Court Opinion

ID: 9383746
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-31 00:00:25.09999+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:47.675158
License: Public Domain

Case: 21-20200      Document: 00516695420          Page: 1     Date Filed: 03/30/2023

            United States Court of Appeals
                 for the Fifth Circuit                                    United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                   Fifth Circuit

                                                                                 FILED
                                                                            March 30, 2023
                                    No. 21-20200
                                                                            Lyle W. Cayce
                                                                                 Clerk
   Kevion Rogers,

                                                             Plaintiff—Appellant,

                                        versus

   Jeffrey Jarrett; Jeremy Bridges; Texas Department of
   Criminal Justice,

                                                           Defendants—Appellees.

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                       for the Southern District of Texas
                            USDC No. 4:19-CV-2330

   Before Richman, Chief Judge, and Wiener and Willett, Circuit
   Judges.
   Don R. Willett, Circuit Judge:
          A trusted prison inmate was working unsupervised in a hog barn when
   the ceiling collapsed, striking him in the head. He told the prison agricultural
   specialist that he needed medical attention. But the specialist thought the
   inmate looked no worse for wear and ordered him back to work. A short while
   later, the inmate asked another prison staffer for medical attention. The
   staffer radioed a supervisor. Based on the staffer’s report, the supervisor, too,
   thought nothing serious had happened and did not immediately grant the
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                                    No. 21-20200

   request. The inmate’s condition later worsened. He was sent to the hospital
   and diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury. The district court granted
   summary judgment to Defendants based on qualified immunity. For the
   reasons below, we AFFIRM.
                                          I
          Kevion Rogers was a trusted inmate. Prison staff let Rogers work
   unsupervised and outside the prison’s security fence. Rogers’s daily job was
   to help take care of the prison’s hogs. One day Rogers went into one of the
   prison’s hog barns looking for a powder used to keep baby hogs healthy. As
   he was leaving, part of the barn’s ceiling collapsed and hit him on the head.
   Rogers blacked out.
           After he came to, another inmate took Rogers to see the prison’s staff
   agricultural specialist, Jeffrey Jarrett. Rogers walked normally into Jarrett’s
   office. And though Rogers “had dust on him,” his only visible injury was a
   scraped knee. An agitated Rogers demanded “to go to the infirmary.” But
   from Jarrett’s perspective, Rogers “looked fine.” Rogers didn’t “look hurt,”
   and spoke without a slur. Jarrett told Rogers to keep looking for the powder.
   Rogers walked normally out of the office. He did not see Jarrett again that
   morning. Jarrett’s job responsibilities took him away from the prison to
   another unit.
          Rogers tried to go on about his business. But he was “lightheaded”
   and had to sit down. Other inmates tried to keep him awake as he drifted “in
   and out of consciousness.” Soon after another prison staffer arrived to get
   the inmates ready for lunch. Rogers told the staffer that “the ceiling collapsed
   on [his] head” and showed the staffer the “debris.” Rogers again asked for
   medical attention. The staffer radioed Jarrett’s supervisor, Jeremy Bridges,
   and informed him “that the ceiling had fallen on [Rogers’s] head and that
   [Rogers] had sustained a head injury.” Bridges radioed back to take Rogers

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   “back to [his] bunk” so Bridges could “take a look at [him] later.” But
   Rogers objected—he still wanted “to go eat lunch.” Rogers’s objection made
   Bridges think whatever injuries Rogers had were not “serious.” Bridges
   radioed back that going to lunch was fine. He’d be out to check on Rogers
   “soon.”
           For whatever reason though, Rogers was still brought back to his bunk.
   By the time he reached his dormitory his condition had begun to deteriorate.
   His head and eyes had begun to swell, his face was bruising, and he was
   showing signs of respiratory distress. Prison staff at the dormitory thought
   this was “abnormal,” and so Rogers was redirected to the prison’s
   administrative building. He collapsed on the way there, began to “seize
   violently,” and started “vomiting.” Rogers “lost consciousness.” Within
   minutes prison staff at the administrative building summoned medical
   assistance. Emergency medical services evacuated Rogers to a nearby
   hospital by helicopter. Hospital staff diagnosed Rogers with a “traumatic
   brain injury; no hemorrhage.”1
           Rogers sued Jarrett, Bridges, and the Texas Department of Criminal
   Justice in Texas state court. Under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Rogers alleged that
   prison staff violated his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights by acting
   with deliberate indifference towards him. Under the Texas Tort Claims Act,
   Rogers alleged premises-liability claims. Defendants removed the case to
   federal court and moved for summary judgment on all claims. The district
   court granted summary judgment to Defendants on Rogers’s § 1983 claims,
   declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over his TTCA claims, and
   remanded the case to state court. Rogers timely appealed. He argues that

           1
             Hospital staff released Rogers back to the prison the next day with prescriptions
   for pain and anti-nausea medication. The district court found “no evidence in the record
   of subsequent problems or complications.”

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   Jarrett and Bridges were deliberately indifferent towards his serious medical
   needs and thus not entitled to qualified immunity.2
                                                    II
             We review summary judgment de novo.3 Courts may grant summary
   judgment on an issue only when “no genuine dispute as to any material fact”
   exists “and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”4 A fact
   dispute is “genuine” if “a reasonable jury could return a verdict for [the
   nonmovant] based on the evidence.”5 “[W]e must view all evidence and
   draw all justifiable inferences in favor of [Rogers], the nonmovant.”6 Still,
   “[c]onclusional allegations and denials, speculation, improbable inferences,
   unsubstantiated assertions, and legalistic argumentation” do not count for
   raising a genuine fact dispute.7

             2
             Rogers was represented by counsel in the district court and here. He also argued
   in the district court that Defendants were deliberately indifferent towards his safety by
   having him work in the hog barn. He did not raise that theory in his opening brief. Likewise,
   Rogers raised no claims against TDCJ in his opening brief. He also did not raise the district
   court’s refusal to exercise supplemental jurisdiction. It is not our role to “raise and discuss
   legal issues that [a party] has failed to assert” on appeal. Brinkmann v. Dall. Cnty. Deputy
   Sheriff Abner, 813 F.2d 744, 748 (5th Cir. 1987). So Rogers has abandoned those issues and
   arguments. Id.
             3
                 Batiste v. Lewis, 976 F.3d 493, 500 (5th Cir. 2020).
             4
                 Id. (quoting Rogers v. Bromac Title Servs., L.L.C., 755 F.3d 347, 350 (5th Cir.
   2014)).
             5
                 Coleman v. BP Expl. & Prod., Inc., 19 F.4th 720, 726 (5th Cir. 2021).
             6
                 Id.
             7
                 Id. (quoting TIG Ins. Co. v. Sedgwick James of Wash., 276 F.3d 754, 759 (5th Cir.
   2002)).

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                                                 III
           Rogers contends that the district court improperly granted Jarrett and
   Bridges qualified immunity. We have explained before that plaintiffs bear the
   “burden” to “demonstrate the inapplicability of the defense.”8 And Rogers
   had to meet that burden for each defendant.9 That means Rogers had to (1)
   raise a fact dispute on whether his constitutional rights were violated by the
   defendants’ individual conduct, and (2) show those rights were “clearly
   established at the time of the violation.”10 On this record, Rogers failed to
   meet either prong.
                                                  A
           Rogers contends that he raised a fact dispute on a constitutional
   violation. He argues that both Jarrett and Bridges acted with deliberate
   indifference towards his serious medical needs, violating his Eighth
   Amendment rights in the process. But “[d]eliberate indifference is an
   extremely high standard to meet.”11 As the Supreme Court has explained,
   Rogers needed to raise a fact dispute on whether Jarrett and Bridges were
   each “aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a
   substantial risk of serious harm exists,” and actually “dr[ew] the
   inference.”12 And serious harm isn’t just any harm. Rogers’s medical need

           8
                McClendon v. City of Columbia, 305 F.3d 314, 323 (5th Cir. 2002) (en banc) (per
   curiam).
           9
             See Thompson v. Steele, 709 F.2d 381, 382 (5th Cir. 1983) (“Personal involvement
   is an essential element of a civil rights cause of action.”).
           10
                See Brown v. Callahan, 623 F.3d 249, 253 (5th Cir. 2010).
           11
                Domino v. Tex. Dep’t of Crim. Just., 239 F.3d 752, 756 (5th Cir. 2001).
           12
              Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 837 (1994); see also Stewart v. Murphy, 174 F.3d
   530, 534 (5th Cir. 1999) (explaining that prison officials act with deliberate indifference only

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   had to be “so apparent that even laymen would recognize that care is
   required.”13 The district court found “no evidence that would permit a jury
   to infer that Jarrett and Bridges had subjective knowledge of the severity of
   Rogers’s condition.” We agree with the district court.
           A reasonable jury could not conclude on this record that either Jarrett
   or Bridges actually inferred that Rogers was at substantial risk of serious
   harm. As the district court noted, the record supports that both Jarrett and
   Bridges knew that Rogers had been hit in the head. But as recounted above,
   Jarrett did not perceive any apparent injury to Rogers other than a scraped
   knee. From Jarrett’s perspective, Rogers was “look[ing] alright” and
   “[didn’t] look hurt.” Rogers “had dust on him,” but did not have visible
   injuries, did not slur his speech, and walked normally into and out of Jarrett’s
   office. The same goes for Bridges. All he knew about Rogers’s injuries was
   what he’d been told over the radio: that Rogers “had sustained a head injury”
   after a ceiling collapse. But Bridges testified that he did not think it was a
   particularly severe injury since Rogers had requested “to go eat lunch” while
   he waited for Bridges to come see him. Indeed, Rogers did not develop severe
   symptoms—seizures, vomiting, and loss of consciousness—until later on.
   And once he did, prison staff rendered medical aid within minutes.
           Rogers disagrees. He argues that fact disputes over what happened
   preclude summary judgment; that the district court misapplied the
   deliberate-indifference standard; and that Supreme Court and our caselaw
   compel a contrary conclusion. We are unconvinced.

   when they “know[] of and disregard[] an excessive risk to inmate health or safety” (quoting
   Farmer, 429 U.S. at 837)).
           13
                See Gobert v. Caldwell, 463 F.3d 339, 345 n.12 (5th Cir. 2006).

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          First, Rogers argues “that there is a genuine issue of material fact in
   dispute as to what actually happened on the morning of the incident,”
   precluding summary judgment under our decisions. But the district court
   analyzed Rogers’s claim under his version of events. And Jarrett and Bridges
   do not dispute what they knew when. Rather, the only dispute on appeal is
   what inferences Jarrett and Bridges drew from what they knew. Because the
   inferences Rogers asks us to make are speculative, this argument fails.14
          Second, Rogers argues that the district court misapplied the deliberate-
   indifference standard. In Rogers’s view, “the ultimate question” that his
   claim turns on is “was [he] exposed to a ‘substantial risk of serious harm’”?
   But that misstates the standard. It is not enough for Rogers to have raised a
   fact dispute on whether Jarrett and Bridges “actually drew the inference that
   [a] potential for harm existed,” as Rogers argues. The Supreme Court was
   clear in Farmer v. Brennan: “an official’s failure to alleviate a significant risk
   that he should have perceived but did not, while no cause for commendation,
   cannot under our cases be condemned as the infliction of punishment.”15 We
   have likewise been clear: “[L]iability attaches only if [officials] actually
   knew—not merely should have known—about the risk.”16 Bottom line: Mere
   negligence is not enough.
          Third, Rogers misreads Supreme Court and circuit caselaw. “[T]he
   takeaway” from the Supreme Court’s decision in Estelle v. Gamble17 is not
   that nonphysician prison staff are “expected to allow prisoners to consult
   medical experts because they themselves are not qualified to diagnose or

          14
               Coleman, 19 F.4th at 726.
          15
               511 U.S. at 838.
          16
               Olabisiomotosho v. City of Houston, 185 F.3d 521, 528 (5th Cir. 1999).
          17
               429 U.S. 97 (1976).

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   treat . . . medical condition[s],” as Rogers suggests. The takeaway is that
   courts must “separately consider” the allegations against physician and
   nonphysician staff alike when deciding deliberate-indifference claims.18 And
   our decision in Austin v. Johnson19 adds little, if anything, to support Rogers’s
   claims. Rogers admits that his case is “unlike” Austin because neither Jarrett
   nor Bridges “failed to get medical treatment for [him] after [seeing] his
   conditions worsening.”20
                                                 B
           In sum, Rogers failed to raise a fact dispute over whether Jarrett and
   Bridges acted with deliberate indifference. But even if he had, he’d still need
   to show that his rights were “clearly established at the time of the
   violation.”21 As we have explained many times, that takes showing that “the
   violative nature of particular conduct is clearly established.”22 It just isn’t
   enough to identify a right as “a broad general proposition.”23 The district
   court did not address qualified immunity’s second step. Jarrett and Bridges
   argue, though, that even assuming a violation, the law was not clearly
   established under this standard. We agree with Jarrett and Bridges.

           18
            See id. at 108 (“The Court of Appeals focused primarily on the alleged actions of
   the doctors, and did not separately consider whether the allegations against the
   [nonphysician defendants] stated a cause of action.”).
           19
                328 F.3d 204 (5th Cir. 2003).
           20
              See id. at 210 (holding that “failure to call an ambulance for almost two hours
   while [a minor] lay unconscious and vomiting” after an afternoon of forced exercise “rises
   to the level of deliberate indifference”).
           21
                Brown, 623 F.3d at 253.
           22
             Mullenix v. Luna, 577 U.S. 7, 12 (2015) (per curiam) (quoting Ashcroft v. al-Kidd,
   563 U.S. 731, 742 (2011)).
           23
                Id. (quoting Brosseau v. Haugen, 543 U.S. 194, 198 (2004) (per curiam)).

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          In barely half a page of briefing Rogers argues that the Supreme
   Court’s decision in Estelle “clearly established [the] law govern[ing] the
   substance of this entire dispute.” But the only right Rogers identifies as being
   violated was his right to be free from deliberate indifference towards his
   serious medical needs. That generalized proposition of law is not enough.
   The Supreme Court has articulated an exacting standard. Rogers needed to
   point to “a case or body of relevant case law in which an officer acting under
   similar circumstances was held to have violated the Constitution.”24 And
   Estelle just isn’t that case. The Supreme Court reversed us in Estelle that the
   doctors had acted with deliberate indifference towards the prisoner.25 And on
   remand, we held that the nonphysician prison staff likewise didn’t act with
   deliberate indifference.26 Therefore, we cannot agree with Rogers that he has
   shown that Jarrett and Bridges violated clearly established law.
          For the first time at oral argument, though, Rogers’s counsel argued
   that our recent decision in Sims v. Griffin27 supports that Jarrett and Bridges
   violated clearly established law. “[W]e cannot and will not consider
   arguments raised for the first time at oral argument.”28 Under the Rules of
   Appellate Procedure, Counsel should have advised us of any “pertinent and
   significant authorities” that had come to his attention after briefing had
   concluded “by letter.”29 But even had Rogers’s counsel filed that letter, Sims
   is not the helpful precedent he thinks it is.

          24
               Batyukova v. Doege, 994 F.3d 717, 726 (5th Cir. 2021) (cleaned up).
          25
               429 U.S. at 107–08.
          26
               554 F.2d 653, 653–54 (5th Cir. 1977) (per curiam).
          27
               35 F.4th 945 (5th Cir. 2022).
          28
               Jackson v. Gautreaux, 3 F.4th 182, 188 n.* (5th Cir. 2021).
          29
               See Fed. R. App. P. 28(j) (emphasis added).

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                                            No. 21-20200

           All we recognized in Sims was what had already been clearly
   established in our circuit: “[A] prisoner can show his clearly established
   rights under the Eighth Amendment were violated if a prison official ‘refused
   to treat him, ignored his complaints, intentionally treated him incorrectly, or
   engaged in any similar conduct that would clearly evince a wanton disregard
   for any serious medical needs.’”30 We have held officials liable for violating that
   standard before, including when the record supported that they:

        “offered no treatment options to a patient with a history of
         cardiac problems who was experiencing severe chest pains;”31

        “knew [a prisoner] had swallowed a bag full of drugs, vomited
         multiple times, screamed for help, pleaded to go to the hospital,
         and had steadily deteriorated since his arrival at the jail;”32 and

        personally witnessed a prisoner’s head being struck
         “repeatedly,” causing him to go “unconscious.”33
   Rogers, though, would have us read these cases as clearly establishing that
   any report of any strike to a prisoner’s head is enough to trigger a duty for
   officials to seek advanced medical care for the prisoner. They do not. No
   reasonable official would read them that way, and so we disagree with
   Rogers’s formulation of clearly established law.34

           30
             35 F.4th at 951 (quoting Easter v. Powell, 467 F.3d 459, 465 (5th Cir. 2006) (per
   curiam)) (emphasis added).
           31
                Easter, 467 F.3d at 465.
           32
                Sims, 35 F.4th at 952.
           33
                Moore v. LaSalle Mgmt. Co., 41 F.4th 493, at 502 (5th Cir. 2022).
           34
              See Buehler v. Dear, 27 F.4th 969, 981 (5th Cir. 2022) (“Although the plaintiff
   need not identify ‘a case directly on point’ in order to make such a showing, he or she must
   point to ‘authority at a sufficiently high level of specificity to put a reasonable official on

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                                               IV
           What happened to Rogers was unfortunate. Maybe it was negligent.
   But was it the product of deliberate indifference? Not on this record. And
   even if it were, these officials did not violate clearly established law on these
   facts. Bound by our controlling immunity precedent, we AFFIRM.

   notice that his conduct is definitively unlawful.’” (quoting Vincent v. City of Sulphur, 805
   F.3d 543, 547 (5th Cir. 2015)).

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   Don R. Willett, Circuit Judge, concurring:
           Today’s decision upholding qualified immunity is compelled by our
   controlling precedent. I write separately only to highlight newly published
   scholarship that paints the qualified-immunity doctrine as flawed—
   foundationally—from its inception.1
           For more than half a century, the Supreme Court has claimed that (1)
   certain common-law immunities existed when § 1983 was enacted in 1871,2
   and (2) “no evidence” suggests that Congress meant to abrogate these
   immunities rather than incorporate them.3 But what if there were such
   evidence? Indeed, what if the Reconstruction Congress had explicitly
   stated—right there in the original statutory text—that it was nullifying all
   common-law defenses against § 1983 actions? That is, what if Congress’s
   literal language unequivocally negated the original interpretive premise for
   qualified immunity? Professor Alexander Reinert argues precisely this in his
   new article, Qualified Immunity’s Flawed Foundation—that courts have been
   construing the wrong version of § 1983 for virtually its entire legal life.
           Wait, what?

           1
             Alexander A. Reinert, Qualified Immunity’s Flawed Foundation,
   111 Cal. L. Rev. 201 (2023) (“This Article takes aim at the roots of the doctrine—
   fundamental errors that have never been excavated.”).
           2
             Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, 556–57 (1967) (tethering qualified immunity to
   common-law defenses that existed circa 1871, like subjective good faith). Professor William
   Baude has challenged this historical premise—forcefully and methodically—arguing that
   qualified immunity departs significantly from traditional common-law principles. See
   William Baude, Is Qualified Immunity Unlawful?, 106 Cal. L. Rev. 45, 49–60 (2018).
   Professor Joanna Schwartz likewise questions the doctrine’s origins, contending there were
   no common-law immunities. See Joanna C. Schwartz, The Case Against Qualified Immunity,
   93 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1797 (2018).
           3
            Briscoe v. Lahue, 460 U.S. 325, 337 (1983) (“[W]e find no evidence that Congress
   intended to abrogate the traditional common-law . . . immunity in § 1983 actions.”).

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           As passed by the Reconstruction Congress, Section 1 of the Civil
   Rights Act of 1871 (now colloquially known as § 1983) read this way:
           [A]ny person who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance,
           regulation, custom, or usage of any State, shall subject, or cause
           to be subjected, any person within the jurisdiction of the
           United States to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or
           immunities secured by the Constitution of the United States,
           shall, any such law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or
           usage of the State to the contrary notwithstanding, be liable to the
           party injured in any action at law, suit in equity, or other proper
           proceeding for redress . . . .4
   The italicized language—the “Notwithstanding Clause,” as Professor
   Reinert calls it—explicitly displaces common-law defenses.5 The language
   that Congress passed makes clear that § 1983 claims are viable
   notwithstanding “any such law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or
   usage of the State to contrary.” The language is unsubtle and categorical,
   seemingly erasing any need for unwritten, gap-filling implications,
   importations, or incorporations. Rights-violating state actors are liable—
   period—notwithstanding any state law to the contrary.
           Then things went off the rails, quickly and stealthily. For reasons lost
   to history, the critical “Notwithstanding Clause” was inexplicably omitted
   from the first compilation of federal law in 1874.6 The Reviser of Federal

           4
               Civil Rights Act of 1871, ch. 22, § 1, 17 Stat. 13 (1871).
           5
             Reinert, supra at 235 and n.230 (observing that “this clause meant to encompass
   state common law principles,” noting that this understanding—that “custom or usage”
   was synonymous with common law—was, “after all,” why the Court overruled Swift v.
   Tyson, 41 U.S. 1 (1842), in Erie R.R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938), and also citing W.
   Union Tel Co. v. Call Pub. Co., 181 U.S. 92, 102 (1901), which in turn cites Black’s Law
   Dictionary for the proposition that common law derives from “usages and customs”).
           6
               Reinert, supra at 207, 237.

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   Statutes made an unauthorized alteration to Congress’s language. And that
   error was compounded when the various revised statutes were later
   published in the first United States Code in 1926. The Reviser’s error,
   whether one of omission or commission, has never been corrected. Today,
   152 years after Congress enlisted the federal courts to secure Americans’
   constitutional rights, if one were to Google “42 U.S.C. § 1983,” the altered
   version that pops up says nothing about common-law defenses. According to
   Professor Reinert, that fateful, unexplained omission means that courts and
   scholars have never “grappled” with the Notwithstanding Clause’s
   significance.7
           All to say, the Supreme Court’s original justification for qualified
   immunity—that             Congress    wouldn’t      have     abrogated       common-law
   immunities absent explicit language—is faulty because the 1871 Civil Rights
   Act expressly included such language. Those sixteen lost words, by presumably
   encompassing state common-law principles, undermine the doctrine’s long-
   professed foundation and underscore that what the 1871 Congress meant for
   state actors who violate Americans’ federal rights is not immunity, but
   liability—indeed, liability notwithstanding any state law to the contrary.8

           7
               Id. at 236, 244.
           8
              Beyond excavating the long-lost text of what the Reconstruction Congress
   actually passed, Professor Reinert asserts a second fundamental misstep: qualified
   immunity is rooted in a flawed application of the checkered “Derogation Canon.” This
   canon of statutory interpretation urges that statutes in “derogation” of the common law
   should be strictly construed. The Court misapplied this canon, says Professor Reinert,
   reading § 1983’s silence regarding immunity as implicit adoption of common-law immunity
   defenses rather than rejection of them. Id. at 211 n.56 (collecting cases). Professor Reinert
   maintains that the Derogation Canon has always rested on shaky ground, with Justice
   Scalia, writing with lexicographer Bryan Garner, branding it “a relic of the courts’
   historical hostility to the emergence of statutory law.” Id. at 218 (citing Antonin
   Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of
   Legal Texts 318 (2012)). Even more importantly, Reconstruction-era legislators would

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           These are game-changing arguments, particularly in this text-centric
   judicial era when jurists profess unswerving fidelity to the words Congress
   chose. Professor Reinert’s scholarship supercharges the critique that modern
   immunity jurisprudence is not just atextual but countertextual. That is, the
   doctrine does not merely complement the text—it brazenly contradicts it.
           In arguing that qualified immunity is flawed from the ground up,
   Professor Reinert poses a provocative question: “If a legislature enacts a
   statute, but no one bothers to read it, does it still have interpretive force?”9
   It seems a tall order to square the modern qualified-immunity regime with
   Congress’s originally enacted language. But however seismic the
   implications of this lost-text research, “‘[a]s middle-management circuit
   judges,’ we cannot overrule the Supreme Court.”10 Only that Court can
   definitively grapple with § 1983’s enacted text and decide whether it means
   what it says—and what, if anything, that means for § 1983 immunity
   jurisprudence.11

   not have understood the canon as operating to dilute § 1983 by implying common-law
   defenses. Why? Because since the Founding era, the Supreme Court had only used the
   Derogation Canon (criticized by mid-nineteenth courts and treatises for arrogating power
   to judges) to protect preexisting common law rights, never to import common law defenses
   into new remedial statutes. Reinert, supra at 221–28. In short, the Derogation Canon does
   not validly apply to defenses. The more applicable canon, around which Reconstruction-
   era courts had coalesced, was a contrary one: remedial statutes—such as § 1983—should
   be read broadly. Id. at 219, 227–28. In any event, as argued above, even if the Derogation
   Canon did apply to defenses, the as-passed language of § 1983 explicitly displaced any
   existing common-law immunities.
           9
                Id. at 246.
           10
              Sims v. Griffin, 35 F.4th 945, 951 n.17 (5th Cir. 2022) (quoting Whole Woman’s
   Health v. Paxton, 978 F.3d 896, 920 (5th Cir. 2020) (Willett, J., dissenting), rev’d en banc,
   10 F.4th 430 (5th Cir. 2021)).
           11
            Not all Supreme Court Justices have overlooked the Notwithstanding Clause. In
   Butz v. Economou, the Court quoted the as-passed statutory language, including the
   Notwithstanding Clause, yet, in the same breath, remarked that § 1983’s originally enacted

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Case: 21-20200        Document: 00516695420               Page: 16       Date Filed: 03/30/2023

                                          No. 21-20200

   text “said nothing about immunity for state officials.” 438 U.S. 478, 502–03 & n.29 (1978)
   (citing Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547 (1967), Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409 (1976), and
   Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232 (1974)). Indeed, members of the Supreme Court have often
   noted the Notwithstanding Clause’s existence and omission from the U.S. Code. See Hague
   v. Comm. for Indus. Org., 307 U.S. 496, 510 (1939); Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 228 (1961)
   (Harlan, J., concurring); Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144, 203 n.15 (1970)
   (Brennan, J., concurring); see also Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. 91, 99 n.8 (1945)
   (quoting the originally enacted text, including the Notwithstanding Clause); Monroe, 365
   U.S. at 181 n.27 (majority) (same); Examining Bd. of Eng’rs, Architects, & Surveyors v. Flores
   de Otero, 426 U.S. 572, 582 n.11 (1976) (same); Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658,
   691–92 (1978) (same); Chapman v. Hous. Welfare Rights Org., 441 U.S. 600, 608 n.15 (1979)
   (same); Briscoe v. LaHue, 460 U.S. 325, 357 n.17 (1983) (Marshall, J., dissenting) (same);
   Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261, 262 n.1 (1985) (same); Jett v. Dall. Indep. Sch. Dist., 491
   U.S. 701, 723 (1989) (same); Ngiraingas v. Sanchez, 495 U.S. 182, 188 n.8 (1990) (same).

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