Opinion ID: 4586473
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: “Ordinarily, the denial of a motion for summary judgment is an unappealable interlocutory ruling.” Peterson v. Heymes, 931 F.3d 546, 553 (6th Cir. 2019). Our jurisdiction reaches appeals from “final decisions of the district courts.” 28 U.S.C. § 1291. This includes “jurisdiction over collateral orders—orders that ‘finally determine claims of right separable from, and collateral to, rights asserted in the action.’” Brown v. Chapman, 814 F.3d 436, 443 (6th Cir. 2016) (quoting Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 546 (1949)). Although we have interpreted the collateral-order doctrine to permit review of a denial of qualified immunity, we have jurisdiction over the appeal “only ‘to the extent that it turns on an issue of law’—the appeal cannot be from a district court’s determination that there is a genuine dispute of material fact.” Id. at 444 (quoting Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530 (1985)). “[A] defendant denied qualified immunity may appeal only if the issue on appeal is whether the plaintiff’s facts, taken No. 19-1208 Johnson v. City of Saginaw, et al. Page 7 at their best, show that the defendant violated clearly established law.” Quigley v. Tuong Vinh Thai, 707 F.3d 675, 680 (6th Cir. 2013). “Fact questions, including questions of evidentiary sufficiency, are out of our hands.” Bey v. Falk, 946 F.3d 304, 319 (6th Cir. 2019). “We have also held that a defendant may not challenge the inferences the district court draws from those facts, as that too is a prohibited fact-based appeal.” DiLuzio v. Village of Yorkville, 796 F.3d 604, 609 (6th Cir. 2015). Relying on this caselaw, Johnson challenges this court’s jurisdiction. Johnson argues that the “Defendants continue to adhere to their favorable notion that an emergency existed when they terminated potable water delivery service” and that “[b]y not conceding . . . that no emergency existed at the time of the termination of the water supply—Defendants have rendered their challenge outside the jurisdiction of this Court.” Appellee’s Br. at 26-27. Appellants respond that their “appeal centers entirely on questions of law” and they “concede the most favorable view of the facts to” Johnson. Reply Br. at 1. Although “a defendant challenging a district court’s denial of his motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity must ‘concede the most favorable view of the facts to the plaintiff for purposes of the appeal,’” Rafferty v. Trumbull County, 915 F.3d 1087, 1092 (6th Cir. 2019) (quoting Baker v. Union Twp., 587 F. App’x 229, 232 (6th Cir. 2014)), an attempt to dispute the underlying facts does not entirely deprive us of jurisdiction: If . . . aside from the impermissible arguments regarding disputes of fact, the defendant also raises “the ‘purely legal’ question of ‘whether the facts alleged . . . support a claim of violation of clearly established law,’” then there is an issue over which this court has jurisdiction. Therefore, this court can ignore the defendant’s attempts to dispute the facts and nonetheless resolve the legal issue, obviating the need to dismiss the entire appeal for lack of jurisdiction. Estate of Carter v. City of Detroit, 408 F.3d 305, 310 (6th Cir. 2005) (second alteration in original) (quoting Berryman v. Rieger, 150 F.3d 561, 562 (6th Cir. 1998)). Appellants’ arguments “drift[] from the purely legal into the factual realm,” Berryman, 150 F.3d at 564-65, when they argue that they could not provide, and Johnson was not entitled to, a pre-deprivation hearing because of an emergency. The district court concluded “that the City of Saginaw could have exercised other options to prevent another event from occurring at No. 19-1208 Johnson v. City of Saginaw, et al. Page 8 the property” and that “there was nothing preventing the City from exercising other lawful options to address the emergency.” R. 84, PID 1814-15. Because Appellants’ arguments challenge the district court’s factual determination that the shutoff was not reasonably necessary to eliminate an emergency, we lack jurisdiction to consider them on the issue of qualified immunity at this interlocutory stage.2 See Quigley, 707 F.3d at 680.