Opinion ID: 746904
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Test for Qualified Immunity

Text: 30 We turn now to the merits of Black's claim against the individual officers. She alleges that the officers violated her right to substantive due process 10 under the Fourteenth Amendment by forcing her to leave the scene of the police stop in Kritis's truck. In other words, her claim is that the officers deprived her of her liberty (and, ultimately, her life) without due process of law by threatening to arrest her if she did not leave with Kritis, and by physically placing her against her will in his truck. Because Black seeks to hold the officers liable in their individual capacities under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, she must show not only that the officers' actions were unconstitutional, but also that they should have known at that time that they were violating her rights. [G]overnment 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, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). 31 It is not necessary that the very action have been previously held unlawful but, given the preexisting law, the unlawfulness of the conduct must have been apparent. In determining whether an official is entitled to qualified immunity, this court asks whether the law was clearly established at the time of the alleged action. 32 Barton v. Norrod, 106 F.3d 1289, 1293 (6th Cir.1997) (citation omitted). In determining whether the officers should have known in February 1994 that their actions were unlawful, we look primarily to decisions of the Supreme Court, this court, and other courts within our circuit. See Cagle v. Gilley, 957 F.2d 1347, 1348 (6th Cir.1992). 33 We review the district court's determination that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity de novo. See Barton, 106 F.3d at 1293. In the present case, the district court reviewed the relevant case law dealing with claims that state actors violated substantive due process by allowing individuals to become subject to an indirect harm, and found much of that law to be confused and in conflict. It then appeared to reason that, since the doctrine of substantive due process was unclear in its entirety, no such claim could ever survive a motion to dismiss on the ground of qualified immunity: This inquiry shows that the law in this area is unclear and that not only would no reasonable police officer have known what duty was owed to the plaintiff under the facts alleged in this case, but even the Supreme Court is uncertain on the matter. Chipman v. City of Florence, 858 F.Supp. 87, 90 (E.D.Ky.1994) (citing DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dep't of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 199, 109 S.Ct. 998, 1005, 103 L.Ed.2d 249 (1989)) (dismissing complaint); see also Chipman v. City of Florence, 866 F.Supp. 332, 335 (E.D.Ky.1994) (denying motion for reconsideration). 34 This was error. While, as we will see below, there is a good deal of uncertainty with regard to the precise contours of substantive due process, it does not follow that state actors are insulated from liability on all such claims, no matter what the underlying facts may be. The fact that the law may have been unclear, or even hotly disputed, at the margins does not afford state actors immunity from suit where their actions violate the heartland of the constitutional guarantee, as that guarantee was understood at the time of the violation. 11 Stated differently, it is simply irrelevant that the definition of the right to substantive due process has been in flux if, under any definition found in the case law at the time, the defendants should have known in February 1994 that their actions violated that right. 35