Henderson v. Glanz — 813 F.3d 938 (2015) · United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit · 2015

Role: applied; posture: civil; jail inmate raped by another inmate sues two detention officers and sheriff for Eighth Amendment failure to protect; defendants' interlocutory appeal from denial of summary judgment on qualified immunity; two appeals dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, one reversed; result: mixed; claim:

Uncertainty

None recorded

Misfit

The appellate opinion decides almost nothing on the statute's elements: 2 of 3 defendants get a jurisdictional dismissal, the third a clearly-established ruling. v1 now carries the district court's triable-deliberate-indifference ruling as a `scope lower-court` block, but that block has a single borrowed fact line and no `held` (the quote set was frozen at migration), and it lumps two defendants with different theories (direct vs. supervisory) into one block.

`result` is per-opinion but outcomes are per-defendant (claim survives vs. Johnson and Glanz, lost vs. Thomas); "mixed" hides that. A per-`party` result would help.

Threshold appellate-jurisdiction holding is now `scope procedural`, but it still has to be hung on a pseudo-element (x-interlocutory-jurisdiction) whose satisfied/not-satisfied means "jurisdiction exists / does not"; there is no procedural block kind.

Qualified immunity has two prongs and a burden rule (plaintiff bears the burden on both once the defense is raised; forfeiture of prong 2 by defendants excused); neither prong structure nor burden allocation is expressible. The holding "plaintiff provided no authority" is a failure-of-burden holding, tagged [law].

The deprivation sub-element with real content here is the mental state (subjective awareness of substantial risk); there is no id for a state-of-mind component (deprivation.eighth-amendment.deliberate-indifference would be natural), and the court negates it factually while formally not reaching the violation.

Rich facts about the sheriff's notice (prior assaults, understaffing, no video) are in the opinion; they now have a home (the lower-court block) but remain unquoted because the migration froze the quote set.

interpretation

instead, we lack jurisdiction only if our review would require second-guessing the district court’s determinations of evidence sufficiency.”

Henderson v. Glanz — 813 F.3d 938 (2015) · United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit · 2015 (42usc1983: author: Fable · not independently reviewed)

instead, we lack jurisdiction only if our review would require second-guessing the district court’s determinations of evidence sufficiency.”

Under Johnson v. Jones (515 U.S. 304 (1995)) and Scott v. Harris (550 U.S. 372 (2007)), a court of appeals on interlocutory appeal from a denial of summary judgment on qualified immunity reviews abstract questions of law (taking the district court's assumed facts as true unless blatantly contradicted by the record).

interpretation

“Second, when the ‘version of events’ the district court holds a reasonable jury could credit ‘is blatantly contradicted by the record,’ we may assess the case based on our own de novo view of which facts a reasonable jury could accept as true.”

Henderson v. Glanz — 813 F.3d 938 (2015) · United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit · 2015 (42usc1983: author: Fable · not independently reviewed)

“Second, when the ‘version of events’ the district court holds a reasonable jury could credit ‘is blatantly contradicted by the record,’ we may assess the case based on our own de novo view of which facts a reasonable jury could accept as true.”

Under Johnson v. Jones (515 U.S. 304 (1995)) and Scott v. Harris (550 U.S. 372 (2007)), a court of appeals on interlocutory appeal from a denial of summary judgment on qualified immunity reviews abstract questions of law (taking the district court's assumed facts as true unless blatantly contradicted by the record).

interpretation

instead, we lack jurisdiction only if our review would require second-guessing the district court’s determinations of evidence sufficiency.”

Henderson v. Glanz — 813 F.3d 938 (2015) · United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit · 2015 (42usc1983: author: Fable · not independently reviewed)

instead, we lack jurisdiction only if our review would require second-guessing the district court’s determinations of evidence sufficiency.”

Procedural preservation rule applied in § 1983 appeals.

interpretation

Thus, at summary judgment, we must grant qualified immunity unless the plaintiff can show (1) a reasonable jury could find facts supporting a violation of a constitutional right, which (2) was clearly established at the time of the defendant’s conduct.

Henderson v. Glanz — 813 F.3d 938 (2015) · United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit · 2015 (42usc1983: author: Fable · not independently reviewed)

Thus, at summary judgment, we must grant qualified immunity unless the plaintiff can show (1) a reasonable jury could find facts supporting a violation of a constitutional right, which (2) was clearly established at the time of the defendant’s conduct.

Two-prong test (which courts may address in either order under Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223 (2009)): (1) whether the official violated a federal statutory or constitutional right, and (2) whether the unlawfulness of the conduct was "clearly established" at the time so as to give fair warning (Hope v. Pelzer; Mullenix v. Luna).

interpretation

the Supreme Court has admonished “not to define clearly established law at a high level of generality,”

Henderson v. Glanz — 813 F.3d 938 (2015) · United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit · 2015 (42usc1983: author: Fable · not independently reviewed)

the Supreme Court has admonished “not to define clearly established law at a high level of generality,”

Two-prong test (which courts may address in either order under Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223 (2009)): (1) whether the official violated a federal statutory or constitutional right, and (2) whether the unlawfulness of the conduct was "clearly established" at the time so as to give fair warning (Hope v. Pelzer; Mullenix v. Luna).