Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-89-02269/USCOURTS-ca10-89-02269-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 360
Nature of Suit: Other Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 

---

. FILED 

Umrcd States Court of AppeaJ 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

Temh Circuit s 

JUN 2 2 1990 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

BENNY BUSTAMANTE and ANITA ) 

BUSTAMANTE, ) 

) 

Plaintiffs-Appellees, ) 

) 

v. ) 

) 

ALBUQUERQUE POLICE DEPARTMENT; ) 

CITY OF ALBUQUERQUE, a municipal ) 

corporation; OFFICER GERALD J. BALL, ) 

individually and in a representative ) 

capacity; OFFICER L.R. GARCIA, ) 

individually and in a representative ) 

capacity; OFFICER P. FLANAGAN, ) 

individually and in a representative ) 

capacity; SAM BACA, Chief of Police, ) 

individually and in a representative ) 

capacity, ) 

) 

) 

Defendants-Appellants. ) 

) 

) 

) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

No. 89-2269 

(D.C. No. 88-672-JP) 

(D. New Mexico) 

Before MOORE, BRIGHT,** and BRORBY, Circuit Judges. 

**Honorable Myron H. Bright, Circuit Judge, United States Court of 

Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, sitting by designation. 

* 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 estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

Appellate Case: 89-2269 Document: 010110036920 Date Filed: 06/22/1990 Page: 1 
The issue on appeal is whether the district court correctly 

denied defendants' motion for summary judgment as to part of 

plaintiffs' claims, ruling that such claims were not barred by the 

doctrine of qualified immunity. More specifically, we are asked 

to examine whether a reasonable municipal police officer in New 

Mexico could have believed that it was appropriate to arrest an 

individual on a charge of disorderly conduct for directing 

profanities at a police officer in front of other people in a 

public place absent other provocative or violent acts. We affirm. 

Plaintiff Benny Bustamante parked his car in front of a 

convenience store in Albuquerque while his wife, plaintiff Anita 

Bustamante, went into the store to do an errand. Mr. Bustamante 

had recently been released from a hospital after treatment for a 

fractured back and still had on his wrist identification bracelet. 

The Bustamantes' twelve-year old son and their two other young 

children remained in the car with him. His son's home stereo was 

visible in the car's trunk. 

Defendants Officers Ball and Garcia parked tpeir police car 

behind Mr. Bustamante's vehicle, and Officer Garcia approached 

Mr. Bustamante to question him about the ownership of the stereo 

in the car's trunk. Officer Ball, an experienced Albuquerque 

policeman, was training defendant Officer Garcia, who was new to 

the police force. The interaction between Officer Garcia and 

Mr. Bustamante became an altercation, with Mrs. Bustamante 

eventually interceding and placing herself between her husband and 

Officer Garcia. She refused to move upon request and, while a 

small group of shopkeepers, shoppers and children looked on, both 

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Appellate Case: 89-2269 Document: 010110036920 Date Filed: 06/22/1990 Page: 2 
she and Mr. Bustamante directed obscenities at the police 

officers. Officer Ball then joined the group, explaining to the 

Bustamantes that Officer Garcia was in training. While the 

Bustamantes continued to protest the investigatory questioning in 

heated and profane language, defendant Officer Flanagan, a back-up 

police officer, arrived, handcuffed Mrs. Bustamante and removed 

her to a police car. Officer Ball arrested Mr. Bustamante after 

allegedly throwing him to the ground by the neck. The 

Bustamantes' son, meanwhile, had fled the car and run to his 

grandmother's house for help; the two young Bustamante children 

were left crying in the car. 

Mr. Bustamante was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct 

and assault on a police officer, and Mrs. Bustamante was arrested 

on charges of disorderly conduct and interference with a . police 

officer. The charges against Mr. Bustamante were dismissed 

without prejudice in municipal court for lack of probable cause 

and were not refiled by the Albuquerque Police Department. The 

charges against Mrs. Bustamante were likewise dismissed, but the 

charge of interference with a police officer was refiled by the 

Albuquerque Police Department. Mrs. Bustamante pled nolo 

contendre in municipal court to that charge. 

The Bustamantes brought suit for damages in the federal 

district court, alleging a number of federal and state claims. 

The only claims relevant to this appeal are the Bustamantes' 

federal claims against the defendants arising out of their arrests 

for disorderly conduct. The defendants filed several pretrial 

motions, including a motion for summary judgment as to all of 

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Appellate Case: 89-2269 Document: 010110036920 Date Filed: 06/22/1990 Page: 3 
Mr. Bustamante's federal claims, and those of Mrs. Bustamante's 

federal claims arising from her arrest for disorderly conduct, 

asserting the defense of qualified immunity. The district court 

denied defendants' motion for summary judgment, finding that these 

claims were not barred by qualified immunity. Defendants appeal. 

Although the underlying lawsuit is far from resolution in the 

district court, we have jurisdiction to hear this particular issue 

on interlocutory ap~eal. In Devargas v. Mason & Hanger-Silas 

Mason Co., Inc., 844 F.2d 714 (10th Cir. 1988), this court 

explained: "[T]he collateral order exception [announced in Cohen 

v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 546 (1949)] 

allows an interlocutory appeal of the denial of a defense of 

qualified immunity when a public official is sued for damages and 

the relevant facts underlying the qualified immunity defense are 

undisputed." Id. at 716 (citing Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511 

(1985)). 

It is important to emphasize the narrowness of the issue 

before us today. As the Sup~eme Court wrote in Mitchell: 

An appellate court reviewing the denial of the 

defendant's claim of immunity need not consider the 

correctness of the plaintiff's version of the facts, nor 

even determine whether the plaintiff's allegations 

actually state a claim. All it need determine is a 

question of law: whether the legal norms allegedly 

violated by the defendant were clearly established at 

the time of the challenged actions or, in cases where 

the district court has denied summary judgment for the 

defendant on the ground that even under the defendant's 

version of the facts the defendant's conduct violated 

clearly established law, whether the law cle~rly 

proscribed the actions the defendant claims he took. 

9 We emphasize 

appealable issue 

at this point that the 

is a purely legal one: 

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Appellate Case: 89-2269 Document: 010110036920 Date Filed: 06/22/1990 Page: 4 
whether the facts alleged ••. support a 

claim of violation of clearly established law. 

Mitchell, 472 U.S. at 528 & n.9. 

The district court denied defendants' motion for summary 

judgment as to the federal claims because it reasoned that under 

New Mexico law it is clearly established that the Bustamantes' 

conduct did not present probable cause to arrest for the crime of 

disorderly conduct. The district court rejected defendants' 

argument that New Mexico law is not clearly established as to 

whether mere profanity directed at a police officer in the 

presence of third-party observers supports probable cause for an 

arrest on a charge of disorderly conduct. The court noted the 

provisions of N.M. Stat. Ann. § 30-20-1 (1978): "Disorderly 

conduct consists of: A. Engaging in violent, abusive, indecent, 

profane, boisterous, unreasonably loud or otherwise disorderly 

conduct which tends to disturb the peace .. II The district 

court concluded that under New Mexico law, without a disturbance 

of the peace, there was no disorderly conduct, relying on State v. 

Doe, 92 N.M. 100, 583 P.2d 464 (1978). In Doe, the court defined 

a breach of the peace as "a disturbance of public order by an act 

of violence, or by any act likely to produce violence, or which, 

by causing consternation and alarm, disturbs the peace and quiet 

of the community." Id. at 466. Accord State v. Florstedt, 77 

N.M. 47, 419 P.2d 248, 249 (1966). 

While we note the presence of numerous factual disputes with 

regard to the circumstances surrounding the Bustamante arrest, we 

heed Mitchell's warning, quoted above, and focus solely on whether 

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Appellate Case: 89-2269 Document: 010110036920 Date Filed: 06/22/1990 Page: 5 
a reasonable police officer could have known whether there was 

probable cause for arrest under a disorderly conduct charge 

stemming from the Bustamantes' behavior. 

In reviewing the right the official is alleged to have 

violated, the standard for examination of this issue was recently 

stated by the United States Supreme Court. "[T]he contours of the 

right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would 

understand that what he is doing violates that right. [I]n 

the light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness must be apparent." 

Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987). 

We have no doubt that a reasonable police officer would 

understand that, while the Bustamantes' behavior may not have been 

pleasant or polite, it was merely reactive to the situation 

initiated by the police themselves, and did not incite further 

violence or disturbance from those members of the public observing 

the incident. Both previous New Mexico state court 

interpretations of the statute and a plain reading of the statute 

itself establish that the arrests for disturbing the peace were 

without probable cause, thus lowering the bar of qualified 

immunity for the defendants. 

The judgment of the United States District Court for the 

District of New Mexico is AFFIRMED. 

ENTERED FOR THE COURT 

PER CURIAM 

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