Opinion ID: 160748
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Qualified Immunity For Fourth Amendment Claim

Text: 7 Before reaching the merits, we must first briefly address our appellate jurisdiction. After the denial of their motion, the officers appealed. Thereafter, the City of Laramie sought a reconsideration of the initial order of denial. The trial court then issued a corrective order, modifying the factual basis for its original order, but again denying qualified immunity to the officers. The officers appealed the corrective order. The City of Laramie timely appealed both orders. We consolidated the appeals. 8 Typically, orders denying qualified immunity before trial are appealable only to the extent they resolve issues of law. 2 The issue of jurisdiction over such appeals, in the summary judgment setting, has been the subject of significant controversy, one addressed recently both by the Supreme Court and this circuit. The predicates for determining whether review is appropriate are intertwined with the qualified immunity analysis, requiring application of a two-part test. A plaintiff bears the burden of showing that: (1) the defendants' actions violated a constitutional or statutory right; and (2) the right was clearly established and reasonable persons in the defendants' position would have known their conduct violated that right. 3
9 In applying the qualified immunity standard, the Supreme Court has directed that appellate courts may not review a district court's resolution of disputed facts, but may review only purely legal determinations. 4 Consistent therewith, we have noted that the scope of an interlocutory appeal from a denial of qualified immunity is limited to: 10 purely legal challenges to the district court's ruling on whether a plaintiff's legal rights were clearly established, and cannot include attacks on the court's evidence sufficiency determinations about whether there are genuine disputes of fact. That is, we can only review whether the district court mistakenly identified clearly established law...given [] the facts that the district court assumed when it denied summary judgment for that (purely legal) reason. 5 11 Accordingly, we may review the trial court's ruling as to whether the law was clearly established, but we lack authority to the extent that Defendants [ ] seek interlocutory review of the district court's ruling that genuine disputes of fact precluded summary judgment based on qualified immunity. 6 12 Applying that rubric herein, the first part of the trial court's decision found sufficient facts to support a claimed violation of appellee's fourth amendment rights. We therefore lack jurisdiction over the portion of the appealed decision precluding summary judgment based on disputed facts relating to a constitutional violation.
13 The district court also found, in applying the second part of the test, that the constitutional right allegedly violated was clearly established and that defendants acted unreasonably. This portion of the ruling decides an issue of law over which we have interlocutory appellate jurisdiction. 14 We review de novo the decision that the decedent's rights were clearly established. 7 Ordinarily, in order for the law to be clearly established, there must be a Supreme Court or Tenth Circuit decision on point, or the clearly established weight of authority from other courts must have found the law to be as the plaintiff maintains. 8 The plaintiff is not required to show, however, that the very act in question previously was held unlawful in order to establish an absence of qualified immunity. 9 15 The district court correctly noted that the issue at bar involves excessive force under the fourth amendment. [C]laims that law enforcement officials have used excessive force in the course of an arrest, investigatory stop or other `seizure' of a free citizen are most properly characterized as involving the protection of the Fourth Amendment. 10 In Mick v. Brewer, we upheld the denial of summary judgment, concluding that the district court did not err by ruling that the law governing excessive force cases was clearly established on June 18, 1992. 11 We therein held that the fourth amendment reasonableness inquiry turned on whether the officers' actions were objectively reasonable in light of the facts and circumstances confronting them, without regard for their underlying intent or motivation. 12 While Mick unqualifiedly denotes that objectively unreasonable actions by officers constitute a violation of an individual's constitutional rights, it remains for us to determine whether the contours of this fourth amendment right were sufficiently clear that reasonable persons in the officers' position would have known their conduct violated that right. 13 16 The conduct at issue involves the tying of the decedent's arms behind his back, binding his ankles together, securing his ankles to his wrists, and then placing him face down on the ground. We note that while sister circuits may characterize the hog-tie restraint somewhat differently, we understand such to involve the binding of the ankles to the wrists, behind the back, with 12 inches or less of separation. 14 We have not heretofore ruled on the validity of this type of restraint. We do not reach the question whether all hog-tie restraints constitute a constitutional violation per se, but hold that officers may not apply this technique when an individual's diminished capacity is apparent. This diminished capacity might result from severe intoxication, the influence of controlled substances, a discernible mental condition, or any other condition, apparent to the officers at the time, which would make the application of a hog-tie restraint likely to result in any significant risk to the individual's health or well-being. In such situations, an individual's condition mandates the use of less restrictive means for physical restraint. 17 A review of the known dangers of the hog-tie restraint supports this position. Initially, case law informs of tragic examples of positional asphyxia stemming from the hog-tie restraint, especially in instances involving individuals of diminished capacity. In Gutierrez v. San Antonio, discussed below, the Fifth Circuit found that a 1992 San Diego Police Study presented sufficient evidence that hog-tying may create a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury. 15 In Johnson v. City of Cincinnati, the Southern District of Ohio found sufficient information existed in the law enforcement community to put the authorities on notice that positional asphyxia was a problem nationwide. 16 In the civil arena, a Michigan jury awarded a significant verdict to the family of a mentally ill patient who died after officers applied a kick-stop restraint analogous to a hog-tie. 17 We recognize that in Price v. San Diego, 18 the district court rejected the validity of a popular study connecting positional asphyxia with placement in a prone restraint. Instead, the court relied on another study, one by appellants' expert herein, concluding that hog-tying does not result in positional asphyxia. That study, however, is not persuasive herein for it focused on healthy adult males. Our holding today relates to individuals with an apparent and discernible diminished capacity. 19 18 In addition to the case law highlighting problems associated with the hog-tie restraint, appellee provided the district court with numerous articles and other materials discussing sudden custody death syndrome and noting the relationship between improper restraints and positional asphyxia. The articles detail the breathing problems created by pressure on the back and placement in a prone position, especially when an individual is in a state of excited delirium. These breathing problems lead to asphyxiation. The materials provided to the district court include police handbooks, Justice Department symposia, various journals and periodicals, and newspaper articles detailing deaths of individuals while in custody. Given the extent of the case law, and the legally-related literature available to law enforcement personnel detailing the serious dangers involved in application of the hog-tie restraint, it is apparent that officers should use much caution in applying the hog-tie restraint. In those instances in which it may be appropriate, such restraint should be used with great care and continual observation of the well being of the subject. 19 Turning to the case at bar, the decedent's diminished capacity was apparent to the officers from the moment they arrived on the scene. Officer Jensen arrived first, and upon seeing Cruz naked and yelling on the stairs, called for back up. Officer Noel arrived about 30 seconds later, saw Cruz on the stairway and Jenson below, and immediately radioed dispatch requesting an ambulance and additional back-up. Cruz was yelling continuously about swarming insects, and he was swatting at invisible objects. After Officer Fritzen applied the hand-ankle restraint, Officer Michel opened Cruz's eyelid and observed that the pupil was constricted but did not constrict further in response to sunlight. The officers surmised that Cruz was on some type of drug. It seems beyond peradventure that Cruz's diminished capacity was apparent to them both before and after they applied the restraint. We conclude and hold that the fourth amendment protection against excessive force includes the protection of an individual's right to be free from a hog-tie restraint in situations such as the one confronting the officers herein. 20 While the use of a hog-tie restraint in this case falls within the rule we announce today, we cannot say, however, that a rule prohibiting such a restraint in this situation was clearly established at the time of this unfortunate incident. The decisions from other circuit and district courts fall shy of the mandated clearly established weight of authority from other courts. 20 We find informative the Fifth Circuit's reasoning in Gutierrez v. City of San Antonio, 21 involving a man placed in a hog-tie restraint who died in the back seat of a patrol car while officers transported him to the hospital. 22 The court denied qualified immunity because plaintiff demonstrated material disputes of fact relating to the officers' knowledge of decedent's drug use, whether officers' placed decedent face-down in their squad car, and whether the San Antonio Police Department warned its officers of the possible dangers of hog-tying prior to November 1994. 23 While the facts in Gutierrez are similar to those at bar, this ruling does not suffice to satisfy the strict requirements governing qualified immunity. It must be viewed in the total jurisprudential setting which includes the Eighth Circuit decision upholding the use of what it called a hobble restraint, 24 and the Southern District of California opining that the hog-tie restraint in and of itself does not constitute excessive force.... 25 We perforce therefore cannot say that at the time of this tragic incident the decedent had a clearly established right to be free from a hog-tie restraint under the circumstances. Accordingly, we must reverse the district court's denial of summary judgment on plaintiff's fourth amendment claims.