Court Opinion

ID: 9560414
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:48:45.237986+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:12:53.813330
License: Public Domain

*253MARTHA CRAIG DAUGHTREY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The majority’s decision to reverse the district court’s denial of qualified immunity is apparently based not just on the 12 video files that were before the district court, but also on six additional video files that clearly were not before the district court. The majority justifies its consideration of this extraneous evidence on the basis of our authority to exercise de novo review of a district court’s ruling on a motion for summary judgment. That review, however, does not allow us to resolve disputes of fact that are, as here, material to the outcome of the case, nor to consider evidence not introduced below or to find facts not found by the district court. Indeed, nothing in Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 10, governing the record on appeal, permits the introduction — or, presumably, the consideration — of new evidence in the courts of appeal.
For this reason, I would remand the case to the district court with a direction to identify the 12 files submitted into evidence below or, alternatively, to view all 18 files and reconsider its ruling on the defendants’ motion for summary judgment in light of the intervening case of Scott v. Harris, — U.S.-, 127 S.Ct. 1769, 167 L.Ed.2d 686 (2007). That recent Supreme Court opinion, released after the district court’s decision was issued in this case, holds that in ruling on a motion for summary judgment, a district court need not view the facts in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party if that party’s version of events is “blatantly contradicted by the record, so that no reasonable jury could believe it.” Id. at 1776. As in this case, the record in Scott included videotapes that arguably conflicted with the non-moving party’s version of events in a section 1988 action charging law enforcement officers with the use of excessive force. Whether or not Scott is applicable retroactively to this case in its current posture, clearly it would be both relevant and applicable to a new ruling by the district court on the motion for summary judgment.