Opinion ID: 561200
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: A change in the law

Text: 11 Anderson v. Creighton did not change controlling authority on this issue so as to require us to reconsider the merits of Mackey's qualified immunity defense. First, Anderson was decided three months prior to Merritt, so there was no intervening change of law. More important, Anderson did not change the controlling standard as Mackey suggests. Anderson clarified and refined the law articulated in Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). In Merritt I, this court relied on Harlow. Examination of its analysis indicates that it complies with the Anderson clarification. 12 The Supreme Court in Anderson said, our holding today does not extend official qualified immunity beyond the bounds articulated in Harlow and our subsequent cases.... 483 U.S. at 641-42 n. 3, 107 S.Ct. at 3039-40 n. 3. It was Harlow that first established that qualified immunity is based on the objective legal reasonableness of the defendant's conduct. 457 U.S. at 818-19, 102 S.Ct. at 2738-39. 13 The Merritt I opinion recognized that immunity attaches to official action unless that action  'violate[s] clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.'  827 F.2d at 1373 (quoting Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818, 102 S.Ct. at 2738). Anderson emphasized the level of specificity at which that inquiry must be made, requiring that [t]he contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right.... [I]n the light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness must be apparent. Anderson, 483 U.S. at 640, 107 S.Ct. at 3039. Anderson goes on to require that the unlawfulness of the official's activity must be apparent in light of the circumstances with which [the official] was confronted. Id. 14 The Merritt I court had the Anderson decision before it, and the language of its opinion indicates that it exercised the specificity of scrutiny required by Anderson: 15 Vincent and Mackey testified that they knew they had no authority to require KADA to fire Merritt. Because they knowingly acted outside the scope of their authority, they are not entitled to qualified immunity.... Vincent and Mackey should have known that they could not cause Merritt's summary dismissal without violating his due process rights. 16 Merritt I, 827 F.2d at 1373.