Court Opinion

ID: 9497046
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:42:16.625103+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:58.605039
License: Public Domain

FERNANDEZ, Circuit Judge,
concurring..
I concur in Judge Kozinski’s opinion, with one exception. I do not join in part 2 of the Discussion.
Although I find that part of the Discussion very informative, in my opinion we should not decide qualified immunity issues in the first instance, but should leave them for the district court. See Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 819-20, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2739, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982); Price v. Hawaii, 939 F.2d 702, 707 (9th Cir.1991). I realize that we have, on occasion, succumbed to the temptation to swoop down from our coign of vantage and pluck qualified immunity issues from the district court battlefield, but in the long run I think we are better advised to resist that temptation. I, for one, do not think we should attempt to predict the nature or result of further proceedings in the district court, once it actually begins to vet the qualified immunity issues raised here.
Thus, I respectfully concur, but with the exception just noted.