Court Opinion

ID: 9489206
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:09:02.634673+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:23.883620
License: Public Domain

DIANA GRIBBON MOTZ, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment:
I concur in the judgment.
As the majority acknowledges, the “sole question before us ... is whether Dr. Carter violated clearly established law when, in response to the nurse’s call during the early morning hours of September 21 informing him that Hogan was in jeopardy of injuring himself, he ordered that Hogan be administered the single emergency dose of Thorazine.” Maj. Op. at 1115. I agree with the majority that in September, 1992, neither Washington v. Harper, 494 U.S. 210, 110 S.Ct. 1028, 108 L.Ed.2d 178 (1990) nor any other case clearly established that Dr. Carter’s conduct violated Hogan’s rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Maj. Op. at 1115-1116.
I write separately to emphasize that this is the only holding of the ease. The conclusion that no ease had established the extent of the process to which Hogan was entitled under the circumstances, and therefore a person in Dr. Carter’s position surely could not have known of the process required, resolves the qualified immunity question presented in this appeal. Thus, there is no need to opine: (1) what a “reasonable jurist” would have “resorted to” in considering whether Dr. Carter’s conduct in fact violated Hogan’s rights, Maj. Op. at 1117, 1118; (2) whether our opinion in United States v. Charters, 863 F.2d 302 (4th Cir.1988) (en banc), cert. denied, 494 U.S. 1016, 110 S.Ct. 1317, 108 L.Ed.2d 493 (1990), survives the Supreme Court’s Harper decision, Maj. Op. at 1118 (particularly in view of the majority’s initial conclusion that caselaw involving “non-emergency” situations had no bearing on Dr. Carter’s right to qualified immunity, Maj. Op. at 1116); or (3) whether it is “not unlikely” that if Hogan had been afforded the hearing to which the district court held he was entitled, “Dr. Carter would now be facing a lawsuit by Hogan claiming that he [Dr. Carter] was deliberately indifferent to his [Hogan’s] serious medical needs.” Maj. Op. at 1118. The discussion of these issues is unnecessary for the decision in this case and, as such, is mere dictum.
K.K. HALL, MURNAGHAN, ERVIN, and MICHAEL, JJ., join in this opinion.