Opinion ID: 774796
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Behrens v. Pelletier

Text: 33 In Behrens v. Pelletier, 516 U.S. 299, 307 (1996), the Supreme Court held that the collateral order doctrine permits successive interlocutory appeals of a district court's rulings denying qualified immunity. In Behrens, the district court had denied without prejudice the defendant's initial motion for dismissal or, in the alternative, for summary judgment, on the ground that summary judgment on qualified immunity was premature given the lack of discovery. Id. at 303. When the defendant renewed the motion following discovery, the district court again denied the motion, this time holding that material issues of fact precluded summary judgment. Id. at 304. The Ninth Circuit entertained the defendant's interlocutory appeal from the first ruling, but when defendant sought immediate appeal of the second ruling, the Ninth Circuit dismissed the appeal in light of its precedent permitting only one interlocutory appeal. Id. at 303-05. 34 The Supreme Court reversed the decision to dismiss the second appeal. Id. at 314. It said that qualified immunity gives government officials the right not only to avoid trial, but also to avoid pre-trial burdens like discovery that can be disruptive of government effectiveness; [w]hether or not a later summary judgment motion is granted, denial of a motion to dismiss is conclusive as to this right. Id. at 308. As a result, the Ninth Circuit's one-appeal rule improperly forced government officials to choose between the right to avoid discovery and the right to avoid trial, when the qualified immunity doctrine set forth in Harlow and Mitchell encompassed both rights, thereby supporting a separate appeal to protect each right. See id. at 308-09. Behrens further noted that such successive pre-trial appeals typically will not be redundant, since motions for dismissal and for summary judgment follow different legal standards, and that the potential for abusive delays of proceedings was minimal. Id. at 309-10. The Court concluded, an order denying qualified immunity, to the extent it turns on an 'issue of law,' is immediately appealable. Id. at 311 (quoting Mitchell, 472 U.S. at 530). 35 We think Behrens casts considerable doubt on the continued viability of our decision in Whalen v. County of Fulton, 19 F.3d 828 (2d Cir. 1994). In that case we dismissed an intermediate appeal in light of the district court's denial of the qualified immunity motion with the use of the phrase without prejudice, believing that such denial did not conclusively determine the issue of immunity and therefore did not impinge on the right to avoid the trial itself. Id. at 830-31. Behrens now teaches us that such appeals should be permitted because denials of immunity are conclusive with regard to a defendant's right to avoid pre- trial discovery, so long as the validity of the denial of the qualified immunity defense can be decided as a matter of law in light of the record on appeal. 516 U.S. at 308.