Opinion ID: 6931624
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: qualified immunity law

Text: Chief Anderson, Corporal McKinley, Officer Roberson, and Officer Riebeling contend that they are entitled to qualified immunity insofar as the claims against them in their individual capacities are concerned. The denial of qualified immunity is a question of law reviewed de novo. Swint v. City of Wadley, 5 F.3d 1435, 1441 (11th Cir.1993), modified, 11 F.3d 1030 (11th Cir.), cert. granted, — U.S. -, 114 S.Ct. 2671, 129 L.Ed.2d 808 (1994). “Qualified immunity protects government officials performing discretionary functions from civil trials (and the other burdens of litigation, including discovery) and from liability if their conduct violates no ‘clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.’” Lassiter v. Alabama A & M Urdu, 28 F.3d 1146, 1149 (11th Cir.1994) (en banc) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982)). There is no dispute that the defendants’ allegedly unconstitutional actions fell within their discretionary authority. Thus, to overcome the defendants’ qualified immunity, Mrs. Belcher must establish that the defendants’ conduct violated a “‘clearly established statutory or constitutional right[ ] of which a reasonable person would have known.’” Id. In satisfying this burden, the plaintiff cannot point to sweeping propositions of law and simply posit that those propositions are applicable. Instead, the plaintiff must draw the court’s attention toward a more particularized and fact-specific inquiry ... showing] that there existed sufficient case law establishing the contours of his or her constitutional rights such that the unlawfulness of the defendant’s conduct would have been apparent to a reasonable official in the same circumstances.... If no such case law exists, then the defendant is entitled to qualified immunity. Nicholson v. Georgia Dept. of Human Resources, 918 F.2d 145, 147 (11th Cir.1990) (citations omitted); see also Barts v. Joyner, 865 F.2d 1187, 1190 (11th Cir.1989) (“[P]lain-tiffs must prove the existence of a clear, factually defined, well-recognized right of which a reasonable police officer should have known.... The right must be sufficiently particularized to put potential defendants on notice that their conduct probably is unlawful.” (First emphasis added.)) “Unless a government agent’s act is so obviously wrong, in the light of pre-existing law, that only a plainly incompetent officer or one who was knowingly violating the law would have done such a thing, the government actor has immunity from suit.” Lassiter, 28 F.3d at 1149 (citing Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341-43, 106 S.Ct. 1092, 1096-97, 89 L.Ed.2d 271 (1986)). Thus: When considering whether the law applicable to certain facts is clearly established, the facts of cases relied upon as precedent are important. The facts need not be the same as the facts of the immediate case. But they do need to be materially similar. See, e.g., Edwards v. Gilbert, 867 F.2d 1271, 1277 (11th Cir.1989). Public officials are not obligated to be creative or imaginative in drawing analogies from previously decided cases. Adams v. St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Dept., 962 F.2d 1563, 1575 (11th Cir.1992) (Edmondson, J., dissenting), approved en banc, 998 F.2d 923 (11th Cir.1992). “For qualified immunity to be surrendered, preexisting law must dictate, that is, truly compel (not just suggest or allow or raise a question about), the conclusion for every like-situated, reasonable government agent that what defendant is doing violates federal law in the circumstances.” Lassiter, 28 F.3d at 1150.