Opinion ID: 1208626
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Of Appealability and Qualified Immunity

Text: It is the District Court's denial of qualified immunity that permits the defendants to bring this appeal to us as an exception to the rule of finality. See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985) ([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.) Interlocutory appeal in this sort of case is not permitted if the district court's denial of summary judgment for qualified immunity rests on a finding that there were material facts in dispute. Genas v. N.Y. Dep't of Corr. Servs., 75 F.3d 825, 830 (2d Cir.1996). The Supreme Court teaches that a district court's summary judgment order that, though entered in a `qualified immunity' case, determines only a question of `evidence sufficiency,' i.e., which facts a party may, or may not, be able to prove at trial ... is not appealable. Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 313, 115 S.Ct. 2151, 132 L.Ed.2d 238 (1995). Despite the bar to appealability that factual issues may provide in the qualified immunity context, we have observed that as long as the defendant can support an immunity defense on stipulated facts, facts accepted for purposes of the appeal, or the plaintiff's version of the facts that the district court deemed available for jury resolution, an interlocutory appeal is available to assert that an immunity defense is established as a matter of law. Salim v. Proulx, 93 F.3d 86, 90 (2d Cir. 1996). We accept the plaintiffs' version of the facts in making our determination herein, as will be seen. Accordingly, we take jurisdiction over the district court's denial of defendants' motion for summary judgment to the extent that the motion is grounded in qualified immunity, and our review is de novo. See Jones v. Parmley, 465 F.3d 46, 55 (2d Cir.2006). Under the doctrine of qualified immunity, government officials performing discretionary functions generally are shielded 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. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). In assessing an officer's eligibility for the shield, the appropriate question is the objective inquiry whether a reasonable officer could have believed that [his actions were] lawful, in light of clearly established law and the information the officer[ ] possessed. Wilson v. Layne, 526 U.S. 603, 615, 119 S.Ct. 1692, 143 L.Ed.2d 818 (1999). Qualified immunity is also said to protect the government officer if it was `objectively reasonable' for him to believe that his actions were lawful at the time of the challenged act. Lennon v. Miller, 66 F.3d 416, 420 (2d Cir.1995) (citing Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 641, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987)); see also Martinez v. Simonetti, 202 F.3d 625, 633-34 (2d Cir. 2000).