Opinion ID: 391404
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Heading: The Scope of the Qualified Immunity Defenses

Text: 46 1. Officer Norman's qualified immunity from section 1983 liability. Our past cases indicate that police officers are entitled to assert a defense of official immunity from section 1983 liability based on the officer's reasonable belief that his actions were lawful and within the scope of his authority; but the cases also hold that this official immunity is but a qualified one, for it can be breached by a showing that the officer lacked good faith. E. g., Reimer v. Short, 578 F.2d 621, 627-28 (5th Cir. 1978), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 947, 99 S.Ct. 1425, 59 L.Ed.2d 635 (1979). Cf. Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, 87 S.Ct. 1213, 18 L.Ed.2d 288 (1967) (good faith defense to section 1983 liability for officers making an arrest with probable cause); Procunier v. Navarette, 434 U.S. 555, 98 S.Ct. 855, 55 L.Ed.2d 24 (1978) (extending good faith defense to prison officials). See generally S. Nahmod, Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Litigation: A Guide to Section 1983, at §§ 8.02, 8.08 (1979 & 1980 Supp.). 47 Qualified immunity from section 1983 liability is an affirmative defense in the sense that it must be pleaded 16 by the defendant. Gomez v. Toledo, 446 U.S. 635, 100 S.Ct. 1920, 64 L.Ed.2d 572 (1980). The Supreme Court has, in dictum, recently confirmed our circuit's position that the burden is on the defendant not just to plead, but to establish his entitlement to claim official immunity in the first instance: 48 The immunities of state officials that we have recognized for purposes of § 1983 are the equivalents of those that were recognized at common law, Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U.S. 622, 637, 100 S.Ct. 1398, 1408, 63 L.Ed.2d 673 (1980); Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 417, 96 S.Ct. 984, 988, 47 L.Ed.2d 128 (1976); and the burden is on the official claiming immunity to demonstrate his entitlement. Cf. Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S. 478, 506 (98 S.Ct. 2894, 2910, 57 L.Ed.2d 895) (1978). 49 Dennis v. Sparks, 449 U.S. 24, 29, 101 S.Ct. 183, 187, 66 L.Ed.2d 185 (1980) (holding that private individuals who allegedly bribed state trial judge to issue injunction were not shielded in section 1983 action for damages by judge's absolute immunity). Once pleaded, the showing that a defendant must make to avail himself of the qualified immunity defense varies depending upon the degree of discretion that he exercises in performing his official duties. Douthit v. Jones, 619 F.2d 527, 534 (5th Cir. 1980). We held in Douthit that 50 (w)hen a plaintiff seeks damages under § 1983 for a discretionary action by an official such as a prison administrator, who must exercise an exceedingly broad range of discretion in performing his official duties, the official should be entitled to qualified immunity upon a showing that he acted within the scope of his authority. 51 Id. (emphasis added). 17 We contrasted the showing that needed to be made by the prison officials in Douthit to that which need be made by an official of more limited discretion, such as a police officer; the latter type of official must demonstrate objective circumstances which would compel the conclusion that his actions were undertaken pursuant to the performance of his duties and within the scope of his authority. See 619 F.2d at 534. 18 52 Once the official has shown that he was acting in his official capacity and within the scope of his discretionary authority, the burden shifts to the plaintiff to breach the official's immunity by showing that the official lacked good faith. Id. In Bogard v. Cook, 586 F.2d 399 (5th Cir. 1978), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 883, 100 S.Ct. 173, 62 L.Ed.2d 113 (1979), we fleshed out the definition of good faith in this context. Bogard makes clear that there are both objective and subjective components to the analysis of good faith. The objective component has to do with the reasonableness of the official's actions under clearly established law at the time he acted: 53 (A)n official is liable under section 1983 if he knew or reasonably should have known that the action he took within his sphere of official responsibility would violate the constitutional rights of the person affected. The fulcrum ... is the existence, at the time of the official's action, of clearly established judicial decisions that make his action unconstitutional. 54 Id. at 411 (citation omitted) (quoting Wood v. Strickland, 420 U.S. 308, 322, 95 S.Ct. 992, 1001, 43 L.Ed.2d 214 (1975)). This is true despite the official's sincere subjective belief that he is acting properly. Id. As the Sixth Circuit has noted, (t)he law does not expect police officers to be sophisticated constitutional or criminal lawyers, but because they are charged with the responsibility of enforcing the law, it is not unreasonable to expect them to have some knowledge of it. Glasson v. City of Louisville, 518 F.2d 899, 910 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 930, 96 S.Ct. 280, 46 L.Ed.2d 258 (1975). See also Jackson v. Mississippi, 644 F.2d 1142, 1145 (5th Cir. 1981); Dilmore v. Stubbs, 636 F.2d 966, 968-69 (5th Cir. 1981). 55 The subjective component of the defendant's good faith has to do with the presence or absence of malicious intent, which the plaintiff may show by proof 56 that an official either actually intended to do harm to the plaintiff, or took an action which, although not intended to do harm, was so likely to produce injury that the harm can be characterized as substantially certain to result. The spirit of the rule reaches nonfeasance as well as misfeasance. It does not insulate an official who, although not possessed of any actual malice or intent to harm, is so derelict in his duties that he must be treated as if he in fact desired the harmful results of his inaction. At the same time, however, the test requires that a plaintiff show that the official's action, although labeled as reckless or grossly negligent, falls on the actual intent side of those terms, rather than on the side of simple negligence. 57 Bogard, 586 F.2d at 412. 19 See also Crowe v. Lucas, 595 F.2d 985, 989, 990 (5th Cir. 1979); Cruz v. Beto, 603 F.2d 1178, 1183 (5th Cir. 1979); Vasquez v. Snow, 616 F.2d 217, 220 (5th Cir. 1980); Douthit v. Jones, supra, 619 F.2d at 534-35; Walters v. City of Ocean Springs, 626 F.2d 1317, 1322-23 (5th Cir. 1980). See generally S. Nahmod, supra, §§ 8.03, 8.12. 58 Judge Charles Clark, writing for our court in Cruz v. Beto, supra, explained the rationale behind this allocation of the burdens of persuasion: 59 The underlying policy which pervades every qualified immunity analysis is one of protecting the public by permitting its decision-makers to function without fear that an exercise of discretion might in retrospect be found to be error. (Citing Butz v. Economou, supra, and Pierson v. Ray, supra.) If an official can show that (the) questionable actions were taken in the regular course of discharging his official duties, therefore, this policy affords him immunity from liability. To deny him qualified immunity protection unless he goes further and demonstrates that his actions were above the benchmark of legal good faith, would make the concept of qualified immunity a meaningless embellishment. 60 603 F.2d at 1183. 61 2. Ballas' qualified immunity defense to Bivens liability. The Second Circuit held in Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 456 F.2d 1339 (2d Cir. 1972) (on remand from 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971)), that a police officer could assert as a defense to a Bivens-type constitutional tort claim his entitlement to a qualified immunity based on his reasonable, good-faith belief that his conduct was lawful. The rationale behind this qualified immunity is essentially the same as that behind the qualified immunity from section 1983 liability that is available to state officials. Some previous opinions of this court have treated the qualified immunity available in Bivens-type cases as being functionally equivalent to that available in section 1983 cases. See, e. g., Reimer v. Short, supra, 578 F.2d at 626-27. The Supreme Court adopted the same approach by holding in Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S. 478, 496-504, 98 S.Ct. 2894, 2905, 57 L.Ed.2d 895 (1978), that federal officials enjoy the same zone of protection when they are alleged to have violated federal constitutional rules as do state officials. 62