Opinion ID: 168392
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Privacy Interest as Clearly Established

Text: 20 To defeat defendant's qualified immunity claim, Ms. Anderson must also demonstrate that her privacy interest in the video was clearly established at the time the officer disclosed it. See Mimics, Inc. v. Village of Angel Fire, 394 F.3d 836, 841 (10th Cir.2005). The contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. Hope, 536 U.S. at 739, 122 S.Ct. 2508 (internal quotations and citations omitted). Because we do not require precise factual correspondence between the cases establishing the law and the case at hand, Eastwood, 846 F.2d at 630, [i]t is incumbent upon government officials to relate established law to analogous factual settings, id. (internal quotation and citation omitted). 21 We think Ms. Anderson's privacy interest in the video (as challenged by Officer Blake in his motion to dismiss) was clearly established based on Sheets, Eastwood, Mangels, and Cumbey, all decided before the events here. These cases were sufficiently clear to the Sixth Circuit that it relied on them to form the basis of its holding in Bloch, also decided before the events here. These cases must be considered in the context of the Supreme Court's holding in Hope that a general constitutional rule that has already been established can apply with obvious clarity to the specific conduct in question, even though the very action in question has [not] previously been held unlawful. 536 U.S. at 741, 122 S.Ct. 2508 (internal quotations and citations omitted). 22 Because the district court relied primarily on Sheets, Officer Blake attempts to draw distinctions between Sheets and this case to demonstrate that Ms. Anderson's privacy interest was not clearly established. He distinguishes Sheets on three grounds: (1) the information conveyed in Sheets was linked to a spousal relationship, (2) the diary in Sheets was not evidence that could have been used in a criminal trial, (3) the disclosure in Sheets occurred after the criminal investigation had ended. Aplt. Br. at 13. While these factual distinctions between Sheets and the instant case are correct, they do not change the result here. Our cases do not indicate that information must be linked to a spousal relationship to be within the right to privacy. Instead, we have repeatedly held that whether information is within the right to privacy depends on the intimate or otherwise personal nature of the material which the state possesses. Sheets, 45 F.3d at 1387. Likewise, the usefulness of the information in a criminal proceeding and the timing of the disclosure bear on, but are not dispositive of, whether the government has a legitimate reason to disseminate information that is otherwise protected by the right to privacy. 23 We recognize that a plaintiff alleging improper disclosure of private information must also demonstrate that a defendant lacked a compelling interest to disclose the information and did not utilize the least intrusive means of disclosure. 3 But we think Ms. Anderson has satisfied her burden at this stage of the proceedings. Her complaint alleged [t]here was no compelling law enforcement or public interest that permitted the disclosure, release, and broadcast of the tape at this stage of the investigation ... in that the identity of the Attacker was already well known to the Police Department and Defendant Blake. Aplt.App. at 24 (Compl. ¶ 38). The complaint also asserts that the disclosure and broadcast of the tape were not accomplished in the least intrusive manner.... Id. The motion to dismiss did not address these allegations. At this stage of the proceedings, we will not require Ms. Anderson to disprove every possible compelling interest that Officer Blake might assert when he does not move for qualified immunity on this basis. See Currier v. Doran, 242 F.3d 905, 916-17 (10th Cir. 2001) (rejecting heightened pleading standard for qualified immunity). 24