Opinion ID: 1288094
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Subjective Motivation

Text: Through the second certified question, we are asked to decide whether the subjective motivations of a police officer are relevant to a qualified immunity analysis. In framing this question, the trial court expressly limited the issue of motivation to three particular claims asserted by Ms. Robinson in her amended complaint: (1) unreasonable search and seizure; (2) unlawful detention; and (3) excessive force. [9] In seeking relief for these three claims, Appellee relies upon various provisions of the state constitution. [10] Borrowing from the approach used by the federal courts, this Court employs an objective test for evaluating official conduct under our immunity statutes. Hutchison, 198 W.Va. at 148, 479 S.E.2d at 658. The general immunity standard that we adopted in our syllabus of Bennett v. Coffman, 178 W.Va. 500, 361 S.E.2d 465 (1987), is the standard first employed by the United States Supreme Court in Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982): Government officials performing discretionary functions are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. The objective nature of the standard by which we extend qualified immunity to government officials was confirmed in State v. Chase Securities, Inc., 188 W.Va. 356, 424 S.E.2d 591 (1992). In that decision, we affirmed that immunity from personal liability exists if the involved conduct did not violate clearly established laws of which a reasonable official would have known. Where, however, the cause of action involves acts [that] are fraudulent, malicious, or otherwise oppressive, we recognized that qualified immunity is not available. Id. at 357, 424 S.E.2d at 592, syllabus, in part. In reviewing the development of immunity law with regard to public officials in Chase Securities, Justice Miller discussed the need for our state law in this area to conform with federal law. One reason for having a uniform approach to immunity law stems from the fact that federal law is controlling when public officials are sued in state court for violations of federal rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. [11] 188 W.Va. at 359-60, 424 S.E.2d at 594-95; see also State v. Jones, 193 W.Va. 378, 382 n. 6, 456 S.E.2d 459, 463 n. 6 (1995) (recognizing that we have traditionally interpreted this section [W.Va. Const. art. III, section 6, prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures] in harmony with federal case law construing the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution). Federal law leaves no question that the subjective motivations of a police officer are immaterial to a determination of whether qualified immunity exists in connection with allegations of unreasonable search and seizure, unlawful detention, and excessive force. See Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 641, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987) (holding that officer's subjective beliefs are irrelevant when evaluating the reasonableness of his actions). As the United States Supreme Court reasoned in Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989): [T]he reasonableness inquiry in an excessive force case is an objective one: the question is whether the officers' actions are objectively reasonable in light of the facts and circumstances confronting them, without regard to their underlying intent or motivation.... An officer's evil intentions will not make a Fourth Amendment violation out of an objectively reasonable use of force; nor will an officer's good intentions make an objectively unreasonable use of force constitutional. Id. at 397, 109 S.Ct. 1865; accord Whren v. U.S., 517 U.S. 806, 813, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 135 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996) (stating that [s]ubjective intentions play no role in ordinary, probable-cause Fourth Amendment analysis); Rowland v. Perry, 41 F.3d 167, 173 (4 th Cir. 1994) (finding that officer's subjective state of mind is not relevant to the qualified immunity inquiry). In S.P. v. City of Takoma Park, 134 F.3d 260 (4th Cir.1998), a factually apposite decision that involved the involuntary seizure and transporting of an individual for an emergency psychiatric evaluation by law enforcement officers, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals examined whether qualified immunity applied to the actions taken by the police. Similar to what occurred in this case, a third party's [12] call to a dispatcher raised concern that the plaintiff was in danger of harming herself and in need of police assistance. Id. at 264. Based on the plaintiff's agitated mental state when the police arrived, she was handcuffed, removed from her home, and taken for an emergency evaluation. After two emergency room physicians examined the plaintiff, she was involuntarily admitted for further psychiatric evaluation and care. [13] S.P., 134 F.3d at 265. At issue in S.P. was whether the district court correctly determined that the defendant police officers were entitled to qualified immunity based on the plaintiff's failure to demonstrate that the officers' actions in seizing and detaining her were against established law. 134 F.3d at 263. The plaintiff argued that the police officers had violated her right to be free from seizure for the purpose of medical treatment absent probable cause to believe she suffered from a mental disorder, posed a danger of harm to herself, and that there was no less restrictive alternative available. 134 F.3d at 265-66. After examining whether the police officers' actions met the test of objective legal reasonableness... assessed in light of the legal rules that were clearly established, the Fourth Circuit ruled in S.P. that [r]easonable officers ... would have concluded that involuntarily detaining [plaintiff] Peller was not only reasonable, but prudent. Id. at 266-67 (omitting internal quotation marks). Dispelling the notion that the defense of qualified immunity can be affected by the mental state of the arresting officers, the court found the officers' lack of knowledge that probable cause was needed to effectuate a lawful detention to be incorporeal. 134 F.3d at 268 n. 5; see also Telepo v. Palmer Township, 40 F.Supp.2d 596, 605 (E.D.Pa. 1999) (refusing to deny immunity to police officers based on alleged retaliatory motivation for execution of domestic order because the qualified immunity inquiry is an objective one, which asks how a reasonable officer would have acted under these circumstances). As support for her position, Appellee maintains that this Court has previously dealt with and summarily rejected the argument that subjective motivations are not relevant to an immunity inquiry. In Neiswonger v. Hennessey, 215 W.Va. 749, 601 S.E.2d 69 (2004), a case in which personal injury resulted during a burglary investigation, we reviewed the trial court's dismissal of the plaintiffs' state law claims [14] based on a district court's prior dismissal of the section 1983 action. [15] In deciding that the trial court wrongly relied upon collateral estoppel to dismiss the plaintiffs' state law claims, we reasoned: In the present case, the appellants [plaintiffs] claim that Officer Hennessey and the Morgantown City Police Department committed torts as those torts are defined by West Virginia law, and as they are legally cognizable by West Virginia's courts. Whether the torts have been committed depends upon the intent of the alleged tortfeasor, his recklessness, and whether he followed the prescribed standard of care. Whether the torts have been committed, thus, depends potentially upon the character of the alleged tortfeasor's conduct and upon his state of mind. In the federal action involved in the present case, the federal court looked at the character of the alleged tortfeasors' actions to determine only whether they were objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment guarantee that an individual be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The federal court did not consider whether the alleged tortfeasors' conduct constituted torts as defined by West Virginia law. 215 W.Va. at 753, 601 S.E.2d at 73. Appellee's reliance on the quoted language from Neiswonger is misplaced. While that language addresses the relevance of the alleged tortfeasor's state of mind to various torts, the second certified question is framed solely in terms of asking whether the subjective motivations of a governmental officer are relevant to Appellee's constitutionally-based claims. [16] Because the trial court did not ask us to decide whether subjective motivations are material to the tort claims brought by Ms. Robinson, Neiswonger is not relevant to the issues presented by the second certified question. In line with clear federal authority and our prior rulings recognizing that the objective legal reasonableness of questioned actions in light of clearly established law is the test for evaluating conduct for purposes of an immunity analysis, we hold that the subjective motivations of a police officer are not relevant to a determination of whether qualified immunity exists in connection with allegations of an unreasonable search and seizure, an unlawful detention, or the use of excessive force. See Hutchison, 198 W.Va. at 148-49, 479 S.E.2d at 658-59. Based on this determination, we answer the second certified question in the negative.