Court Opinion

ID: 9826966
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 17:01:14.091512+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:15:51.732326
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-13192    Document: 30-1     Date Filed: 08/31/2023   Page: 1 of 4

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                   In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                          ____________________

                                No. 22-13192
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       JOSEPH C. MAJDALANI,

                                                      Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
       versus
       WILLIAM C. HARDGRAVE, et al.,

                                                 Defendants-Appellants.
                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Middle District of Alabama
                     D.C. Docket No. 3:18-cv-00894-JTA
                          ____________________
USCA11 Case: 22-13192         Document: 30-1         Date Filed: 08/31/2023          Page: 2 of 4

       2                          Opinion of the Court                        22-13192

       Before NEWSOM, LAGOA, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Plaintiff-Appellee, Joseph Majdalani, a tenured professor at
       Auburn University, filed a complaint against several Auburn ad-
       ministrators alleging, in relevant part, various First Amendment
       claims. In their motion to dismiss Majdalani’s claims, Defendants-
       Appellants asserted that they were entitled to qualified immunity.
       The district court concluded that because Defendants-Appellants
       were not acting within the scope of their discretionary authority,
       they are not entitled to qualified immunity.
              Defendants-Appellants, all Auburn University administra-
       tors at the relevant time, 1 ask us to reverse the magistrate judge’s
       denial of their motion to dismiss on grounds that they are entitled
       to qualified immunity. 2 After careful review of the parties’ argu-
       ments, we vacate the district court’s denial of qualified immunity
       and remand.3

       1 Defendants-Appellants are William C. Hardgrave, former Provost for Aca-

       demic Affairs; Timothy Boosinger, former Provost of Auburn; John E. Winn,
       tenured professor and former Associate Provost for Faulty Affairs; Christopher
       Roberts, President of Auburn and former Dean of the College of Engineering;
       and Brian Thurow, Chair of Aerospace Engineering.
       2 The magistrate judge was presiding with the parties’ consent.

       3 We review de novo the denial of an immunity defense. McCullough v. Finley,

       907 F.3d 1324, 1330 (11th Cir. 2018). While a district court’s denial of a motion
       to dismiss is not ordinarily a final decision, the denial of qualified immunity at
       the motion to dismiss stage is a final decision as the defense entitles the holder
USCA11 Case: 22-13192         Document: 30-1        Date Filed: 08/31/2023         Page: 3 of 4

       22-13192                  Opinion of the Court                                3

               “The doctrine of qualified immunity protects government
       officials 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.” Pearson
       v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (internal quotation marks omitted).
       In order to invoke the defense of qualified immunity, a govern-
       ment official must have been acting within the scope of his discre-
       tionary authority at the time the allegedly wrongful conduct oc-
       curred. Grider v. City of Auburn, 618 F.3d 1240, 1254 n.19 (11th Cir.
       2010). If the official establishes that he was acting within the scope
       of his discretionary authority, “the burden shifts to the plaintiff to
       show that the official’s conduct (1) violated federal law (2) that was
       clearly established at the relevant time.” Spencer v. Benison, 5 F.4th
       1222, 1230 (11th Cir. 2021).
               For a defendant to prove that he was acting within the scope
       of his discretionary authority, he must show that his challenged ac-
       tions were “(1) undertaken pursuant to the performance of his du-
       ties, and (2) within the scope of his authority.” Harbert Int’l, Inc. v.
       James, 157 F.3d 1271, 1282 (11th Cir. 1998). When conducting this
       analysis, a court must “strip out the allegedly illegal conduct.”
       Spencer, 5 F.4th at 1231. In other words, “[t]he inquiry is not
       whether it was within the defendant’s authority to commit the al-
       legedly illegal act” because if “[f]ramed that way, the inquiry is no
       more than an ‘untenable’ tautology.” Harbert Int’l, 157 F.3d at 1282;

       to immunity from not just liability, but from the lawsuit. Id.; Patel v. City of
       Madison, 959 F.3d 1330, 1336 (11th Cir. 2020).
USCA11 Case: 22-13192      Document: 30-1     Date Filed: 08/31/2023     Page: 4 of 4

       4                      Opinion of the Court                 22-13192

       see also Carruth v. Bentley, 942 F.3d 1047, 1055 (11th Cir. 2019) (“A
       plaintiff cannot plead around qualified immunity simply by saying
       that the official was animated by an unlawful purpose. The excep-
       tion would swallow the rule.”).
               Here, the magistrate judge failed to “strip out” the allegedly
       illegal conduct. The judge found that “discrimination, harassment,
       mockery, invasion of privacy, and defamation” were not within the
       scope of the Defendants-Appellants official duties. The judge
       should have, however, “look[ed] to the general nature of [Defend-
       ants-Appellants] action[s],” and evaluated the actions at “the mini-
       mum level of generality necessary to remove the constitutional
       taint.” Holloman ex rel. Holloman v. Harland, 370 F.3d 1252, 1266
       (11th Cir. 2004).
             Accordingly, we vacate the district court’s denial of qualified
       immunity and remand for further proceedings consistent with this
       opinion.
             VACATED AND REMANDED.