Source: http://az.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.20180122_0000100.DAZ.htm/qx
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 08:28:31+00:00

Document:
Derek Ortiz, et al., Defendants.
Honorable Steven P. Logan United States District Judge.
Before the Court is Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment. (Doc. 58.) For the reasons set forth below, Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment is granted.
This case arises out of a collision between an Arizona Department of Public Safety (“DPS”) patrol car driven by Defendant Derek Ortiz and a motorcycle ridden by Plaintiff Justin Miller. The facts that follow regarding the collision are undisputed. Facts that are in dispute, however, are noted and considered in the light most favorable to Plaintiff.
A court shall grant summary judgment if the pleadings and supporting documents, viewed in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, “show that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a); see also Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-23 (1986). Material facts are those facts “that might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986). A genuine dispute of material fact arises if “the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party.” Id.
The party moving for summary judgment bears the initial burden of informing the court of the basis for its motion and identifying those portions of the record, together with affidavits, which it believes demonstrate the absence of a genuine issue of material fact. Celotex, 477 U.S. at 323. If the movant is able to do such, the burden then shifts to the non-movant who, “must do more than simply show that there is some metaphysical doubt as to the material facts, ” and instead must “come forward with ‘specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial.” Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 586-87 (1986) (quoting Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e)). At this stage, the function of the judge is “not  to weigh the evidence and determine the truth but to determine whether there is a genuine issue for trial.” Anderson, 477 U.S. at 249; see also Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 380 (2007).
Derek Ortiz and the State of Arizona maintain that each are shielded from liability by qualified immunity and are entitled to judgment as a matter of law. (Doc. 58 at 1.) Because qualified immunity bears prominently on the outcome of Defendants' summary judgment motion, the Court will address it first.
More than a mere defense to liability, the doctrine of qualified immunity “protects government officials ‘from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.'” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009) (citing Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982)). Qualified immunity extends to an official's actions regardless of whether the “error is a mistake of law, a mistake of fact, or a mistake based on mixed questions of law and fact.” Pearson, 555 U.S. at 231 (internal citation omitted). The doctrine provides government officials “breathing room to make reasonable but mistaken judgments about open legal questions.” Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 743 (2011). “When properly applied, it protects ‘all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.'” Hughes v. Kisela, 862 F.3d 775, 782 (9th Cir. 2016) (citing al-Kidd, 563 U.S. at 743).

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