Opinion ID: 2748558
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Legal Standard – Qualified Immunity

Text: The plaintiff argues that the trial court “violated the correct standard of review required when conducting a qualified immunity inquiry after a jury verdict.” He asserts that in a Fourth Amendment case “[w]hen a defense of qualified immunity is pressed after a jury verdict, . . . the evidence must be construed in the light most hospitable to the party that prevailed at trial,” and 9 “deference should be accorded to the jury’s discernible resolution of disputed factual issues,” quoting Jennings v. Jones, 499 F.3d 1, 7 (1st Cir. 2007) (emphasis and quotations omitted). According to the plaintiff, “[t]he postverdict standard of review requires the trial court to give deference to the jury’s determination of facts that should be controlling in the immunity analysis” and, therefore, “the trial court is required to apply those findings of fact in conducting the immunity analysis.” (Emphases omitted.) In response, the defendants argue that the plaintiff’s “assertion that the jury was instructed on the immunity issue and found that the defendants could not have reasonably believed it was lawful to detain [him] is incorrect.” The defendants assert that “[w]hile the facts are considered in the light most favorable to the [p]laintiff, the immunity question was for only the trial court to decide.” (Emphasis omitted.) Thus, they contend, “the question on appeal is not whether the jury could have found that the Defendants did not reasonably believe their conduct to be lawful, but rather whether the trial court could have found that the Defendants reasonably believed that their conduct was lawful.” (Emphases omitted.) As the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has observed regarding claims of qualified immunity under federal law, “the Supreme Court has not clearly indicated whether the judge may act as fact-finder when there is a factual dispute underlying the qualified immunity defense or whether this function must be fulfilled by a jury.” Kelley v. LaForce, 288 F.3d 1, 7 n.2 (1st Cir. 2002). The trial court concluded that it “need not resolve this issue . . . because the plaintiff cannot prevail on the immunity issue on the evidence presented” during the jury trial. Accordingly, after explicitly noting that the plaintiff had met his burden at trial of proving the elements of false imprisonment, the trial court proceeded to “bas[e] its [immunity] analysis on the trial record viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.” We find no error in the standard applied by the trial court.