account of events, “no officer who participated in or directed

the arrests could have thought [that the plaintiffs’ rights were violated].”  Maj. Op.

23.    This is the wrong standard.    Under Supreme Court and Second Circuit

precedent, officials are granted qualified immunity if government actors “of

reasonable competence could disagree on the legality of the action at issue in its

particular factual context,” Manganiello, 612 F.3d at 165 (internal quotation marks

omitted).  “In an unlawful arrest action,” moreover, “an officer is . . . subject to suit

only if his ‘judgment was so flawed that no reasonable officer would have made a

similar choice.’”  Provost v.City of Newburgh, 262 F.3d 146, 160 (2d Cir. 2001)(quoting

Lennon v. Miller, 66 F.3d 416, 425 (2d Cir. 1995)) (emphasis added); accord Walczyk v.

Rio, 496 F.3d 139, 163 (2d Cir. 2007). Thus, to be protected by qualified immunity

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officers need not show, as the majority’s erroneous (and demanding) articulation

requires, that “no officer” could have thought the challenged conduct was

unconstitutional.  Rather, defendants need only show that at least one reasonable

officer, taking the plaintiffs’ allegations as true, could believe such conduct fell

within constitutional constraints.5

   This distinction matters.  As we have said, “qualified immunity employs a

deliberately ‘forgiving’ standard ofreview.”  Zalaski v. City of Hartford, 723 F.3d 382,

389 (2d Cir. 2013).  It does so to ensure “that those who serve the government do so

with the decisiveness and the judgment required by the public good.”  Filarsky v.

Delia, 132 S. Ct. 1657, 1665 (2012) (internal quotation marks omitted).  By failing to

afford immunity when reasonable officers can disagree about the legality of an

officer’s action, the majority provides no breathing room for reasonable mistakes.

But this flies in the face of the Supreme Court’s admonition that qualified immunity

is to provide “ample protection to all but the plainly incompetent or those who

knowingly violate the law.”    Malley, 475 U.S. at 341; see also Messerschmidt v.

Millender, 132 S. Ct. 1235, 1244 (2012) (noting that qualified immunity affords

5The majority’s “no officer” reformulation ofthe qualified immunity testis contrary

to this Circuit’s precedent,see,e.g., Provost, 262 F.3d at 160; Walczyk, 496 F.3d at 163; see also

id. at 169‐70 (Sotomayor, J., concurring) (recognizing that this Circuit applies the

“reasonable officers could disagree” standard), and also separates this Court from the six

other circuits that have held that qualified immunity is appropriate when officers of

reasonable competence could disagree on the constitutionality of the challenged conduct.

Hoffman v. Reali, 973 F.2d 980, 986 (1st Cir. 1992); Babb v. Dorman, 33 F.3d 472, 477 (5th Cir.

1994); Armstrong v. City of Melvindale, 432 F.3d 695, 700‐01 (6th Cir. 2006); Wollin v. Gondert,

192 F.3d 616, 625 (7th Cir. 1999); Brittain v. Hansen, 451 F.3d 982, 988 (9th Cir. 2006); Roska

ex rel. Roska v. Peterson, 328 F.3d 1230, 1251 (10th Cir. 2003).

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officials “breathing room to make reasonable but mistaken judgments” without

dread of potentially disabling liability (internal quotation marks omitted)).

The majority’s novel rule is directly contrary, moreover, to extensive

precedent discussing qualified immunity in the particular context of a police

officer’s assessment of probable cause to arrest.  The legal standard for probable

cause is clear – and notably, does not demand that an officer’s assessment that a

person is committing an offense be “correct or more likely true than false,”  Texas v.

Brown, 460 U.S. 730, 742 (1983) (plurality opinion), but only that a “fair probability”

of criminality exist, based on all the circumstances,  Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 238

(1983).    As the Supreme Court has said, however, there are “limitless factual

circumstances” that officers must confront when applying the probable cause

standard. Saucier, 533 U.S. at 205.    Accordingly, even when probable cause is

lacking, as judged by a reviewing court, an officer is still entitled to qualified

immunity where there is arguable probable cause – where “it was objectively

reasonable for the officer to believe that probable cause existed, or . . . officers of

reasonable competence coulddisagree on whethertheprobable cause test wasmet.”

Escalera v. Lunn, 361 F.3d 737, 743 (2d Cir. 2004) (internal quotation marks omitted);

accord Walczyk, 496 F.3d at 163.  Thus, so long as an officer chooses among the “range

of responses . . . that competent officers [could] reasonably think are lawful,” then

the “officer enjoys qualified immunity for‘reasonable mistakes.’” Walczyk, 496 F.3d

at 154 n.16 (emphases omitted) (quoting Saucier, 533 U.S. at 205).

It is difficult to see how this standard could possibly by deemed unsatisfied,

given plaintiffs’ allegations, as supplemented by the incorporated video material

and photographic evidence.  Each of the plaintiffs in this putative class action, as the

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complaint alleges, was arrested on the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge – a major

route for New York City traffic, wholly obstructed by virtue of the demonstrators’

unpermitted presence.  The plaintiffs do not allege (and the video material does not

show) that prior to reaching the Brooklyn Bridge, the plaintiffs were marching on

roadways with the acquiescence of police.  Rather, the plaintiffs were marching on

sidewalks.    Plaintiffs moved onto the Bridge roadway, as they themselves allege,

following fellow demonstrators – demonstrators who, as the video footage shows,

linked arms, loudly chanted “Whose streets?  Our streets!”  and “Take the Bridge!”,

and defied police instructions to remain on the sidewalk.

The plaintiffs contend that they did not hear the police instructions and that

they believed officers were escorting them over the Bridge.6

  They allege, in sum,

that they lacked intent.  But as we have recognized before (although not today),

“because the practical restraints on police in the field are greater with respect to

ascertaining intent . . . , the latitude accorded to officers considering the probable

cause issue” as it relates to the arrestee’s state of mind “must be correspondingly

great.” Zalaski, 723 F.3d at 393 (omission in original) (quoting Cox v. Hainey, 391 F.3d

25, 34 (1st Cir. 2004)) (internal quotation marks omitted)(emphasis added); see also

Paff v. Kaltenbach, 204 F.3d 425, 437 (3d Cir. 2000) (an officer’s “judgment call” based

on circumstantial evidence as to an offender’s state of mind is entitled to qualified

immunity where objectively reasonable, even when the issue is “close enough that

6 As previously noted, however, none of the named plaintiffs allege observing any

specific conduct by police at the Bridge that they understood to constitute an invitation to

use the Bridge roadway.

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there was the potential of a court subsequently determining that he made the wrong

choice”).

Thus, it does not matter whether an officer mightreasonably have inferred as

to any particular demonstrator that he or she might conceivably lack mens rea so

long as the inference of a culpable intent was also reasonable.  See Conner v. Heiman,

672 F.3d 1126, 1132 (9th Cir. 2012) (noting in the qualified immunity context that

whether an inference of innocent intent “was also reasonable, or even more

reasonable, does not matter so long as the [culpable intent] conclusion was itself

reasonable”).  Similarly, it does not matter whether a particular demonstratorin fact

lacked mens rea (and so could not be convicted of disorderly conduct) so long as a

reasonable officer could have believed to the contrary.  

Here, plaintiffs have failed to allege facts plausibly suggesting that it was

anything butreasonable for any officer – named orJohn Doe – to conclude that each

of the plaintiffs on the roadway of the Bridge (among the thousands who did not

take to the roadway and were not arrested) was obstructing traffic with “intent to

cause public inconvenience” or “recklessly creating a risk thereof.”  N.Y. Penal Law

§ 240.20(5).  The majority has no persuasive argument showing that as a matter of

clearly established law about which allreasonably competent officers would agree, police

officers should have realized they were acting unconstitutionally in making arrests.

Stripping the complaint of rhetoric and conclusions unsupported by factual

assertions, the named plaintiffs allege nothing more than that Captain Jaskaran’s

bullhorn was not loud enough to be heard by them and that police had earlier

assisted demonstrators in crossing against the light.    Simply put, these meager

allegations are insufficient to draw into question the defendants’ arguable probable

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cause.  Accordingly, the defendants are presently entitled to qualified immunity,

and this complaint should be dismissed.

Finally, it is telling that the majority’s response to my dissent turns its

treatment of qualified immunity from bad to worse.  Not only does the majority –

contrary to Second Circuit precedent – assert that officers must be denied qualified

immunity at the motion to dismiss stage even if, based on the plaintiffs’ allegations,

officers of reasonable competence could disagree about the constitutionality of an

arrest, the majority now also resurrects a subjective intent element that officers must

satisfy before they can be afforded immunity.    The majority asserts that these

defendants will be entitled to qualified immunity, if at all, only after they show

“what reasoning process they followed[,] . . . why [they] chose to retreat onto the

bridge, and what if anything they intended to convey.”  Maj. Op. 27.  This is an

attempt, sub silentio, to turn back the clock on qualified immunity law.  Previously,

courts applied a subjective component to the qualified immunity test, but in Harlow,

the Supreme Court excised this subjective inquiry and defined “the limits of

qualified immunity essentially in objective terms.”  Harlow, 457 U.S. at 819.  The

Court did so in order to ensure that qualified immunity could be decided earlier in

the course of the litigation.  See id. at 817‐18. Following Harlow, the Supreme Court

has held that “[e]vidence concerning the defendant’s subjective intent is simply

irrelevant to [the qualified immunity] defense.”  Crawford‐El v. Britton, 523 U.S. 574,

588 (1998); see also Anderson, 483 U.S. at 641 (noting, in context of assessing whether

officer was entitled to qualified immunity in connection with a search, that

“subjective beliefs about the search are irrelevant.”).  The majority’s decision also

contravenes this long‐settled Supreme Court precedent.

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*   *   *

The majority has failed to afford the NYPDofficers policing the “OccupyWall

Street” march the basic protection that qualified immunity promises – namely, that

police officers will not be called to endure the effort and expense of discovery, trial,

andpossible liability formaking reasonable judgments in the exercise oftheirduties.

See Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224, 227 (1991) (per curiam) (reiterating the

“importance of resolving immunity questions at the earliest possible stage in

litigation”).  The majority attempts to weave “Rashomon‐like” complexity into the

question whether police officers had probable cause to arrest unpermitted

demonstrators who were wholly obstructing traffic on theBrooklyn Bridge.  Butthis

is, in fact, a simple case.  The plaintiffs have alleged neither “violation of [any]

clearly established . . . right,” Wood, 134 S. Ct. at 2066, nor objectively unreasonable

conduct by police.  In such circumstances, this complaint should be dismissed.  

I fear that, over time, the majority’s “Rashomon‐like” interpretation of Cox

will prove a poor instrument, indeed, for micromanaging, through threat of class

action liability, the sensitive function of policing large demonstrations.  Indeed, by

unwarrantedly exposing these officers to the costs of class action litigation for

arresting unpermitted demonstrators who had blocked all traffic on the Brooklyn

Bridge (and on the theory that police officers’ earlier, successful efforts to shepherd

thousands safely through New York’s downtown imposed on police unanticipated

constitutional constraints), the majority makes more difficult the judicious use of

discretion in policing large crowds.  This decision willthus frustrate, notfurther,the

work of police attempting to facilitate peaceful demonstrations while ensuring both

the safety of demonstrators and those among whom demonstrations are staged.    

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As the Supreme Court has said, qualified immunity “balances two important

interests – the need to hold public officials accountable when they exercise power

irresponsibly and the need to shield officials from harassment, distraction, and

liability when they perform their duties reasonably.”  Pearson, 555 U.S. at 231.  The

plaintiffs have alleged no irresponsible conduct by these police officers and the

majority has struck the balance badly,depriving these officers of qualifiedimmunity

absent any basis in clearly established law and in circumstances in which it is

impossible to conclude that an officer could notreasonably believe that his conduct

was lawful.  For this reason, I respectfully dissent.

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