Opinion ID: 793539
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Second Prong: Was the Right Violated Clearly Established?

Text: 45 We turn now to the second prong of Saucier, which Plaintiff has the burden of establishing. See Sorrels v. McKee, 290 F.3d 965, 969 (9th Cir.2002). We consider whether Kennedy has shown that the constitutional right violated by Shields was clearly established in September 1998. For the reasons below, we conclude she has. 46 To determine whether a right is clearly established, the reviewing court must consider whether a reasonable officer would recognize that his or her conduct violates that right under the circumstances faced, and in light of the law that existed at that time. Saucier, 533 U.S. at 202, 121 S.Ct. 2151. As the Supreme Court has explained: 47 For a constitutional right to be clearly established, its contours must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. This is not to say that an official action is protected by qualified immunity unless the very action in question has previously been held unlawful . . . but it is to say that in the light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness must be apparent. 48 Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 739, 122 S.Ct. 2508, 153 L.Ed.2d 666 (2002) (citing Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987)) (internal citations omitted). However, [i]n order to find that the law was clearly established . . . we need not find a prior case with identical, or even `materially similar' facts. Our task is to determine whether the preexisting law provided the defendants with `fair warning' that their conduct was unlawful. Flores v. Morgan Hill Unified Sch. Dist., 324 F.3d 1130, 1136-37 (9th Cir.2003) (citing Hope, 536 U.S. at 740, 122 S.Ct. 2508). 49 Thus, the specific, alleged conduct in this case need not have been previously and explicitly deemed unconstitutional, but existing case law must have made it clear that the conduct violated constitutional norms. This has been our consistent standard since Wood. See Wood, 879 F.2d at 592 ([Defendant] seemingly suggests that this case can be disposed of if it does not bear a strict factual similarity to previous cases finding liability. However this crabbed view of the good faith immunity principle cannot withstand analysis. (citing Anderson, 483 U.S. at 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034).). 50 It is beyond dispute that in September 1998, it was clearly established that state officials could be held liable where they affirmatively and with deliberate indifference placed an individual in danger she would not otherwise have faced. This court first recognized the theory of state-created danger liability almost ten years before the events in this case in Wood. In the interim, we published three decisions explicitly recognizing such liability under three distinct factual scenarios. 7 See Grubbs, 974 F.2d 119; Koon, 34 F.3d 1416; Penilla, 115 F.3d 707. Indeed, almost three years before the actions at issue in this case, we concluded the law was clearly established that officers may be liable where they affirmatively place an individual in danger. See Munger, 227 F.3d at 1086. 8 We have explained before that the responsibility for keeping abreast of constitutional developments rests squarely on the shoulders of law enforcement officials. Given the power of such officials over our liberty, and sometimes over our lives, this placement of responsibility is entirely proper. Wood, 879 F.2d at 595 (quoting Ward v. County of San Diego, 791 F.2d 1329, 1332 (9th Cir.1986)). We conclude that no reasonable officer in Shields's position, knowing what he knew, could have concluded that Kennedy had no right not to be placed in physical danger by his deliberately indifferent action. 51 Indeed, even were we to engage in an examination of our case law with the finer resolution encouraged by the dissent, we conclude that, as to the state-creation of danger, this case is not meaningfully distinguishable from Grubbs. See Wood, 879 F.2d at 593. In Grubbs, a registered nurse working at a medium security custodial institution brought a § 1983 claim against her supervisors after she was allegedly raped and terrorized by a young male inmate. According to the plaintiff, her employer had told her she would not be working alone with violent sex offenders. Notwithstanding that representation, her employer subsequently allowed an inmate prone to violence against women to work with her unsupervised. The plaintiff, relying upon that representation, did not take all the precautions she might otherwise have taken, and was subsequently assaulted. 52 In Grubbs, as in this case, a state official affirmatively acted: supervisor Grubbs assigned a violent sex offender to work closely with L.W., and Officer Shields notified Burns, leaving Kennedy unable to protect her family. In Grubbs, as in this case, those state actions left plaintiffs exposed to the danger of the subsequent physical assault and injury they in fact suffered. And in both cases the plaintiff relied upon the state actor's representation and did not take protective measures she otherwise would have taken, and the state's action made plaintiffs vulnerable to a particularized danger they would not have faced but for that action. 53 Indeed, in this case, as in Grubbs, Shields used his authority as a state . . . officer to create an opportunity for [Burns] to assault [Kennedy] that would not have otherwise existed. Grubbs, 974 F.2d at 121. Moreover, Kennedy, like L.W., is not seeking to hold Defendant[ ] liable for [Burns's] violent proclivities. Rather, [she] seeks to make Defendant[ ] answer for [his] acts that independently created the opportunity for and facilitated [Burns's] assault on her. Id. at 122. At bottom Kennedy's claim is exactly like L.W.'s, i.e., that a state actor enhanced [her] vulnerability to attack by misrepresenting to her the risks she faced. Id. at 121. No reasonable officer in Shields's position, knowing what he allegedly knew and what he must be charged with knowing, could have concluded otherwise than that Kennedy had a right not to be placed in obvious physical danger as a result of his deliberately indifferent action.