Opinion ID: 3165721
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: merits – do thomas

Text: Title “42 U.S.C. § 1983 allows an injured person to seek damages against an individual who has violated his or her federal rights while acting under color of state law.” Cillo v. City of Greenwood Vill., 739 F.3d 451, 459 (10th Cir. 2013). “Individual defendants named in a § 1983 action may raise a defense of qualified immunity,” id. at 460, which “shields public officials . . . from damages actions unless their conduct was - 19 - unreasonable in light of clearly established law,” Gann v. Cline, 519 F.3d 1090, 1092 (10th Cir. 2008) (alteration in original) (quotations omitted). Generally, “when a defendant asserts qualified immunity, the plaintiff carries a two-part burden to show: (1) that the defendant’s actions violated a federal constitutional or statutory right, and, if so, (2) that the right was clearly established at the time of the defendant’s unlawful conduct.” Cillo, 739 F.3d at 460; see also Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 232 (2009). To determine whether the right was clearly established, we ask whether “the contours of a right are sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would have understood that what he is doing violates that right.” Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 131 S. Ct. 2074, 2083 (2011) (alterations and quotations omitted). “Ordinarily, in order for the law to be clearly established, there must be a Supreme Court or Tenth Circuit decision on point, or the clearly established weight of authority from other courts must have found the law to be as the plaintiff maintains.” Fogarty, 523 F.3d at 1161 (quotations omitted). “The plaintiff is not required to show, however, that the very act in question previously was held unlawful . . . to establish an absence of qualified immunity.” Weigel v. Broad, 544 F.3d 1143, 1153 (10th Cir. 2008) (quotations omitted).
“We review de novo the district court’s denial of a summary judgment motion asserting qualified immunity.” McBeth v. Himes, 598 F.3d 708, 715 (10th Cir. 2010) (quoting Bowling v. Rector, 584 F.3d 956, 963 (10th Cir. 2009)). A district “court shall grant summary judgment if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. - 20 - 56(a). “An issue of material fact is genuine if a ‘reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party.’” Henderson v. Inter-Chem Coal Co., 41 F.3d 567, 569 (10th Cir. 1994) (quoting Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986)), as modified on denial of reh’g . “In applying this standard, we construe the evidence in the light most favorable to [the plaintiff] as the nonmoving party.” McBeth, 598 F.3d at 715. When the defendant has moved for summary judgment based on qualified immunity, we still view the facts in the light most favorable to the non-moving party and resolve all factual disputes and reasonable inferences in its favor. See Estate of Booker, 745 F.3d at 411. Unlike most affirmative defenses, however, the plaintiff would bear the ultimate burden of persuasion at trial to overcome qualified immunity by showing a violation of clearly established federal law. See id. Thus, at summary judgment, we must grant qualified immunity unless the plaintiff can show (1) a reasonable jury could find facts supporting a violation of a constitutional right, which (2) was clearly established at the time of the defendant’s conduct. See Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201-02 (2001) (asking whether “a violation could be made out on a favorable view of the parties’ submissions”), overruled in part on other grounds by Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223 (2009); see also Riggins v. Goodman, 572 F.3d 1101, 1107 (10th Cir. 2009) (“[T]he Supreme Court has held that qualified immunity is proper when the record plainly demonstrates no constitutional right has been violated, or that the allegations do not offend clearly established law.”). “We may, at our discretion, consider the two parts of this test in the sequence we deem best ‘in light of the circumstances in the particular case at hand.’” Bowling, 584 - 21 - F.3d at 964 (quoting Pearson, 555 U.S. at 236). If a “plaintiff successfully carries his two-part burden,” the “defendant bears the burden, as an ordinary movant for summary judgment, of showing no material issues of fact remain that would defeat the claim of qualified immunity.” Mick v. Brewer, 76 F.3d 1127, 1134 (10th Cir. 1996); see also Pueblo Neighborhood Health Ctrs., Inc. v. Losavio, 847 F.2d 642, 646 (10th Cir. 1988) (same).
The district court erred in denying DO Thomas summary judgment because Ms. Henderson did not meet her burden of establishing the second element of qualified immunity—that any violation of the Eighth Amendment she may have suffered was based on a clearly established constitutional right.10 “[A] prison official may be held liable under the Eighth Amendment for denying humane conditions of confinement only if he knows that inmates face a substantial risk of serious harm and disregards that risk by failing to take reasonable measures to abate it.” 10 Ms. Henderson argues on appeal that Defendants have forfeited their argument that any violation of a constitutional right was not clearly established by failing to adequately raise this argument in district court. We have recently determined that because the plaintiff has the burden at summary judgment to identify a violation of a clearly established constitutional right after a defendant asserts qualified immunity, “even assuming arguendo that [a defendant] forfeited his appellate arguments based on the clearly-established-law prong of the qualified-immunity standard, we would deem consideration of these arguments to be an appropriate exercise of our discretion.” Cox v. Glanz, 800 F.3d 1231, 1244 (10th Cir. 2015). Because it was Ms. Henderson’s burden to show a clearly established constitutional right, even assuming Defendants did not adequately raise this issue in district court, we will consider these arguments to the extent we have jurisdiction to do so. - 22 - Farmer, 511 U.S. at 847; see also Howard v. Waide, 534 F.3d 1227, 1239 (10th Cir. 2008) (“[P]rison officials who ‘actually knew of a substantial risk to inmate health or safety may be found free from liability if they responded reasonably to the risk, even if the harm ultimately was not averted.’”) (quoting Farmer, 511 at 844-45). Ms. Henderson relies on the district court’s brief footnote analysis concluding it was clearly established that “inmates have a right to be free from assaults resulting from a jail official’s failure to ensure sufficient staffing and/or supervision of inmates.” Aplt. Add. at 16 n.10. Although Supreme Court and Tenth Circuit cases support this general proposition, see Hovater v. Robinson, 1 F.3d 1063, 1068 (10th Cir. 1993); Farmer, 511 U.S. at 847, the Supreme Court has admonished “not to define clearly established law at a high level of generality,” al-Kidd, 131 S. Ct. at 2084. Though “a case directly on point” is not required, “existing precedent must have placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond debate.” Stanton v. Sims, 134 S. Ct. 3, 5 (2013) (per curiam) (quoting al-Kidd, 131 S. Ct. at 2083). Ms. Henderson has provided no authority clearly establishing that an officer violates the Eighth Amendment when that officer, as here with DO Thomas, has no subjective knowledge of risk of assault to an inmate, leaves to attend to a medical emergency, and does so believing the inmate is in a locked room under the guard of another officer. Moreover, although DO Thomas may have violated Jail policy by leaving the medical unit in the care of only DO Johnson, Ms. Henderson offers no authority to show this was a clearly established constitutional violation. Because Ms. - 23 - Henderson has not carried her burden to show violation of a clearly established constitutional right, the district court erred in denying DO Thomas qualified immunity.