Opinion ID: 437447
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Harlow v. Fitzgerald and Defendants' Qualified Immunity

Text: 96 After trial and entry of judgment in this case, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982), which altered the law of qualified immunity. 69 All defendants claim that the rule announced in Harlow applies to this case and requires judgment in their favor. While we agree that the principle announced in Harlow controls this case, we find that it does not require entry of judgment in favor of defendants. 97
98 Prior to Harlow, qualified immunity had both subjective and objective elements. The objective element involved a presumptive knowledge of and respect for basic, unquestioned constitutional rights. Wood v. Strickland, 420 U.S. 308, 322, 95 S.Ct. 992, 1001, 43 L.Ed.2d 214 (1975). The subjective element addressed the permissible intentions, id., or good faith of the Government actor. In other words, an official would not receive qualified immunity if he 99 knew or reasonably should have known that the action he took within his sphere of official responsibility would violate the constitutional rights of the [plaintiff] or if [the official] took the action with the malicious intention to cause a deprivation of constitutional rights or other injury. 100 Wood, 420 U.S. at 322, 95 S.Ct. at 1001. 101 The Supreme Court's decision to grant state 70 and federal 71 officers qualified, instead of absolute immunity reflected an attempt to balance competing values: not only the importance of a damages remedy to protect the rights of citizens ... but also 'the need to protect officials who are required to exercise their discretion and the related public interest in encouraging the vigorous exercise of official authority.'  Harlow, 457 U.S. at 807, 102 S.Ct. at 2733 (quoting Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S. 478, 506, 98 S.Ct. 2894, 2910, 57 L.Ed.2d 895 (1978)). By striking the balance in this manner, the Court determined that the need for damage remedies required rejection of an absolute immunity for federal officers. Yet, the fears remained that Government officials might be chary in the exercise of their most important public functions if constantly subject to discovery and trial over their discretionary decisions. To shield Government officers from undue interference, the Court admonished lower courts applying the qualified immunity standard to engage in firm application of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure [to] ensure that federal officials are not harassed by frivolous lawsuits, 72 and endorsed the idea of resolving the immunity issue of damage suits at the summary judgment stage. 73 102 Experience with the qualified immunity defense proved it to be often ineffective in resolving suits on summary judgment. If any factual dispute existed as to whether the official acted with malicious intent, or with a belief that a clear standard prohibited his conduct, that dispute required a subjective determination necessitating a trial. The need for such determinations thus frustrated the goal of terminating insubstantial lawsuits on summary judgment. National Black Police Association, Inc. v. Velde, 712 F.2d 569, 574 (D.C.Cir.1983), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 104 S.Ct. 2180, 80 L.Ed.2d 562 (1984). 103 Harlow redefined the qualified immunity defense to eliminate the subjective element. Under the new standard, 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, 457 U.S. at 818, 102 S.Ct. at 2738. The Court further explained, 104 If the law was clearly established, the immunity defense ordinarily should fail, since a reasonably competent public official should know the law governing his conduct. Nevertheless, if the official pleading the defense claims extraordinary circumstances and can prove that he neither knew nor should have known of the relevant legal standard, the defense should be sustained. But again, the defense would turn primarily on objective factors. 105 Id. at 818-19, 102 S.Ct. at 2739. In other words, if the trial judge determines that the law was not clearly established at the time the conduct occurred, the inquiry ceases and the official is entitled to summary judgment. If the law was clearly established, the Government actor is presumed to have known about it; unless he can bring forward undisputed facts establishing that because of extraordinary circumstances he neither knew nor should have known of the unlawfulness, summary judgment in his favor must be denied.
106 In applying the foregoing principles to this case, we conclude that the acts defendants were alleged to have committed violated fundamental and well-established constitutional rights, and that defendants are entitled neither to immunity nor, consequently, to reversal of the verdicts against them on this ground. 107 Our task, in applying Harlow, is to measure the constitutionality of the acts alleged in this action by reference to clearly established rights at the time the acts occurred. At first blush, the task as so stated appears simple and straightforward. A moment of reflection, however, reveals various uncertainties in the Harlow decision and exposes a test of some imprecision. It is not clear, for example, how a court should determine well-established rights: should our reference point be the opinions of the Supreme Court, the Courts of Appeals, District Courts, the state courts, or all of the foregoing? 74 Furthermore, it is unclear whether we must assure ourselves only of the existence of a constitutional right, such as the constitutional right of freedom of speech, or religion, at the relevant time. Alternatively, it might be claimed that a court must inquire more deeply into the constitutionality of the particular conduct of the Government actor, such as the legality of domestic national security warrantless wiretaps, 75 at a given time. Put another way, how broadly or narrowly defined is the right that must be well-established? 108 At the extremes, the answers are clear. Supreme Court precedent establishes the law; to the extent that the Court's opinions give guidance we obviously do not doubt that the law is well-established. It is equally clear that the right at issue can be defined neither so broadly as to parrot the language in the Bill of Rights, nor so narrowly as to require that there be no distinguishing facts between the instant case and existing precedent. The former reading of Harlow would, of course, undermine the premise of qualified immunity that the Government actors reasonably should know that their conduct is problematic. The latter reading, on the other hand, would unquestionably turn qualified into absolute immunity by requiring immunity in any new fact situation. In future cases, courts will of course work through the area between these extremes and answer these and other questions. On the facts of this case, however, these broad parameters suffice, because the illegality of the conduct alleged was well-established by any reasonable definition of the phrase. 76 109 In an effort to overcome the obvious, defendants focus on the trial evidence and argue that each individual act that they were shown to have committed was lawful, and that they consequently are immune. This argument seriously misconstrues the nature of the qualified immunity defense, and in particular the separate questions of fact and law. We pause here to address the proper course of pleadings and proof on this issue, to make clear why we find defendants' argument irrelevant to this element of our review. 110 The difficulty, we presume, stems from the bipartite nature of Harlow 's inquiry. First, a district court must determine whether the right alleged to have been violated was well-established; it then must determine whether the defendant reasonably should have known of its existence. While Harlow asserted that a reasonably competent public official should know the law governing his conduct, 457 U.S. at 819, 102 S.Ct. at 2739, in some extraordinary instances what a reasonable person in like circumstances should have known 77 has been held to create a question of fact. Step-by-step, the inquiry proceeds as follows: assume plaintiff alleges that defendant violated Right X, and defendant moves for summary judgment on grounds of qualified immunity, claiming Right X was not well-established when the alleged acts were committed and, alternatively, that extraordinary circumstances prevented him both from knowing and having reason to know the relevant legal standard. If the district court judge determines as a matter of law that Right X was well-established, a question of fact might still remain as to whether defendant reasonably neither knew nor should have known of it. The first issue is purely legal and should be susceptible to initial determination on the complaint and summary judgment papers. The latter is potentially an issue for trial, depending upon the unique circumstances of each case. 78 111 Applying these principles, we must consider in this action only whether the right that plaintiffs alleged to have been violated was well-established at the time the alleged acts occurred. We consider irrelevant to this inquiry defendants' assertions that the evidence does not support those allegations; such evidence is properly considered as an element of our inquiry into the sufficiency of the evidence, not qualified immunity. Because no defendant argues that exceptional circumstances exist to demonstrate that he reasonably neither knew nor should have known of the relevant legal standard, our inquiry is finished following our determination whether the applicable law was well-established. 79 112 Plaintiffs alleged in their complaint 80 that from 1967 or 1968 to 1974 the District and FBI defendants engaged in a variety of legal and illegal activities in a specific effort to disrupt and interfere with the plaintiffs' political activities, [,including] urging violent or unlawful actions, and supplying the public and/or news media with false information about the plaintiffs and their plans. 81 Plaintiffs also alleged that [s]ome or all of the activities of defendants 82 were conducted pursuant to a plan, known as COINTELPRO-New Left, which, they contended, was designed to conduct surveillance upon and to cause disruption of the activities of what the defendants regarded as the 'New Left.'  83 Plaintiffs claimed that because these actions were undertaken expressly to disrupt their lawful activities, they violated, inter alia, plaintiffs' First and Fifth Amendment rights. 84 113 The extraordinary nature of these charges makes this an easy case. Whatever authority the Government may have to interfere with a group engaged in unlawful activity, and however it may be permitted to impede or deter rights of lawful association as a by-product of legitimate Government actions, it is never permissible to impede or deter lawful civil rights/political organization, expression or protest with no other direct purpose and no other immediate objective than to counter the influence of the target associations. 114 As of 1967, the existence of a First Amendment right of association for lawful purposes was beyond dispute and its broad contours were quite clear. 85 A line of Supreme Court cases had expressly established first, that Government cannot constitutionally punish membership in or association with any organization, absent clear proof that a person specifically intends to accomplish the illegal aims of the organization, see Scales v. United States, 367 U.S. 203, 228-30, 81 S.Ct. 1469, 1485-86, 6 L.Ed.2d 782 (1961); Noto v. United States, 367 U.S. 290, 299-30, 81 S.Ct. 1517, 1521-22, 6 L.Ed.2d 836 (1961); second, that Government cannot constitutionally punish individual or group advocacy of any position, unless it amounts to incitement to lawless action, see Bond v. Floyd, 385 U.S. 116, 87 S.Ct. 339, 17 L.Ed.2d 235 (1966); Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298, 77 S.Ct. 1064, 1 L.Ed.2d 1356 (1957); and third, that lawful associations and their members have the right to be protected from facially legitimate Government actions that would deter membership or otherwise thwart their efforts to associate and petition the Government for redress of their grievances. The first two principles at a minimum rendered absolutely unconstitutional any direct Government interference with persons because they participated in organizations, if those organizations did not advocate violence or other lawless action, or because they held certain views, if those views were not accompanied by incitement to illegal action or a specific intent to accomplish illegal ends by force and violence. The third principle was not absolute, but made unconstitutional Government action taken for legitimate purposes if it significantly interfered with protected rights of association, unless the Government could demonstrate a substantial, NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 444, 83 S.Ct. 328, 343, 9 L.Ed.2d 405 (1963), or compelling, Bates v. Little Rock, 361 U.S. 516, 524, 80 S.Ct. 412, 417, 4 L.Ed.2d 480 (1960), interest to justify the infringement, and that the interest could not more narrowly be accommodated. See Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U.S. 479, 488, 81 S.Ct. 247, 252, 5 L.Ed.2d 231 (1960) (In a series of decisions this Court has held that, even though the governmental purpose be legitimate and substantial, that purpose cannot be pursued by means that broadly stifle fundamental personal liberties when the end can be more narrowly achieved.). 115 These principles leave no doubt that Government action, taken with the intent to disrupt or destroy lawful organizations, or to deter membership in those groups, is absolutely unconstitutional. The Government could not constitutionally make such participation unlawful; consequently, it may not surreptitiously undertake to do what it cannot do publicly. Nor can we fathom any conceivably legitimate governmental interest in such an undertaking. If the targets act unlawfully, criminal laws are available. Nor do we accept any argument that proper law enforcement requires systematic disruption and neutralization of lawful organizations. 116 It is therefore absolutely clear that the actions defendants were alleged to have taken violated well-established rights. The defendants allegedly directed and participated in a program designed to obstruct plaintiffs' efforts to work peaceably for political change and civil rights, and to splinter and neutralize plaintiffs' organizations. The constitutional right of association of the kind in which plaintiffs were engaged was well known, as was the degree of protection from direct interference that such lawful association was to be accorded. Additionally, while the associational right was not absolute, permissible limits of Government intrusion in various contexts were sufficiently defined. In a case such as this one, in which the pleadings and proof disclose a program that at its tamest violated the narrowly defined associational rights expressly discussed in these cases, and which in fact extended beyond violations previously contemplated, the law was undoubtedly well-established. In such circumstances, to require a prior Supreme Court holding on the particular facts of this case would not only immunize but actually reward the Government for inventing and pursuing ever more egregious conduct. Indeed, there never could be such a ruling from the Court, because Harlow would always immunize the Government actors. Simply put, where it is apparent that less direct, and facially legitimate intrusions on plaintiffs' rights violate the Constitution, it is beyond question that sweeping, intentional intrusions do so as well.
117 Harlow focused on the need to enable courts to dismiss insubstantial lawsuits before discovery and trial, and it adjusted the qualified immunity defense to facilitate that goal. The kind of case we confront today, involving allegations of unconstitutional motive, offers to litigants a possible means to circumvent the new rule, simply by pleading that any act was performed with an intent to violate clearly established constitutional rights and thereby surmounting the threshold test set out in Harlow. We recognize that in some instances, plaintiffs might allege facts demonstrating that defendants have acted lawfully, append a claim that they did so with an unconstitutional motive, and as a consequence usher defendants into discovery, and perhaps trial, with no hope of success on the merits. The result would be precisely the burden Harlow sought to prevent. Accordingly, in cases involving a claim that defendants acted with an unconstitutional motive, we will require that nonconclusory allegations of evidence of such intent must be present in a complaint for litigants to proceed to discovery on the claim. The allegations on this issue need not be extensive, but they will have to be sufficiently precise to put defendants on notice of the nature of the claim and enable them to prepare a response and, where appropriate, a summary judgment motion on qualified immunity grounds. 118 As a general proposition, the problem we address is not a new one. In Butz v. Economou the Supreme Court apparently recognized that general conclusory allegations that Government actors had breached constitutional rights could unduly enmesh them in burdensome litigation, and it called for a firm application of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and for dismissal of insubstantial claims on summary judgment. 86 Similarly, every other circuit has articulated a requirement of particularity in pleading for civil rights complaints. In one formulation, the Second Circuit adheres to the following rule: 119 [C]omplaints containing only conclusory, vague, or general allegations of a conspiracy to deprive a person of constitutional rights will be dismissed.... Diffuse and expansive allegations are insufficient.... In this case, appellants' unsupported allegations, which fail to specify in detail the factual basis necessary to enable appellees intelligently to prepare their defense, will not suffice to sustain a claim of governmental conspiracy to deprive appellants of their constitutional rights. 120 Ostrer v. Aronwald, 567 F.2d 551, 553 (2d Cir.1977) (citations omitted); see also Contemporary Mission, Inc. v. United States Postal Service, 648 F.2d 97, 106-07 (2d Cir.1981) (Where a plaintiff fails to produce any specific facts whatsoever to support a conspiracy allegation, a district court may, in its discretion, refuse to permit discovery and grant summary judgment.... Courts must be particularly cautious to protect public officials from protracted litigation involving specious claims.). Moreover, every other circuit follows suit in requiring that civil rights complaints be pleaded with at least a minimum of specificity. 87 Nor is the principle unknown in this Circuit. See Lombard v. United States, 690 F.2d 215, 227 (D.C.Cir.1982) (applying the Second Circuit's Ostrer rule to claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 103 S.Ct. 3086, 77 L.Ed.2d 1347 (1983). 121 The test articulated by the Second Circuit is more than adequate to address the Harlow concerns to which we have referred. We simply remind our trial courts that some factual allegations must support claims of unconstitutional motive. Plaintiffs who fail to allege any specific facts to support a claim of unconstitutional motive cannot expect to involve Government actors in protracted discovery and trial. On receipt of such a complaint, Government defendants might move for dismissal or, alternatively, for summary judgment. Then plaintiffs must produce some factual support for their claim to avert dismissal. 122 In so holding we do not forget that in some circumstances plaintiffs are able to paint only with a very broad and speculative brush at the pre-discovery stage, and that overly rigid application of the rule we articulate could lead to dismissal of meritorious claims. 88 Thus, while we hasten to add that district court judges must act cautiously in this regard, and freely give leave to amend an inadequate complaint, we conclude that Harlow requires that merely conclusory allegations of unconstitutional motive, devoid of factual support, must be found lacking and be dismissed. 123 Applying these principles, we find plaintiffs' complaint 89 was drafted with sufficient specificity to withstand dismissal in this case. Plaintiffs not only alleged specific kinds of disruptive activity that could have had no other purpose than to disrupt, but also alleged facts describing the COINTELPRO program designed to conduct surveillance and cause disruption of plaintiffs' activities. These allegations clearly were neither general, conclusory, nor devoid of factual support and would have sufficed to survive a motion for dismissal under the standards we articulate today.
124 The District of Columbia argues that it is entitled to a new trial because the jury was instructed incorrectly on municipal liability. It asserts that the District Court's proposed instruction was correct, but that the instruction actually given was erroneous. 90 Whatever objection might have been raised, we find that the District did not raise this argument after the instruction was given and, consequently, it has waived any right to pursue this matter on appeal. 125 Rule 51 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure states with unmistakable clarity that [n]o party may assign as error the giving or the failure to give an instruction unless he objects thereto before the jury retires to consider its verdict, stating distinctly the matter to which he objects and the grounds of his objection. Case law in this Circuit 91 and elsewhere 92 leaves no doubt that parties who have an opportunity to object to instructions before the jury retires and do not avail themselves of it cannot claim on appeal that the instructions were erroneous. Yet, that is precisely what the District of Columbia seeks to do. 126 Indeed, this case attests to the wisdom of the rule. The purpose of Rule 51 is to give the trial judge an opportunity to correct any inadvertent omission, ambiguity or error, reconsider any ruling, or make any other necessary changes or clarifications before the jury retires, and in that way avoid the delay and expense of a retrial. 93 The rule obliges counsel to follow the charge to the jury, and to point out alleged errors in the instructions as given. Thus, [t]he necessity of a retrial is avoided when, by design or through sheer neglect, the losing party fails to make objection at the proper time. 94 127 Here, the District argues that Judge Oberdorfer mistakenly deviated from his own proposed instruction, making this precisely the kind of case to which Rule 51 is addressed. Had the District simply read along as the instructions were given and called the alleged deviation to the Judge's attention, we presume that the judge would have corrected any error. It appears that plaintiffs' counsel followed that course with respect to other matters and received at least one clarifying instruction on another separate issue. 95 Meanwhile, when given the opportunity, the District counsel raised no independent objections and requested no clarifications. Under such circumstances, we decline at this late date to entertain the District's claim. 96