Opinion ID: 772948
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Are the Officers Entitled to Qualified Immunity?

Text: 26 Under the doctrine of qualified immunity, governmental officials, including police officers, will not be held liable on a plaintiff's claim for civil damages so long as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights which the reasonable officer in the defendants' position would have known. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). This circuit has held that the right to be free from excessive force, including excessively forceful handcuffing, is a clearly established right for purposes of the qualified immunity analysis. Martin, 106 F.3d at 1313; Walton, 995 F.2d at 1342. 27 When making a qualified immunity analysis, it is important to remember that the defendant is, in essence, saying: 'If the plaintiff's version is credited, what I did, judged today, arguendo would be wrongful, but at the time I acted, no reasonable officer would have known he was acting wrongfully.' Kain v. Nesbitt, 156 F.3d 669, 671 (6th Cir. 1998) (citation omitted). As this circuit has analyzed the qualified immunity issue in excessive force cases, the question of whether the reasonable officer would have known his conduct violated clearly established constitutional rights can be answered by the initial inquiry of whether the officer's use of force was objectively reasonable. See Martin, 106 F.3d 1312-13; Walton, 995 F.2d at 1342. It is clear from this circuit's analyses in various excessive force decisions that, havingconcluded that the right to be free from excessive force is clearly established, whether we grant qualified immunity in a particular case depends upon whether the officer did, in fact, use excessive force (i.e., force that was not objectively reasonable). Martin, 106 F.3d 1312-13; Walton, 995 F.2d at 1342; Kain, 156 F.3d at 672-73. To put it another way, if there is a genuine issue of fact as to whether an officer's use of force was objectively reasonable, then there naturally is a genuine issue of fact with respect to whether a reasonable officer would have known such conduct was wrongful. 28 Kostrzewa has alleged facts indicating that Officers Kocenda and Jenkins may have acted unreasonably in their use of force against him. Thus, this court cannot grant defendants' Rule 12(b)(6) motion on the basis of qualified immunity because it is not clear that a reasonable officer in the defendants' situation would not have known that engaging in the conduct alleged by plaintiff was violative of plaintiff's clearly established right to be free from excessive force. Accordingly, the district court's decision dismissing plaintiff's excessive force claim against Officers Kocenda and Jenkins is REVERSED. 5