Court Opinion

ID: 9394984
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-16 19:00:48.653377+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:04.500023
License: Public Domain

RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION
                                 Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b)
                                        File Name: 23a0100p.06

                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                    FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

                                                              ┐
 JAMES SWAIN RIEVES,
                                                              │
                                    Plaintiff-Appellant,      │
                                                              │
        v.                                                     >        No. 23-5106
                                                              │
                                                              │
 TOWN OF SMYRNA, TENNESSEE, et al.,                           │
                                             Defendants,      │
                                                              │
                                                              │
 RUTHERFORD COUNTY, TENNESSEE; MIKE FITZHUGH,                 │
 in his official and individual capacities,                   │
                                   Defendants-Appellees.      │
                                                              ┘

 Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee at Nashville.
                  No. 3:18-cv-00965—Aleta Arthur Trauger, District Judge.

                                Decided and Filed: May 16, 2023

                 Before: GIBBONS, KETHLEDGE, and BUSH, Circuit Judges.

                                       _________________

                                             COUNSEL

ON BRIEF: Wesley Ben Clark, Frank Ross Brazil, BRAZIL CLARK PLLC, Nashville,
Tennessee, for Appellant. Nick C. Christiansen, Daniel W. Ames, D. Randall Mantooth,
Murfreesboro, Tennessee, for Appellees.
                                       _________________

                                              OPINION
                                       _________________

       JULIA SMITH GIBBONS, Circuit Judge. Local law enforcement officials in Rutherford
County, Tennessee raided twenty-three stores selling cannabidiol (“CBD”) products because
 No. 23-5106                             Rieves v. Town of Smyrna, Tenn.                                     Page 2

they falsely believed that such products were illegal under state drug laws. The charges were
dropped, as the products were legal under both state and federal law. The shop owners then sued
the responsible law enforcement agencies, asserting violations of their constitutional rights and
conspiracy to violate those rights. All but one of the shop owners ultimately settled. The sole
remaining plaintiff, James Rieves, sought to progress to trial on his claims against the City of
Smyrna and its police chief as well as Rutherford County and its sheriff. However, the district
court granted summary judgment to the County and sheriff and certified the decision for
interlocutory appeal.

           We granted interlocutory appeal to clarify the scope of our civil conspiracy doctrine.
Because the plaintiff presented evidence to support a claim of § 1983 civil conspiracy, we
reverse the district court’s judgment and remand for further proceedings.

                                                          I.

           This case concerns “Operation Candy Crush,” a joint operation by the Rutherford County
District Attorney’s (“DA’s”) office, the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office (“RCSO”), and the
Smyrna Police Department (“SPD”).1 It began in February 2017, when an RCSO officer opened
an investigation into cannabidiol (“CBD”) products being advertised on Facebook by a local
store.     An undercover officer purchased a selection of CBD products from the store and
submitted the products to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (“TBI”) for lab testing. The
resulting TBI laboratory report noted that the products contained CBD and categorized CBD as a
Schedule VI drug. Several RCSO detectives met with Assistant DA John Zimmerman to “seek
prosecutorial direction” because the detectives could not find a legal source to indicate that CBD
was in fact a Schedule VI drug. DE 122-3, RCSO Summary, Page ID 1284. Over the coming
months, RCSO detectives were repeatedly assured by members of the DA’s office that CBD was
illegal.

           Independently of the RCSO investigation, SPD learned of shops selling CBD products
and began investigating. One of these shops was Platinum Vapor, LLC, d/b/a Cloud 9 Hemp

           1Because
                  this appeal is taken from the district court’s order granting the defendants’ motion for summary
judgment, we draw all facts and inferences in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v.
Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 600-01 (1986) (White, J., dissenting).
 No. 23-5106                     Rieves v. Town of Smyrna, Tenn.                        Page 3

(“Cloud 9”), which SPD Sergeant Eric Elstran began investigating in August 2017.            On
September 15, 2017, SPD became aware that RCSO was conducting its own investigation into
CBD products in the area and Elstran contacted RCSO for more information. RCSO also asked
SPD if it would assist in future raids of businesses being investigated. On September 26, 2017,
Elstran executed a search warrant at Cloud 9 and seized products labelled as CBD. In response,
James Swain Rieves, the owner of Cloud 9, emailed Elstran and detailed exactly how all of the
store’s CBD products were legal. No criminal charges were brought against Rieves at that time.

        In the following months, Operation Candy Crush continued to move forward, despite
concerns from RCSO officials that the CBD products might be legal. On January 11, 2018, two
assistant DAs, RCSO Detective Curtis Beane, Elstran, and members of TBI met at the TBI
headquarters in Nashville. At the meeting, TBI agents informed the other agencies that their
tests could not conclude whether the products contained illegal substances and that “under no
circumstances” would TBI agree to testify that the CBD products were illegal or qualified as
Schedule VI drugs. DE 122-14, TBI Report, Page ID 1393. Members of the RCSO, particularly
Major Bill Sharp, continued to express reservations about moving forward with the operation.
Sharp briefed RCSO Sheriff Mike Fitzhugh about the case on January 22, 2018, and met with
five other RCSO members on January 30, 2018, where consensus was that “no one [was]
comfortable moving ahead at [that] time.” DE 122-13, Sharp Report, Page ID 1389. Sharp
explicitly shared those concerns with Fitzhugh. Sharp further attempted to stop the search
warrants associated with Operation Candy Crush.

        Rather than pausing and fully addressing these concerns, members of the DA’s office
escalated the case directly to Fitzhugh, the head of RCSO. According to one RCSO officer,
“Sheriff Fitzhugh ignored [the officers’] concerns and decided to move forward anyway.” DE
142-2, Mathis Decl., Page ID 1815. Fitzhugh then directed Sharp and other detectives to attend
another meeting with the DA’s office. That meeting, on February 2, 2018, was “contentious” as
the RCSO detectives continued to express concerns. In the meeting, Sharp raised concerns about
“civil action” by the store owners, to which Zimmerman responded: “We will put off the court
dates, attorneys will get tired of coming to court and settle.” DE 122-13, Sharp Report, Page ID
1389.
 No. 23-5106                     Rieves v. Town of Smyrna, Tenn.                         Page 4

       Once again, despite the concerns raised, the operation moved forward and a simultaneous
raid of twenty-three stores selling CBD products in Rutherford County was set for February 12,
2018. Although it had previously been searched by SPD, Cloud 9 was included on the list of
stores to be raided. RCSO hosted a meeting about procedures for the raids, protocols for
collection of evidence, and assignment of teams. RCSO was assigned to twenty-one locations.
SPD was assigned to Cloud 9 and one other location.

       On February 12 at 11:50 a.m., the operation took place as planned. Law enforcement
officials from RCSO, SPD, and other agencies simultaneously executed raids on twenty-three
stores selling CBD products in Rutherford County, including Cloud 9.           The stores were
padlocked, their inventory was seized, and the owners were arrested and charged with violating
the Tennessee Drug Control Act and creating a public nuisance.

       That same day, the DA’s office organized a press conference led by Fitzhugh. Fitzhugh
explained Operation Candy Crush to reporters and stated that the seized products contained an
illegal marijuana derivative that was dangerous to children.      Fitzhugh then stated that the
products were created by taking real candy products, spraying them with “this illegal substance”
and then repackaging them. DE 122-20, Press Conference Tr., Page ID 1445. He finally
claimed that “some of the synthetic products” had caused two deaths in the United States. Id. at
Page ID 1447. RCSO issued a press release about the raids and created a Facebook post
celebrating the operation. Local newspapers reported the story, which named the raided stores
and their owners, including Rieves.

       All charges were eventually dismissed because the CBD products were legal under both
federal and state law. When the DA’s office realized that the cases against the store owners were
falling apart, DA Jennings Jones called Sharp at home to inform him. Sharp once again raised
concerns about civil action by the store owners and Jones assured him that RCSO would be fine
because they could rely on “good faith” and “throw T.B.I. under the bus.” See DE 122-13, Sharp
Report, Page ID 1389-90.

       Seventeen store owners sued the various agencies and law enforcement officials involved
in the operation under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985 for violating their constitutional rights to be
 No. 23-5106                      Rieves v. Town of Smyrna, Tenn.                          Page 5

free from false arrest, unlawful seizure, and unlawful prosecution, as well as their right to equal
protection. They also claimed that officials leading the agencies—SPD Police Chief Arnold,
Jones, Zimmerman, and Fitzhugh—engaged in a conspiracy to deprive the owners of their
constitutional rights.

        In March 2019, the district court denied motions to dismiss filed by Jones, Zimmerman,
Fitzhugh, and Rutherford County. Those defendants appealed and this panel affirmed in all
respects except for the equal protection claim against Fitzhugh, on which we determined he was
entitled to qualified immunity. Rieves v. Town of Smyrna (“Rieves I”), 959 F.3d 678, 700 (6th
Cir. 2020).

        After the case was remanded, sixteen of the seventeen plaintiffs reached agreement with
all defendants on all claims and jointly moved for partial dismissal with prejudice, which the
district court granted. The only remaining plaintiff, Rieves, reached agreements with Jones and
Zimmerman, leading to their dismissal from the case. After these settlements, only Rieves’s
§ 1983 claims against the “Smyrna Defendants” (the Town of Smyrna and Arnold) and the
“County Defendants” (Rutherford County and Fitzhugh) remain. While the claims against the
Smyrna defendants were set for trial, the County defendants moved for summary judgment on all
claims. They further asserted that Rieves lacked standing in his claims against them.

        The district court granted summary judgment to the County defendants. While the
district court determined that Rieves did have standing to bring his claims, it held that Fitzhugh
and the County could not be at fault for the violations of Rieves’s Fourth Amendment rights, as
the search, seizure, and arrest were all conducted solely by members of SPD. It also held that the
conspiracy claims could not stand against Fitzhugh because of language from our opinion in
Webb v. United States, 789 F.3d 647 (6th Cir. 2015). That latter holding is the subject of the
instant interlocutory appeal by Rieves, which we granted to clarify the scope of our civil
conspiracy doctrine.

                                                II.

        We begin by briefly addressing the standing argument raised by the County defendants
both before the district court and on appeal. “To have standing, a plaintiff must allege (1) an
 No. 23-5106                       Rieves v. Town of Smyrna, Tenn.                            Page 6

injury in fact (2) that’s traceable to the defendant’s conduct and (3) that the courts can redress.”
Gerber v. Herskovitz, 14 F.4th 500, 505 (6th Cir. 2021) (citing Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife,
504 U.S. 555, 559-61 (1992)). There is no dispute that Rieves alleges a redressable injury by
asserting claims that his constitutional rights were violated by Operation Candy Crush; rather,
the County defendants challenge whether his injury is traceable to them.

       Traceability requires that the defendant’s actions “have a ‘causal connection’ to the
plaintiff’s injury.” Id. (quoting Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560). However, the plaintiff need not prove
that the defendant was the sole cause of his injury as long as harm is a “predictable effect” of the
defendant’s actions on the decisions of third parties. Dep’t of Com. v. New York, -- U.S. --, 139
S. Ct. 2551, 2566 (2019).

       Here, Rieves alleges that RCSO contributed to the furtherance of Operation Candy Crush
and the accompanying violation of his constitutional rights. He asserts that RCSO and Fitzhugh
asked the Town of Smyrna to assist in future raids, ignored repeated concerns about the legality
of the CBD products at issue, and assigned roles for the operation. The RCSO’s role assisted the
Smyrna defendants in executing their role in the operation and the resultant injury to Rieves was
a predictable outcome of their aid. The defendants dispute their role in targeting Cloud 9, which
is relevant to the merits question whether Rieves has established causation under the applicable
legal standard; however, “Article III ‘requires no more than de facto causality[.]’” Dep’t of
Com., 139 S. Ct. at 2566 (quoting Block v. Meese, 793 F.2d 1303, 1309 (D.C. Cir. 1986) (Scalia,
J.)). Because Rieves has alleged such causality, the traceability requirement is satisfied.

                                                III.

       With standing established, we analyze whether the district court properly granted
summary judgment to the County defendants on Rieves’ 42 U.S.C. § 1983 civil conspiracy
claim. Summary judgment determinations are reviewed de novo. Sperle v. Mich. Dep't of Corr.,
297 F.3d 483, 490 (6th Cir. 2002). The County defendants are entitled to summary judgment if
they show that there is no genuine dispute of material fact and that they are entitled to judgment
as a matter of law. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). As Rieves adopts the same set of facts relied upon
by the district court, the question is whether these facts make out a claim of civil conspiracy.
 No. 23-5106                      Rieves v. Town of Smyrna, Tenn.                           Page 7

       “A civil conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to injure another by
unlawful action.” Hooks v. Hooks, 771 F.2d 935, 943-44 (6th Cir. 1985). To prove conspiracy,
plaintiffs must show (1) “that there was a single plan,” (2) “that the alleged coconspirator shared
in the general conspiratorial objective,” and (3) “that an overt act was committed in furtherance
of the conspiracy that caused injury to the complainant.” Id. at 944 (citations omitted).

       Plaintiffs need not prove an express agreement among the conspirators, nor must they
show that each conspirator knew “all of the details of the illegal plan or all of the participants
involved.” Robertson v. Lucas, 753 F.3d 606, 622 (6th Cir. 2014) (quoting Hooks, 771 F.2d at
944). In order to survive summary judgment, plaintiffs asserting a civil conspiracy can “rely on
circumstantial evidence to establish an agreement among the conspirators,” id. (citing Hensley v.
Gassman, 693 F.3d 681, 695 (6th Cir. 2012)), as long as the conspiracy claims are “pled with
some degree of specificity” and do not rely on “vague and conclusory allegations,” Gutierrez v.
Lynch, 826 F.2d 1534, 1538 (6th Cir. 1987).

       Here, the alleged conspiracy is Operation Candy Crush, a single plan to simultaneously
raid and padlock twenty-three CBD-selling businesses where law enforcement officials in charge
knew that the products were legal and that no probable cause existed for the raids. Fitzhugh was
an alleged co-conspirator, as he shared in the objectives of the operation. His shared interest in
the objectives of the operation was evidenced by allowing the raids to go forward after learning
of the questionable legality of the raids and his officers’ expressed discomfort with the operation,
as well as the critical role RCSO played in the execution of the operation and at the subsequent
press conference. Finally, the alleged “overt act” was the execution of the raids and prosecution
of the store owners.

       Despite these allegations, the district court concluded that the “broad conspiracy” of
Operation Candy Crush was insufficiently personal to Rieves to make out a conspiracy claim.
DE 162, Op. and Order, Page ID 2044. That is, the district court found Fitzhugh’s general
awareness of the operation inadequate because he was not “personally involved” in the
investigation of Cloud 9, the determination that Cloud 9 was selling illegal products, the
indictment of Rieves, or the physical raid and padlocking of Cloud 9. Id. at Page ID 2045. For
that reason, the district court granted summary judgment to the County defendants.
 No. 23-5106                      Rieves v. Town of Smyrna, Tenn.                         Page 8

       Section 1983 civil conspiracy claims do not contain a “personal involvement”
requirement. Such a standard would defeat the purpose of permitting a civil conspiracy claim
because, at its core, “section 1983 permits a jury to hold co-conspirators liable for the damages
flowing from a constitutional deprivation that all of the co-conspirators may not have personally
carried out.” Sánchez v. Foley, 972 F.3d 1, 11 (1st Cir. 2020); see also Webb, 789 F.3d at 671
(“[T]he overt-act element requires only that at least one of the alleged conspirators committed an
overt act or omission in furtherance of the conspiracy.”); Simpson v. Weeks, 570 F.2d 240, 243
(8th Cir. 1978) (“The charge of conspiracy in a [§ 1983] civil action is merely the string whereby
the plaintiff seeks to tie together those who, acting in concert, may be held responsible for any
overt act or acts.”) (quoting Rutkin v. Reinfeld, 229 F.2d 248, 252 (2d Cir. 1956)). Liability for
§ 1983 conspiracy can attach even where “parties decide to act ‘interdependently,’ each actor
deciding to act only because he was aware that the others would act similarly[.]” Aubin v.
Fudala, 782 F.2d 280, 286 (1st Cir. 1983).

       Here, Fitzhugh’s alleged behavior reflects interdependent decision-making with SPD and
the DA’s office through the planning and execution of Operation Candy Crush, all calculated to
achieve an unconstitutional outcome. Although SPD’s raid of Cloud 9 was the overt act that
directly caused Rieves’s alleged injury, holding the County defendants liable for their alleged
involvement in the overall plan that led to that raid is not only proper but exactly the kind of
conspiratorial behavior at the heart of § 1983 civil conspiracy claims.

       The district court’s conclusion to the contrary was based on language from our decision
in Webb. The case was one of several before our court that addressed the fallout of Operation
Turnaround, a joint operation of the Drug Enforcement Agency and local law enforcement
addressing the illegal drug trade in Mansfield, Ohio, in the fall of 2005. 789 F.3d at 652; see
also Robertson, 753 F.3d at 610; Brown v. United States, 545 F. App’x 435 (6th Cir. 2013); Mott
v. Mayer, 524 F. App’x 179 (6th Cir. 2013). Within that facially legitimate operation, local
officials recruited a confidential informant who then used fake drug buys to frame innocent
people. Webb, 789 F.3d at 652-53. The involved officers apparently had varying levels of
knowledge about what the informant was doing, ranging from looking the other way when he
 No. 23-5106                      Rieves v. Town of Smyrna, Tenn.                         Page 9

shorted the government money to helping him frame people by fabricating evidence. Robertson,
753 F.3d at 612.

       Against that backdrop, a panel of this court decided Webb, where two of the framed
individuals sued some of the Operation Turnaround law enforcement officials and brought
§ 1983 civil conspiracy claims. 789 F.3d at 670-71. Webb concluded that a jury could infer a
conspiratorial plan for each of the plaintiffs. Id. at 671. For one plaintiff, the conspiracy was
among officers Lee Lucas, Chuck Metcalf, and Robert Cross, while for the other plaintiff, the
conspiracy was among Lucas, Metcalf, and Larry Faith. Id. The opinion then explained that the
plaintiffs’ § 1983 conspiracy claims against the remaining defendants failed,

       because those claims rely exclusively on misconduct in the wider Operation
       Turnaround context. Webb and Price were required to show that the remaining
       individual Defendants shared a common plan to violate their constitutional rights.
       While the remaining individual Defendants may have been involved in framing
       other Operation Turnaround targets, Plaintiffs produced no evidence that any of
       them personally participated in framing Webb or Price, and therefore it cannot be
       inferred that these Defendants joined in a common plan to frame Webb or Price.

Id. (citations omitted) (emphasis in original). It was from this language that the district court
inferred a “personal involvement” requirement.

       As we read it, Webb does not demand personal involvement by each co-conspirator in
every wrongful or overt act to be held liable. Instead, taken in the context of the broader series
of cases, Webb reflects an emphasis on § 1983 civil conspiracy’s requirement of a shared plan,
because Operation Turnaround did not reveal itself to be one conspiracy. The operation, which
constituted a series of drug buys committed over several months, orchestrated and carried out by
varying groups of officers, required an analysis that treated each of the corrupt drug buys as its
own conspiracy. Webb and Price alleged corrupt drug buys executed by different configurations
of two or three officers, id., while other framed plaintiffs could not allege any conspiracy, see
Robertson, 753 F.3d at 622. Notably, this makes sense because it was unclear for some of the
drug buys whether any officer knew that the confidential informant was framing the innocent
subject of the buy. See Robertson, 753 F.3d at 611-12. Within that context, the Webb panel held
that officers involved in other drug buys or other, unrelated misconduct could not be held
 No. 23-5106                      Rieves v. Town of Smyrna, Tenn.                         Page 10

responsible as co-conspirators in the conspiracies against each of the other framed plaintiffs.
789 F.3d at 671.

       Unlike Operation Candy Crush, then, Operation Turnaround was not itself an illegal
conspiracy.    Rather, varying groups of officers within Operation Turnaround conspired
separately to frame Webb, Price, and others. Thus, Webb held, an officer’s participation in the
overarching (legitimate) operation was insufficient to show that the officer had shared the
conspiratorial objective to frame plaintiffs. 789 F.3d at 670-71. That holding did no more than
restate the familiar requirement that an alleged coconspirator must have “shared in the general
conspiratorial objective.” Hensley v. Gassman, 693 F.3d 681, 695 (6th Cir. 2012) (quoting
Hooks, 771 F.2d at 943-44).

       Here, several factors indicate that a jury could reasonably conclude that Operation Candy
Crush constituted a “single plan” in which Fitzhugh participated.

       First, Operation Candy Crush had an obviously illegitimate purpose, known by the
conspirators, prior to the overt act. The evidence supports Rieves’s contention that Sharp shared
his concerns with others in the RCSO about the legality of the operation, but that the DA’s office
went over his head and contacted Fitzhugh in order to get RCSO to proceed with the operation.
A jury could reasonably conclude that Fitzhugh knew that the CBD products were legal but
encouraged his officers to go forward with the operation anyway. Unlike Operation Turnaround,
which had a facially legitimate purpose, Operation Candy Crush was illegitimate from the outset
and leadership knew that the raids lacked probable cause prior to their execution.

       Next, the scope of the operation was known and defined before the raids. The twenty-
three stores (including Rieves’s) were listed in an email circulated among the law enforcement
agencies in the week prior to the raids as they divided up responsibility for executing those raids.
Unlike Operation Turnaround, which involved a series of one-off operations, each involving
different levels of knowledge by law enforcement and involving different individual officers, all
the stores in Operation Candy Crush were known and targeted well in advance, and that
information was circulated to all law enforcement agencies involved. Furthermore, Fitzhugh
 No. 23-5106                       Rieves v. Town of Smyrna, Tenn.                         Page 11

described the raids as a single investigation in his subsequent press conference, Facebook post,
and press release.

       Third, the simultaneous nature of the raids indicates that they should be treated as parts of
a single plan. Although different agencies took responsibility for different locations, Fitzhugh
himself explained that the agencies coordinated to execute those raids at the exact same time.
Unlike the individualized drug buys of Operation Turnaround that occurred over a series of
months, Operation Candy Crush is reasonably treated as a single plan to violate the shop owners’
constitutional rights because the raids were coordinated and carried out simultaneously, with the
knowledge of all parties.

       The timing, illicit purpose, and defined scope of Operation Candy Crush create a genuine
dispute about whether it functioned as a single conspiratorial plan to raid the stores and arrest the
owners without probable cause.        These factors differentiate Operation Candy Crush from
Operation Turnaround, the subject of Webb and the heart of the district court’s reasoning for
granting summary judgment to the County defendants. The evidence presented by Rieves in his
opposition to summary judgment indicates that Fitzhugh acted as a conspirator in Operation
Candy Crush and that his co-conspirators took overt acts that injured Rieves by
unconstitutionally raiding Cloud 9.

       For those reasons, the County defendants were not entitled to summary judgment and the
judgment of the district court is reversed.

                                                IV.

       The County makes two additional arguments: first, even if Fitzhugh engaged in a civil
conspiracy, the County is not liable, and second, Fitzhugh is entitled to qualified immunity. The
district court reached neither of these arguments.

       To begin, the County is generally liable for the acts and decisions made by Fitzhugh in
his capacity as the final decisionmaker for RCSO. See Pembaur v. City of Cincinnati, 475 U.S.
469, 480-81 (1986); Flagg v. City of Detroit, 715 F.3d 165, 174-75 (6th Cir. 2013); Tenn. Code.
Ann. § 38-3-102(b) (endowing sheriffs, in their respective counties, with the duty to “ferret out
 No. 23-5106                       Rieves v. Town of Smyrna, Tenn.                        Page 12

crimes, to secure evidence of crimes, and to apprehend and arrest criminals”). The County does
not contest that Fitzhugh is the final decisionmaker of RCSO. Instead, it reiterates its argument
that Fitzhugh was not adequately involved in the raid of Cloud 9 to confer liability. It further
asserts that there are special limitations for conspiracy claims which require the plaintiff in such
a case to connect the conspiracy to a policy or custom of the county.

       Neither of these arguments against Monell liability is valid.         As discussed above,
Fitzhugh’s alleged involvement in Operation Candy Crush sufficiently supports a claim of civil
conspiracy. And no case law exists to suggest that the standard for Monell liability in the
conspiracy context differs from the general standard pursuant to which the act of a final
decisionmaker is enough to constitute a municipal policy.

       Similarly meritless is the County defendants’ argument that Fitzhugh is entitled to
qualified immunity. Qualified immunity protects governments officials from personal civil
liability as long as their conduct does not violate an individual’s clearly established rights. See
Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). At the motion to dismiss stage, we held that
Fitzhugh was not entitled to qualified immunity with respect to the store owners’ Fourth
Amendment claims because he “knew or reasonably should have known that the plaintiffs’
arrests were being effected without probable cause.” Rieves I, 959 F.3d at 698 (quoting DE 59,
Mem. Order, Page ID 442). We clarified that “[a]lthough Fitzhugh’s role in the investigation
was less direct than that of Jones and Zimmerman, the complaint alleges that he knew the RCSO
officers’ legitimate concerns about the CBD products’ supposed illegality and nevertheless
assisted in the execution of Operation Candy Crush.” Id. at 699. In the instant appeal, the only
material change has been the introduction of documents into the record that support these
allegations.

       Because the record evidence creates a genuine dispute about whether Fitzhugh either
1) knew that probable cause did not support Operation Candy Crush; or 2) held an objectively
unreasonable belief that probable cause existed for all of the store owners, which he had reason
to know included Rieves, and overrode his officers’ concerns about the legality of the CBD
products to move forward with the operation, he is not entitled to qualified immunity on the
claim that he conspired to deprive Rieves of his constitutional rights.
 No. 23-5106                      Rieves v. Town of Smyrna, Tenn.                      Page 13

                                                V.

       For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is reversed and remanded for
further proceedings consistent with this opinion.