Court Opinion

ID: 9762056
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:09:26.892421+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:29.666204
License: Public Domain

LARSEN, Justice,
concurring.
I concur with the majority opinion in this case, but write to address an impossible assignment given the appellate courts by our legislature: interlocutory review of issues involving subjective good faith.
Tex.Civ.PRAc. & Rem.Code Ann. § 51.014 provides that:
A person may appeal from an interlocutory order of a district court, county court at law, or county court that:
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(5) denies a motion for summary judgment that is based on an assertion of immunity by an individual who is an officer or employee of the state or political subdivision of the state.
The legislature passed this statute allowing interlocutory appeal of immunity issues to echo that available for officials sued under federal civil rights laws such as 42 U.S.C. § 1983.1 What the legislature has ignored, however, is that qualified immunity in federal cases (also called “good faith” immunity) is judged by an objective standard, amenable to summary disposition, while Texas law employs a subjective standard in defining official immunity. An examination of the law granting official immunity in state and federal jurisprudence makes the problem clear.

THE FEDERAL STANDARD

Before 1982, federal civil rights law recognized that officials could avoid liability for violating citizens’ civil rights by meeting a two-pronged test, containing both subjective and objective elements, that: (1) the official held a subjective good faith .belief that the challenged actions were lawful; and (2) this belief was objectively reasonable in light of the existing law. Procunier v. Navarette, 434 U.S. 555, 98 S.Ct. 855, 55 L.Ed.2d 24 (1978); Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S. 478, 98 S.Ct. 2894, 57 L.Ed.2d 895 (1978); Wood v. Strickland, 420 U.S. 308, 95 S.Ct. 992, 43 L.Ed.2d 214 (1975). This test changed dramatically with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). There, the Court announced a new standard which abandoned the subjective element of good faith, substituting the following:
[Gjovemment 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.
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On summary judgment, the judge appropriately may determine, not only the currently applicable law, but whether that law was clearly established at the time an action occurred. If the law at that time was not clearly established, an official could not reasonably be expected to anticipate subsequent legal developments, nor could he fairly be said to ‘know’ that the law forbade conduct not previously identified as unlawful. Until this threshold immunity question is resolved, discovery should not be allowed. [Emphasis added.] Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. at 818, 102 S.Ct. at 2738.
In 1987, the Supreme Court further refined this standard in Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987), holding that even where conduct appears to have violated a clearly established constitutional principle, good faith immunity will attach where a well-trained officer would not have known that the challenged conduct violated plaintiffs rights. This refinement retained the federal court’s objective focus. Thus, under federal law, the internal thought-processes and motivations of an individual defendant are not dispositive or even *354relevant; rather, good faith immunity is defeated upon summary judgment only where well-established law is violated, and a reasonable officer in defendant’s place would have known that the actions were illegal. Harlow, 467 U.S. at 815, 102 S.Ct. at 2736; Anderson, 483 U.S. at 647, 107 S.Ct. at 3043. The test focuses upon an objective question, and is thus reviewable by summary judgment and by interlocutory appeal. Before the U.S. Supreme Court formulated this standard, good faith immunity in federal civil rights suits was not commonly reviewed on summary judgment, and no interlocutory appeal was available. Indeed, in explaining its reasons for changing the standard, the Supreme Court noted:
[Disputed questions of fact ordinarily may not be decided on motions for summary judgment. And an official’s subjective good faith has been considered to be a question of fact that some courts have regarded as inherently requiring resolution by a jury. Harlow, 457 U.S. at 816, 102 S.Ct. at 2737.
Only with its adoption of the objective standard did the Supreme Court prescribe pre-discovery methods for testing a plaintiffs case. Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818, 102 S.Ct. at 2738 (adopting objective standard to accommodate summary judgment review); Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985) (providing for interlocutory appeal of summary judgment denials). The legislature, in passing TBX.Crv.PRAa & Rem.Code Ann. § 51.014(5) adopted federal procedure without this accompanying federal substance.

THE STATE STANDARD

Texas state law (in a doctrine analogous to federal good faith immunity) recognizes official immunity for a state employee whose status or actions may be classified as qua si-judicial, no matter how erroneous or negligent those actions may be, so long as the official acts in good faith and within the scope of authority. Russell v. Texas Department of Human Resources, 746 S.W.2d 510, 513 (Tex.App.-Texarkana 1988, writ denied); Austin v. Hale, 711 S.W.2d 64, 66 (Tex.App.-Waco 1986, no writ). It is the good faith element of this immunity which I find problematic. In contrast to the federal Harlow standard, Texas case law contemplates a subjective good faith standard, and characterizes unprotected conduct as that done “wilfully and maliciously.” Campbell v. Jones, 153 Tex. 101, 264 S.W.2d 425, 427 (1954); Russell, 746 S.W.2d at 514; Baker v. Story, 621 S.W.2d 639, 644 (Tex.App.-San Antonio 1981, writ ref'd n.r.e.).
In Travis v. City of Mesquite, 830 S.W.2d 94, 103-04 (Tex.1992) (Cornyn, J., concurring), Justice Cornyn noted some of the difficulties in reviewing good faith immunity under the present law. He suggested adopting the old federal standard,2 containing both subjective and objective elements. In formulating a good faith standard under the specific facts of Travis (which involved a high-speed car chase by off-duty police officers with a resulting collision and damages to a bystander), Justice Cornyn wrote that he would find a defendant failed to establish good faith if:
(1) the officer knows that a clear risk of harm to the public in continuing the pursuit substantially outweighs the need to immediately apprehend the suspect (the subjective element); or
(2) a reasonably prudent police officer, under the same or similar circumstances, would know that the clear risk of harm to the public in continuing the pursuit substantially outweighs the need to immediately apprehend the suspect (the objective element). Travis, 830 S.W.2d at 104.
Those courts which have wrestled with determining subjective good faith on interlocutory appeal of a summary judgment have, understandably, glossed over the issue: indeed, these cases commonly, and erroneously, shift the well-established burden of proof on summary judgment. Frequently they re*355quire plaintiffs to produce evidence of bad faith, rather than requiring defendants to conclusively establish their good faith motivations. Travis, 830 S.W.2d at 103; see Eakle v. Texas Department of Human Services, 815 S.W.2d 869, 876 (Tex.App.-Austin 1991, writ denied) (“The record contains no showing of bad faith on behalf of the commissioners — ”); Austin v. Hale, 711 S.W.2d 64, 68 (Tex.App.-Waco 1986, no writ) (“The record did not contain any evidence that [defendants] had acted in bad faith when they conducted the investigation.”). This awkward solution, in my opinion, has the undesirable effect of simply eliminating the good faith element of official immunity. Neither trial courts nor courts of appeals can, nor should we be asked to, perform the task set for us here: to determine a defendant’s state of mind, whether good or bad, on summary judgment or on interlocutory appeal from its denial.

PROCEDURE IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH STANDARD

The legislature has grafted federal procedure for reviewing official immunity onto an incongruous body of substantive law. Internal motivation and state of mind, upon which subjective good faith determinations turn, are peculiarly fact-dependent. More than other findings, they depend upon assessment of credibility, surrounding circumstances and demeanor, all things which summary judgment and interlocutory appeal cannot measure. Although we did not reach the good faith element of defendant’s official immunity claim here, I write to point out the antagonistic relationship between procedure and substance here.

CONCLUSION

Appellate courts cannot ascertain an official’s subjective good faith on interlocutory appeal from summary judgment. Federal courts have never been required to do so: they adopted simultaneously an objective standard and a procedure for early, summary review of immunity questions. I believe our adoption of federal procedure, without altering the substance of official immunity, effectively eliminates an essential element of that defense. I cannot think this is an outcome either the Texas Legislature or the Texas courts contemplated. I urge both to examine it.

. See Legislative History of Tex.S.B. 908, 71st Leg., R.S. (1989) committee hearings of 3/28/89 and floor discussion of 4/11/89. Senator Whit-mire, who sponsored the legislation, stated before the committee that: "It [the bill] follows federal law, which is the rule particularly in civil rights cases and others, where an immunity from prosecution would ultimately be upheld, it would not be right to put that person through the [litigation] process."

. He relies upon language in Harlow v. Fitzgerald which sets out the old law under Wood v. Strickland, 420 U.S. 308, 322, 95 S.Ct. 992, 1001, 43 L.Ed.2d 214 (1975). Harlow, 457 U.S. at 815, n. 25, 102 S.Ct. at 2737, n. 25. He fails to note, however, that the Supreme Court went on to discuss the perceived failure of this standard in preventing frivolous claims from proceeding to trial, and then adopts the new, purely objective good faith test.