Opinion ID: 779208
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: 11 Before proceeding to the merits of Officer Wheeler's arguments, we must first determine whether this court has jurisdiction to hear Wheeler's interlocutory appeal. Ordinarily, the denial of a defendant's motion for summary judgment is not an appealable order because it is not a final decision of the trial court. 28 U.S.C. § 1291; Coady v. Steil, 187 F.3d 727, 730 (7th Cir.1999); Rambo v. Daley, 68 F.3d 203, 205 (7th Cir.1995). The Supreme Court has articulated one narrow exception to the finality rule: the collateral order doctrine. Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 546, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949); Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463, 467, 98 S.Ct. 2454, 57 L.Ed.2d 351 (1978). The collateral order doctrine applies to interlocutory orders that conclusively determine the disputed question, resolve an important issue completely separate from the merits of the action, and [are] effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment. Coopers & Lybrand, 437 U.S. at 468, 98 S.Ct. 2454. The denial of a defendant's motion for summary judgment is an immediately appealable collateral order where the defendant was a public official asserting qualified immunity. Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 528-30, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985). 12 But this does not carry the day for Wheeler, for he failed to appeal Judge Dillin's October 4, 2000, denial of his summary judgment motion asserting qualified immunity. Instead, Wheeler waited more than ten (10) months after Judge Dillin initially rejected his qualified immunity defense and sought leave from Judge Young to raise the defense again. We are well aware of the rule that a second appeal under the collateral order doctrine is permissible with respect to qualified immunity claims. See Behrens v. Pelletier, 516 U.S. 299, 116 S.Ct. 834, 133 L.Ed.2d 773 (1996); Bakalis v. Golembeski, 125 F.3d 576 (7th Cir.1997). Behrens, however, is inapplicable to the case at hand. The Supreme Court's holding in Behrens allowed defendants to renew their motions for summary judgment when the factual predicates of that defense developed as discovery progressed, reasoning that the qualified immunity defense might mature as the litigation progressed and the defendant ought to be able to receive the full protections of the qualified immunity doctrine as factual information was developed. This is not such a case. Wheeler presented the trial court with no additional facts collected during discovery. Contrary to the scenario envisioned in Behrens where additional facts gleaned from discovery bolstered a qualified immunity defense, the only additional facts discovered by either party during the time period between Wheeler's two motions related to the IPD's forensics experts' deposition testimony that the entry and exit wounds on the deceased's body were inconsistent with Wheeler's version of events. Rather than strengthen Wheeler's claim for qualified immunity, these new facts only seem to cast further doubt on his credibility and recitation of the version of events of the night of August 29, 1996. 13 Instead, the basis of Wheeler's request to renew his summary judgment motion was that the controlling legal standard had changed since he initially pressed his qualified immunity defense. Of course, a trial court may, in the exercise of its discretion, allow a party to renew a previously denied summary judgment motion. Whitford v. Boglino, 63 F.3d 527, 530 (7th Cir.1995); Kirby v. P.R. Mallory & Co., 489 F.2d 904, 913 (7th Cir.1973). A renewed summary judgment motion is appropriate if one of the following grounds exist: (1) an intervening change in the controlling law; (2) the availability of new evidence or an expanded factual record; and (3) need to correct a clear error or prevent manifest injustice. Whitford, 63 F.3d at 530. 14 In this instance, defendant Wheeler claims that Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (June 18, 2001), worked a fundamental change in the law of qualified immunity that should allow him to reopen his motion for summary judgment. But defendant Wheeler overstates the import of Saucier. Saucier was not a hallmark reformulation of the qualified immunity analysis. Instead, Saucier stressed that a trial court must engage in the two-part qualified immunity analysis (asking first whether a constitutional right was violated and second whether that right was clearly established) before it engages in other analysis. Id. at 200-01, 121 S.Ct. 2151. Judge Dillin did just that when he expressly noted that Garner governed an officer's use of deadly force and that if Wheeler's version of events were believable, then in that instance he would be entitled to qualified immunity. Judge Dillin, however, found that Officer Wheeler's version of events was less than credible and therefore that the plaintiffs had established that a reasonable officer could not have believed his action (fatally shooting an unarmed suspect) to be reasonable. Thus, Judge Dillin did engage in the two-part qualified immunity test required by Saucier. 15 In Justice v. Town of Blackwell, 820 F.2d 238 (7th Cir.1987), we declined to accept jurisdiction over an interlocutory appeal from the denial of a motion to amend the answer to include the defense of qualified immunity. In that case, the trial judge did not address the merits of the qualified immunity defense, but instead denied the motion because of the lengthy delay between the filing of the defendant's answer and the motion to amend. We think the case before us is analogous: Wheeler never appealed from Judge Dillin's denial of his claim of qualified immunity and instead waited nearly a year before seeking leave to renew that claim (notwithstanding the fact that the facts of the case had not changed). The Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure allot 30 days time for Wheeler to have filed a notice of appeal, and the time for Wheeler to appeal Judge Dillin's denial of his qualified immunity motion has long since passed. See Fed. R.App. P. 4(a). Given Wheeler's tardiness in renewing his motion for summary judgment (he waited nearly ten months after it was denied and nearly two months after Saucier was issued to renew it), we think that this appeal does not fall within the ambit of the collateral order doctrine allowing for appeals from the denials of qualified immunity. As Judge Young astutely commented, this case is old and needs to be tried. 16 But there is another reason to decline to exercise jurisdiction over Wheeler's appeal. Mitchell held that a district court's denial of a claim of qualified immunity, to the extent that it turns on an issue of law, is an appealable `final decision' within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1291 notwithstanding the absence of a final judgment. (emphasis added). 472 U.S. at 530, 105 S.Ct. 2806. In other words the collateral order doctrine does not permit an immediate appeal of a trial court's denial of qualified immunity when the court's summary judgment order rests on a determination that there are genuine issues of fact requiring a trial. Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 319-320, 115 S.Ct. 2151, 132 L.Ed.2d 238 (1995); see also Taboas v. Mlynczak, 149 F.3d 576, 579; Bakalis, 125 F.3d at 578; Rambo, 68 F.3d at 207. If the district court's order rests on the existence of disputed factual issues, rather than on issues of law, the collateral order doctrine does not permit an immediate appeal from that decision. Taboas, 149 F.3d at 579. 17 Wheeler suggests that his appeal turns upon an issue of law and that there are no disputed facts. Wheeler's characterization that his dispute is legal, rather than factual, is less than accurate. In the underlying denial of summary judgment, Judge Dillin clearly held that if the finder of fact believes that no struggle took place and that [Garvin] never drew a gun, the reasonableness of Officer Wheeler's use of deadly force becomes questionable. Judge Dillin went on to rule that issues regarding Wheeler's credibility made it possible that a fact finder could believe the plaintiffs' version of events, in which Wheeler resorted to the use of deadly force on a suspect who had not committed or threatened any act of violence. Wheeler does not contend, nor could he, that under the plaintiffs' version of the facts his actions could be considered objectively reasonable. Tennessee v. Garner clearly does not allow police officers to use deadly force on unarmed burglary suspects who have neither threatened the officer with a weapon nor committed a crime involving the infliction of serious physical harm. 471 U.S. 1, 11, 105 S.Ct. 1694, 85 L.Ed.2d 1 (1985). The essential dispute, therefore, concerns whether Officer Wheeler's or the plaintiffs' version of the facts is true. 18 In short, if the factfinder were to accept Officer Wheeler's version of the events, he would be entitled to qualified immunity, for it is objectively reasonable for a police officer to defend himself when a suspect aims a weapon at him. But under the plaintiffs' version of the facts, where no struggle occurred, Officer Wheeler shot a suspect who was neither armed nor resisting. As Judge Dillin found, there were a number of inconsistencies in Wheeler's recitation of events, which in turn called into question his credibility. For example, police, after a thorough inspection, failed to find even a single partial print on the gun Garvin allegedly aimed at him. Wheeler's deposition testimony, which conflicted with that of other officers reporting to the scene of the crime (particularly with respect to the direction Wheeler claimed Garvin had been heading), dealt another blow to his credibility. Finally and perhaps most damaging to Wheeler's credibility, the entry and exit wounds on Garvin's body were inconsistent with Wheeler's description of the shooting according to the IPD's forensic scientists. Judge Dillin correctly observed that this is a factual, not a legal, dispute. We have consistently held that a cry of I didn't do it does not present any distinctly legal issue or seek protection from legal uncertainty, and therefore cannot be raised in an interlocutory appeal from the denial of qualified immunity. Taboas, 149 F.3d at 579; Gorman v. Robinson, 977 F.2d 350, 354-55 (7th Cir.1992); Elliott v. Thomas, 937 F.2d 338, 342-43 (7th Cir.1991). Mitchell does not allow us to hear disputes on interlocutory appeal regarding which facts the parties might be able to prove at trial. 472 U.S. at 530, 105 S.Ct. 2806; see also Johnson, 515 U.S. at 319-20, 115 S.Ct. 2151 19 Wheeler had a thirty-day window in which to file a notice of appeal challenging Judge Dillin's legal conclusions regarding his motion for summary judgment and he failed to do so. We are without jurisdiction to hear his belated appeal. For the foregoing reasons, we DISMISS the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.