Opinion ID: 3154974
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Our Limited Jurisdiction

Text: Qualified immunity “protects government officials ‘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.’” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982)). This protection applies to “all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.” Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341 (1986). We review de novo a district court’s denial of a summary judgment motion raising qualified immunity. Gross v. Pirtle, 245 F.3d 1151, 1155 (10th Cir. 2001). Because qualified immunity establishes “immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability,” Lewis v. Tripp, 604 F.3d 1221, 1225 (10th Cir. 2010) (internal quotations and citation omitted), a district court’s denial of a claim of qualified immunity is immediately appealable under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530 (1985). Our jurisdiction, however, is limited to whether the facts of the case constituted a violation of clearly established law. Clark v. Wilson, 625 F.3d 686, 689 (10th Cir. 2010). We lack jurisdiction if the district court denied qualified immunity based only on evidence sufficiency. Gross, 245 F.3d at 1156. Plaintiffs argue that we lack jurisdiction to hear this appeal because the district court’s order relied on disputes of material facts and not questions of law. -7- But if the district court inadequately explains the factual basis for its decision, we have the authority to “review the entire record de novo to determine for ourselves as a matter of law which factual inferences a reasonable jury could and could not make.” Lewis, 604 F.3d at 1225. Invoking this, Defendants argue that the district court did not sufficiently identify the facts supporting its conclusion. Therefore, they argue, we should perform an independent review of the record. We find that unnecessary. The district court made clear that it based its decision on disputed facts and, despite its brief explanation, 6 sufficiently established for us what the operative facts were. Regardless, we have jurisdiction to hear the individual Defendants’ appeals. In reaching our decision, we are not “second-guessing the district court’s determinations of evidence sufficiency.” 6 The court explained why it “did not ‘address all arguments, evidence and matters presented by parties. . .’”: “Given the fact that for nearly four years, the Court has had one and sometimes two vacancies out of six authorized district judge positions, the Court encourages the parties to contact their United States Senators Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran to address this Court’s inability to accommodate their request for more plenary work product.” The court also noted that: It is an overstatement to say it is only fair that the more people use a resource, the more they should pay for it. This axiom makes sense regarding electricity; not so much regarding the federal court system. But judicial resources are finite. At some point, increasing caseloads [and decreasing judicial resources] detrimentally affect the level of service . . . that . . . federal judges provide. Id. (alterations in original) (quoting David R. Cohen, Special Masters Versus Magistrate Judges: No Contest, Fed. Law., Sept. 2014, at 76). -8- Gross, 245 F.3d at 1157 (citing Behrens v. Pelletier, 516 U.S. 299, 312–13 (1996)). Rather, “under any view of the facts,” we cannot say that Defendants violated Plaintiffs’ clearly established rights. See Armijo ex rel. Armijo Sanchez v. Peterson, 601 F.3d 1065, 1067–68 (10th Cir. 2010).