Opinion ID: 3155206
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Alleged Incompetence

Text: The plaintiffs argue that the trial court failed to recognize that Sheehan’s “plain incompetence” precludes her qualified immunity defense. As evidence of Sheehan’s incompetence, they point to her failure to know “the black letter law in effect at the time of the [disputed] transaction” as well as the trial court’s findings that Sheehan was unfamiliar with certain basic aspects of the subject matter she was assigned to investigate and was “not qualified to handle the level of sophistication necessary to investigate real estate installment contracts, or make affirmative representations concerning real estate sales to a district court judge.” Based upon this evidence, they contend that Sheehan should have been denied the protection of qualified immunity. The defendants counter that the record does not establish that Sheehan was incompetent. Instead, they argue that, “[i]n light of the [Department’s] understanding of how the term ‘mortgage banker’ was defined,” reasonably competent bank examiners could disagree as to whether Sheehan’s statements were accurate. Therefore, they contend that immunity is not precluded. Defendants will not be entitled to qualified immunity “if, on an objective basis, it is obvious that no reasonably competent” official would have made the disputed error; “but if [officials] of reasonable competence could disagree on [the] issue, immunity should be recognized.” Malley, 475 U.S. at 341. As explained above, this standard focuses upon the facts of the particular case and whether a reasonable defendant would have understood that her conduct violated the plaintiffs’ rights, as well as the clarity of the law at the time of the alleged violation. See Conrad, 167 N.H. at 73. “This is not to say that an official action is protected by qualified immunity unless the very action in question has previously been held unlawful, but it is to say that in the light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness must be apparent.” Anderson, 483 U.S. at 640 (citation omitted). There need not be a “case directly on point, but existing precedent must have placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond debate.” Ashcroft v. Al-Kidd, 131 S. Ct. 2074, 2083 (2011). We cannot say that the law was clearly established at the time of the alleged violation so that officials of reasonable competence could not disagree on the issue of whether Frost was acting as “mortgage banker” at the time of 6 the Recio mortgage transaction. Sheehan made her statements that Frost was acting as a “mortgage banker” in February 2010, before we decided Frost, Frost, 163 N.H. at 376-77, and after RSA chapter 397-A was amended to provide that “‘mortgage lender’ means mortgage banker,” see RSA 397-A:1, XIII-a. Thus, when she made her statements, “mortgage banker” and “mortgage lender” were arguably synonymous terms. Accordingly, we conclude that the trial court did not err in determining that Sheehan was not precluded from entitlement to qualified immunity.