Court Opinion

ID: 9499022
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:35:38.862862+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:14.167134
License: Public Domain

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I agree completely with the court’s conclusion that the facts of this case, when viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, simply do not show a violation of a constitutional right. Upon reassignment to the position of investigator, Mr. Atterberry was deprived of his title as Chief of the DPR’s Enforcement Administration Unit, as well as certain job responsibilities. However, Mr. Atterberry can claim no valid property interest, rooted in state or contract law, in either his title or his job responsibilities. The applicable Illinois statute proscribes a public employee’s “demotion” without cause, 20 ILCS § 415/8b.l6; in turn, “demotion” is defined narrowly by the Illinois Administrative Code as the reassignment to a position “having a lower maximum permissible salary or rate,” which did not occur in this case. 111. Admin. Code tit. 80, § 302.470(a) (2002).
I write separately, however, to express my view that the court’s further inquiry into whether the constitutional right claimed was clearly established at the time of the alleged violation is unnecessary and inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent. The Supreme Court has advised that, to proceed in the face of a qualified immunity defense, a plaintiff must establish that there was a violation of a constitutional right; only if such a showing is made should the court then reach the question of whether that constitutional right was clearly established at the time of the violation. See Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001) (instructing the federal courts to “turn[ ] to the existence or nonexistence of a constitutional right as the first inquiry.... If no constitutional right would have been violated were the allegations established, there is no necessity for further inquiries concerning qualified immunity”). In light of our conclusion that no violation of a constitutional right has been established in this case, the principal opinion’s ensuing analysis of Head v. Chicago School Reform Board of Trustees, 225 F.3d 794 (7th Cir.2000), Levenstein v. Salafsky, 164 F.3d 345 (7th Cir.1998), and Parrett v. City of Connersville, Indiana, 737 F.2d 690 (7th Cir.1984), is premised on merely hypothetical facts and, under the methodology mandated by the Supreme Court, unnecessary.