Source: https://m.openjurist.org/468/us/183
Timestamp: 2020-04-09 07:14:44
Document Index: 315004390

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1254', '§ 1254', '§ 1983']

468 US 183 Davis v. Scherer | OpenJurist
468 U.S. 183 - Davis v. Scherer
Ralph DAVIS, etc., et al.
Gregory Scott SCHERER.
In the present posture of this case, the District Court's decision that appellants violated appellee's rights under the Fourteenth Amendment is undisputed.8 This finding of the District Court—based entirely upon federal constitutional law—resolves the merits of appellee's underlying claim for relief under § 1983. It does not, however, decide the issue of damages. Even defendants who violate constitutional rights enjoy a qualified immunity that protects them from liability for damages unless it is further demonstrated that their conduct was unreasonable under the applicable standard. The precise standard for determining when an official may assert the qualified immunity defense has been clarified by recent cases, see Wood v. Strickland, 420 U.S. 308, 95 S.Ct. 992, 43 L.Ed.2d 214 (1975); Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S. 478, 98 S.Ct. 2894, 57 L.Ed.2d 895 (1978); Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). The present case requires us to consider the application of the standard where the official's conduct violated a state regulation as well as a provision of the Federal Constitution.
The District Court's analysis of appellants' qualified immunity, written before our decision in Harlow v. Fitzgerald, supra, rests upon the "totality of the circumstances" surrounding appellee's separation from his job. This Court applied that standard in Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S., at 247-248, 94 S.Ct., at 1691-1692. As subsequent cases recognized, Wood v. Strickland, supra, 420 U.S., at 322, 95 S.Ct., at 1000, the "totality of the circumstances" test comprised two separate inquiries: an inquiry into the objective reasonableness of the defendant official's conduct in light of the governing law, and an inquiry into the official's subjective state of mind. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, supra, rejected the inquiry into state of mind in favor of a wholly objective standard. Under Harlow, officials "are shielded 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." 457 U.S., at 818, 102 S.Ct., at 2739. Whether an official may prevail in his qualified immunity defense depends upon the "objective reasonableness of [his] conduct as measured by reference to clearly established law." Ibid. (footnote deleted). No other "circumstances" are relevant to the issue of qualified immunity.
Appellee suggests, however, that the District Court judgment can be reconciled with Harlow in two ways. First, appellee urges that the record evinces a violation of constitutional rights that were clearly established. Second, in appellee's view, the District Court correctly found that, absent a violation of clearly established constitutional rights, appellants' violation of the state administrative regulation—although irrelevant to the merits of appellee's underlying constitutional claim—was decisive of the qualified immunity question. In our view, neither submission is consistent with our prior cases.
Appellee contends that the District Court's reliance in its qualified immunity analysis upon the state regulation was "superfluous," Brief for Appellee 19, because the federal constitutional right to a pretermination or a prompt posttermination hearing was well established in the Fifth Circuit at the time of the conduct in question. As the District Court recognized in rejecting appellee's contention, Weisbrod v. Donigan, 651 F.2d 334 (CA5 1981), is authoritative precedent to the contrary. The Court of Appeals in that case found that the State had violated no clearly established due process right when it discharged a civil service employee without any pretermination hearing.9
Nor was it unreasonable in this case, under Fourteenth Amendment due process principles, for the Department to conclude that appellee had been provided with the fundamentals of due process.10 As stated above, the District Court found that appellee was informed several times of the Department's objection to his second employment and took advantage of several opportunities to present his reasons for believing that he should be permitted to retain his part-time employment despite the contrary rules of the Patrol. Appellee's statement of reasons and other relevant information were before the senior official who made the decision to discharge appellee. And Florida law provided for a full evidentiary hearing after termination. We conclude that the District Court correctly held that appellee has demonstrated no violation of his clearly established constitutional rights.
Appellee makes no claim that the appellants' violation of the state regulation either is itself actionable under § 1983 or bears upon the claim of constitutional right that appellee asserts under § 1983.11 And appellee also recognizes that Harlow v. Fitzgerald makes immunity available only to officials whose conduct conforms to a standard of "objective legal reasonableness." 457 U.S., at 819, 102 S.Ct., at 2739. Nonetheless, in appellee's view, official conduct that contravenes a statute or regulation is not "objectively reasonable" because officials fairly may be expected to conform their conduct to such legal norms. Appellee also argues that the lawfulness of official conduct under such a statute or regulation may be determined early in the lawsuit on motion for summary judgment. Appellee urges therefore that a defendant official's violation of a clear statute or regulation, although not itself the basis of suit, should deprive the official of qualified immunity from damages for violation of other statutory or constitutional provisions. On its face, appellee's reasoning is not without some force. We decline, however, to adopt it. Even before Harlow, our cases had made clear that, under the "objective" component of the good-faith immunity test, "an official would not be held liable in damages under § 1983 unless the constitutional right he was alleged to have violated was 'clearly established' at the time of the violation." Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S., at 498, 98 S.Ct., at 2906 (emphasis added); accord, Procunier v. Navarette, 434 U.S. 555, 562, 98 S.Ct. 855, 859, 55 L.Ed.2d 24 (1978). Officials sued for constitutional violations do not lose their qualified immunity merely because their conduct violates some statutory or administrative provision.12
We acknowledge of course that officials should conform their conduct to applicable statutes and regulations. For that reason, it is an appealing proposition that the violation of such provisions is a circumstance relevant to the official's claim of qualified immunity. But in determining what circumstances a court may consider in deciding claims of qualified immunity, we choose "between the evils inevitable in any available alternative." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S., at 813-814, 102 S.Ct., at 2736-2737. Appellee's submission, if adopted, would disrupt the balance that our cases strike between the interests in vindication of citizens' constitutional rights and in public officials' effective performance of their duties. The qualified immunity doctrine recognizes that officials can act without fear of harassing litigation only if they reasonably can anticipate when their conduct may give rise to liability for damages and only if unjustified lawsuits are quickly terminated. See Butz v. Economou, supra, 438 U.S., at 506-507, 98 S.Ct., at 2910-2911; Harlow v. Fitzgerald, supra, 457 U.S., at 814, 818-819, 102 S.Ct., at 2737, 2738-2739. Yet, under appellee's submission, officials would be liable in an indeterminate amount for violation of any constitutional right—one that was not clearly defined or perhaps not even foreshadowed at the time of the alleged violation—merely because their official conduct also violated some statute or regulation. And, in § 1983 suits, the issue whether an official enjoyed qualified immunity then might depend upon the meaning or purpose of a state administrative regulation, questions that federal judges often may be unable to resolve on summary judgment.
Appellee proposes that his new rule for qualified immunity be limited by requiring that plaintiffs allege clear violation of a statute or regulation that advanced important interests or was designed to protect constitutional rights. Yet, once the door is opened to such inquiries, it is difficult to limit their scope in any principled manner. Federal judges would be granted large discretion to extract from various statutory and administrative codes those provisions that seem to them sufficiently clear or important to warrant denial of qualified immunity. And such judgments fairly could be made only after an extensive inquiry into whether the official in the circumstances of his decision should have appreciated the applicability and importance of the rule at issue. It would become more difficult, not only for officials to anticipate the possible legal consequences of their conduct,13 but also for trial courts to decide even frivolous suits without protracted litigation.
Nor is it always fair, or sound policy, to demand official compliance with statute and regulation on pain of money damages. Such officials as police officers or prison wardens, to say nothing of higher level executives levels who enjoy only qualified immunity, routinely make close decisions in the exercise of the broad authority that necessarily is delegated to them. These officials are subject to a plethora of rules, "often so voluminous, ambiguous, and contradictory, and in such flux that officials can only comply with or enforce them selectively." See P. Schuck, Suing Government 66 (1983). In these circumstances, officials should not err always on the side of caution. "[O] fficials with a broad range of duties and authority must often act swiftly and firmly at the risk that action deferred will be futile or constitute virtual abdication of office." Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S., at 246, 94 S.Ct., at 1691.14
In Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982), the Court decided that Government officials seeking to establish qualified immunity must show that the acts or omissions violating the plaintiff's rights were objectively reasonable—specifically, that the conduct at issue did not "violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Id., at 818, 102 S.Ct., at 2737. The Court today does not purport to change that standard. Yet it holds that, despite discharging a civil service employee in 1977 without meaningful notice and an opportunity to be heard, appellants are entitled to immunity from a suit for damages. The Court reaches this decision essentially by ignoring both the facts of this case and the law relevant to appellants' conduct at the time of the events at issue. In my view, appellants plainly violated appellee's clearly established rights and the Court's conclusion to the contrary seriously dilutes Harlow's careful effort to preserve the availability of damages actions against governmental officials as a critical "avenue for vindication of constitutional guarantees." Id., at 814, 102 S.Ct., at 2736. Accordingly, I dissent from that portion of the judgment reversing the award of damages.1
In order to determine whether a defendant has violated a plaintiff's clearly established rights, it would seem necessary to make two inquiries, both of which are well within a court's familiar province: (1) which particular act or omission of the defendant violated the plaintiff's federal rights, and (2) whether governing case or statutory law would have given a reasonable official cause to know, at the time of the relevant events, that those acts or omissions violated the plaintiff's rights. The Court, however, asks neither question. Its brief treatment of the issue includes no reference to the District Court's findings of fact with respect to the conduct at issue here. This is not surprising since those findings—which were affirmed summarily by the Court of Appeals and which appellants do not claim to be clearly erroneous—demonstrate that appellee was never informed that he might be fired for violating regulations against dual employment. Nor did appellee ever have an opportunity to persuade the relevant decisionmaker that he should not be disciplined.
The regulation appellee was ultimately fired for violating required only that Patrol members receive prior approval of outside employment, in order to avoid conflicts of interest with regular duties. 543 F.Supp. 4, 8 (ND Fla.1981). Upon request, appellee obtained approval from his troop commander for part-time work as a security guard on a movie set. Some three weeks later, the commander revoked the approval and there followed an exchange of memos between appellee's immediate superiors and the commander indicating that appellee did not wish to relinquish the part-time job. Apparently without informing appellee, the commander then recommended to the director of the Highway Patrol, Col. Beach, that appellee be suspended for three days and, nearly a week later, an intermediate superior ordered appellee to terminate his outside employment. On the same day, appellee wrote to the commander, stating that he did not believe his outside work caused any conflict of interest. Although some officials in the Department suggested to each other ways in which appellee's work might create a conflict, "[n]o one ever identified the conflict to plaintiff; [and the superior who had ordered appellee to terminate the job] testified he didn't know what the conflict was." Ibid. Meanwhile, Beach, the official with authority to terminate appellee, received copies of the various letters that had been exchanged and, without informing appellee or soliciting his views, decided to discharge him. As the District Court summarized:
By failing to warn appellee that his conduct could result in deprivation of his protected property interest in his Highway Patrol job and by denying him an opportunity to challenge that deprivation, appellants violated the most fundamental requirements of due process of law—meaningful notice and a reasonable opportunity to be heard. Contrary to the Court's conclusion, these requirements were "clearly established" long before October 25, 1977, the date on which appellee learned he was fired. As long ago as 1914, the Court emphasized that "[t]he fundamental requisite of due process of law is the opportunity to be heard." Grannis v. Ordean, 234 U.S. 385, 394, 34 S.Ct. 779, 783, 58 L.Ed. 1363. In 1925, the Court explained that a government failure to afford reasonable notice of the kinds of conduct that will result in deprivations of liberty and property "violates the first essential of due process of law." Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U.S. 385, 391, 46 S.Ct. 126, 127, 70 L.Ed. 322. And in several decisions in the 1950's, the Court concluded that public employees have interests in maintaining their jobs that cannot be abridged without due process. E.g., Slochower v. Board of Education, 350 U.S. 551, 76 S.Ct. 637, 100 L.Ed. 692 (1956); Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U.S. 183, 73 S.Ct. 215, 97 L.Ed. 216 (1952); see Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 576-577, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 2708-2709, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972).
"[b]efore a person is deprived of a protected interest, he must be afforded opportunity for some kind of a hearing, 'except for extraordinary situations where some valid governmental interest is at stake that justifies postponing the hearing until after the event.' Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371, 379, 91 S.Ct. 780, 786, 28 L.Ed.2d 113. 'While "[m]any controversies have raged about . . . the Due Process Clause," . . . it is fundamental that except in emergency situations (and this is not one) due process requires that when a State seeks to terminate [a protected] interest . . ., it must afford "notice and opportunity for hearing appropriate to the nature of the case" before the termination becomes effective.' Bell v. Burson, 402 U.S. 535, 542, 91 S.Ct. 1586, 1591, 29 L.Ed.2d 90. For the rare and extraordinary situations in which we have held that deprivation of a protected interest need not not be preceded by opportunity for some kind of hearing, see, e.g., Central Union Trust Co. v. Garvan, 254 U.S. 554, 566, 41 S.Ct. 214, 215, 65 L.Ed. 403; Phillips v. Commissioner, 283 U.S. 589, 597, 51 S.Ct. 608, 611, 75 L.Ed. 1289; Ewing v. Mytinger & Casselberry, Inc., 339 U.S. 594, 70 S.Ct. 870, 94 L.Ed. 1088." Board of Regents v. Roth, supra, 408 U.S., at 570, n. 7, 92 S.Ct., at 2705, n. 7.
If there were any ambiguity in the repeated pronouncements of this Court, appellants had several other reasons to know that their failure to afford appellee meaningful pretermination notice and hearing violated due process. Two years prior to appellee's discharge, the Florida Attorney General explained in an official opinion that "[c]areer service employees who have attained permanent status in the career service system have acquired a property interest in their public positions and emoluments thereof such as job security and seniority which they may not be deprived of without due process of law." Fla.Op.Atty.Gen. 075-94, p. 161 (1975). And more than a year before the events at issue here, in a case involving the Jacksonville, Fla., City Civil Service Board, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit left no doubt as to what it thought "clearly established" law required:
Finally, some two months prior to appellee's discharge, the Florida Highway Patrol issued a regulation undoubtedly intended to conform administrative practice with decisions like Thurston.2 The regulation, which has the force of statutory law, see 543 F.Supp., at 20, provides in pertinent part:
The Court ignores most of this evidence demonstrating the objective unreasonableness of appellants' conduct. Instead, the Court relies first on Weisbrod v. Donigan, 651 F.2d 334 (CA5 1981) (per curiam), as "authoritative precedent" for the proposition that appellee's right to pretermination notice and a hearing was not "well established in the Fifth Circuit at the time of the conduct in question." Ante, at 192. In Weisbrod, the Court of Appeals simply declared—without citation to any of the cases just discussed, including its own decision in Thurston—that "the record indicates defendants did not act in disregard of any well-settled constitutional rights" and that "Weisbrod offers no authority indicating the failure to hold a pretermination hearing and the delay in the process of her administrative appeal were clear violations of her constitutional rights." 651 F.2d, at 336. It is unclear from the court's brief per curiam opinion whether Weisbrod—unlike appellee in this case—was informed prior to discharge that her conduct constituted grounds for termination. See id., at 335. In any event, the Court of Appeals' dubious and cursory ipse dixit in Weisbrod, rendered four years after the conduct at issue in this case, is hardly persuasive, much less controlling, authority for this Court's decision that appellee's rights were not clearly established in 1977.
The other basis for the Court's rejection of appellee's claim is an assertion that it was not "unreasonable in this case, under Fourteenth Amendment principles, for the Department to conclude that appellee had been provided with the fundamentals of due process." Ante, at 192. The Court seeks to support this statement by relying on the fact that appellee had been told to discontinue his second job and that he "took advantage of several opportunities to present his reasons for believing that he should be permitted to retain his part-time employment. . . ." Ibid. Appellee did not, however, have an opportunity to present his reasons for retaining his civil service job with the Florida Highway Patrol—the employment in which he had a protected property interest. See 543 F.Supp., at 12. Indeed, he was, according to the District Court, never told that his Highway Patrol job was in jeopardy, and he never had a chance to try to persuade the relevant decisionmaker that the second job did not create a conflict of interest. The Court concedes that our decisions by 1978 had required notice and " 'some kind of a hearing' . . . prior to discharge of an employee who had a constitutionally protected property interest in his employment." Ante, at 192, n. 10. In this case, appellee received no meaningful notice and no kind of hearing before the official who fired him.
In sum, I believe that appellants' actions "violate[d] clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known," Harlow, 457 U.S., at 818, 102 S.Ct., at 2737, and I would therefore affirm the District Court's award of damages.
Appellee's concession does not deprive the Court of appellate jurisdiction over the remaining issue in the case. In cases where the Court of Appeals has declared a state statute unconstitutional, this Court may decide the "Federal questions presented," 28 U.S.C. § 1254(2). Cf. Flournoy v. Wiener, 321 U.S. 253, 263, 64 S.Ct. 548, 553, 88 L.Ed.2d 708 (1944); Leroy v. Great Western United Corp., 443 U.S. 173, 99 S.Ct. 2710, 61 L.Ed.2d 464 (1979). Under § 1254(2), the Court retains discretion to decline to consider those issues in the case not related to the declaration that the state statute is invalid. In the present case, however, we choose to consider the important question whether the District Court and the Court of Appeals properly denied appellants' good-faith immunity from suit.
As the partial dissent explains at some length, the decisions of this Court by 1978 had required "some kind of a hearing," Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 570, n. 7, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 2705, n. 7, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972), prior to discharge of an employee who had a constitutionally protected property interest in his employment. But the Court had not determined what kind of a hearing must be provided. Such a determination would require a careful balancing of the competing interests—of the employee and the State—implicated in the official decision at issue. See Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335, 96 S.Ct. 893, 903, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976). As the Court had considered circumstances in which no hearing at all had been provided prior to termination, Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972), or in which the requirements of due process were met, Board of Regents v. Roth, supra; Arnett v. Kennedy, 416 U.S. 134, 94 S.Ct. 1633, 40 L.Ed.2d 15 (1974); Bishop v. Wood, 426 U.S. 341, 96 S.Ct. 2074, 48 L.Ed.2d 684 (1976); Codd v. Velger, 429 U.S. 624, 97 S.Ct. 882, 51 L.Ed.2d 92 (1977), there had been no occasion to specify any minimally acceptable procedures for termination of employment. The partial dissent cites no case establishing that appellee was entitled to more elaborate notice, or a more formal opportunity to respond, than he in fact received.
Harlow was a suit against federal, not state, officials. But our cases have recognized that the same qualified immunity rules apply in suits against state officers under § 1983 and in suits against federal officers under Bivens v. Six Unknown Federal Narcotics Agents, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971). See Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S., at 504, 98 S.Ct., at 2909. Neither federal nor state officials lose their immunity by violating the clear command of a statute or regulation—of federal or of state law—unless that statute or regulation provides the basis for the cause of action sued upon.
Appellee urges as well that appellants' violation of the personnel regulation constituted breach of their "ministerial" duty—established by the regulation—to follow various procedures before terminating appellee's employment. Although the decision to discharge an employee clearly is discretionary, appellee reasons that the Highway Patrol regulation deprived appellants of all discretion in determining what procedures were to be followed prior to discharge. Under this view, the Harlow standard is inapposite because this Court's doctrine grants qualified immunity to officials in the performance of discretionary, but not ministerial, functions.