Opinion ID: 2781342
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Procedural Posture of the Case

Text: Finally, plaintiffs argue that the Complaint may not be dismissed on the pleadings on qualified immunity grounds. It is certainly true that motions to dismiss a plaintiff’s complaint under Rule 12(b)(6) on the basis of an affirmative defense will generally face a difficult road. When addressing a motion to dismiss a complaint, we “accept[ ] as true the material facts alleged in the complaint and draw[ ] all reasonable inferences in plaintiffs’ favor.” Johnson, 239 F.3d at 250. To survive such a motion, the complaint must simply “contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678, quoting Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). 24 But that does not mean that qualified immunity can never be established at the pleading stage. To the contrary, every case must be assessed on the specific facts alleged in the complaint. The Supreme Court has made clear that qualified immunity can be established by the facts alleged in a complaint, see Wood v. Moss, ___ U.S. ___, 134 S. Ct. 2056 (2014), and indeed, because qualified immunity protects officials not merely from liability but from litigation, that the issue should be resolved when possible on a motion to dismiss, “before the commencement of discovery,” Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 526 (1985), to avoid subjecting public officials to time consuming and expensive discovery procedures. In this case, the facts alleged in the Complaint, and those depicted in the videos, do not bear out plaintiffs’ legal conclusion that the officers’ actions constituted “an actual and apparent grant of permission” to the demonstrators to utilize the roadway. J. App’x at 168. Still less do those facts plausibly describe a situation in which reasonable officers would have clearly understood that their actions were interpreted by the demonstrators as a grant of permission, such that arresting the demonstrators would violate clearly established law. Accordingly, dismissal of the Complaint is required.