Lassiter v. Alabama A & M University, Bd. of Trustees

Citation28 F.3d 1146
Decision Date17 August 1994
Docket NumberNo. 92-6295,92-6295
Parties92 Ed. Law Rep. 1124 Albert E. LASSITER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ALABAMA A & M UNIVERSITY, BOARD OF TRUSTEES; Douglas Covington; Thomas Fuller; Herbert Gray; Robert T. Hughes; W. Troy Massey; Eddie Player, Defendants-Appellees.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit)

Susan Williams Reeves, Birmingham, AL, David Blankenship, Huntsville, AL, for appellant.

Gerald R. Weber, Jr., ACLU of Georgia, Atlanta, GA, for amicus curiae--ACLU of Georgia.

Joe R. Whatley, Jr., Sam Heldman, Cooper, Mitch, Crawford, Kuykendall & Whatley, John C. Falkenberry, Birmingham, AL, for appellees.

Michael J. Bowers, Carol A. Cosgrove, Office of Atty. Gen., Atlanta, GA, for amicus curiae--State of Ga.

J. Lewis Sapp, Stanford G. Wilson, R. Read Gignilliat, William D. Deveney, Walter O. Lambeth, Jr., Atlanta, GA, for amicus curiae--Association County Commissioners of Ga., and Ga. Municipal Assn.

Neal D. Bowen, Office of Atty. Gen., Kissimee, FL, for amicus curiae--Osceola County, Fla.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

Before TJOFLAT, Chief Judge, KRAVITCH, HATCHETT, ANDERSON, EDMONDSON, COX, BIRCH, DUBINA, BLACK, CARNES and BARKETT, Circuit Judges.

EDMONDSON, Circuit Judge:

Principles of qualified immunity govern this case. The controversy arises from the discharge, without a hearing, of plaintiff from state employment. In the district court, defendants, in their individual capacities, were granted judgment as a matter of law under Fed.R.Civ.Pro. 50(a). We affirm the judgments.

THE CASE

In June 1986, defendants--state university officials--were deciding what steps to take to discharge Albert Lassiter from his employment with Alabama A & M University (the "University"). Lassiter asked for a hearing. But defendants fired Lassiter without offering him a hearing.

Lassiter was entitled under the Federal Constitution to no procedural due process unless, under state law, he had a legitimate expectation of continued employment which rose to the level of a property right. Whitfield v. Finn, 731 F.2d 1506, 1507-08 (11th Cir.1984) (citing Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 92 S.Ct. 2694, 33 L.Ed.2d 570 (1972)). Two documents have been advanced by Lassiter as possible sources of such a Lassiter sued defendants in their individual capacities (and otherwise) under several theories. At trial, the district court, among other things, granted defendants judgment on the grounds of qualified immunity. 1 The issue in this case is whether defendants were due qualified immunity on Lassiter's claim that his termination deprived him of a property right without due process of law.

property right: his employment contract and a University policy manual. No one disputes the wording of these documents. The parties do disagree on the significance and meaning of the documents. A copy of the contract and pertinent manual excerpts are appended to this opinion.

QUALIFIED IMMUNITY PRINCIPLES

No new rules need to be announced to decide this case. But, for emphasis, we restate principles which do govern qualified immunity cases:

I. Qualified immunity protects government officials performing discretionary functions from civil trials (and the other burdens of litigation, including discovery) and from liability if their conduct violates no "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982); Siegert v. Gilley, 500 U.S. 226, 231-33, 111 S.Ct. 1789, 1793, 114 L.Ed.2d 277 (1991) (no discovery if immunity question can end case); see also Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224, ----, 112 S.Ct. 534, 536, 116 L.Ed.2d 589 (1991) ("we repeatedly have stressed the importance of resolving immunity questions at the earliest possible stage in litigation") (citations omitted). The qualified immunity doctrine means that government agents are not always required to err on the side of caution. Davis v. Scherer, 468 U.S. 183, 196, 104 S.Ct. 3012, 3020, 82 L.Ed.2d 139 (1984).

II. That qualified immunity protects government actors is the usual rule; only in exceptional cases will government actors have no shield against claims made against them in their individual capacities. 2 Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818, 102 S.Ct. at 2738 (officials "generally are shielded from liability for civil damages"); Barts v. Joyner, 865 F.2d 1187, 1190 (11th Cir.1989) ("The Harlow decision sets up a bright-line test that is a powerful constraint on causes of action under section 1983."); Dartland v. Metropolitan Dade County, 866 F.2d 1321, 1323-24 (11th Cir.1989) (when "no bright-line standard puts the reasonable public employer on notice of a constitutional violation, the employer is entitled to immunity except in the extraordinary case where [First Amendment case law] would lead to the inevitable conclusion that the [act taken against] the employee was unlawful"). Unless a government agent's act is so obviously wrong, in the light of pre-existing law, that only a plainly incompetent officer or one who was knowingly violating the law would have done such a thing, the government actor has immunity from suit. See Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341-43, 106 S.Ct. 1092, 1096-97, 89 L.Ed.2d 271 (1986). Because qualified immunity shields government actors in all but exceptional cases, courts should think long and hard before stripping defendants of immunity.

III. For the law to be clearly established to the point that qualified immunity does not apply, the law must have earlier been developed in such a concrete and factually defined context to make it obvious to all reasonable government actors, in the defendant's place, that "what he is doing" violates federal law. Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3039, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987). Qualified immunity is a The most common error we encounter, as a reviewing court, occurs on this point: courts must not permit plaintiffs to discharge their burden 3 by referring to general rules and to the violation of abstract "rights." See Anderson, 483 U.S. at 639-41, 107 S.Ct. at 3038-39 (even though the "general right [defendant] was alleged to have violated--the right to be free from warrantless searches of one's home unless the searching officers have probable cause and there are exigent circumstances--was clearly established," lower court should have "consider[ed] the argument that it was not clearly established that the circumstances with which [defendant] was confronted did not constitute probable cause and exigent circumstances") (emphasis added); see also Barts, 865 F.2d at 1190 (stating "clearly established" question at specific, factually defined, level).

doctrine that focuses on the actual, on the specific, on the details of concrete cases.

"General propositions have little to do with the concept of qualified immunity." Muhammad v. Wainwright, 839 F.2d 1422, 1424 (11th Cir.1987). "If case law, in factual terms, has not staked out a bright line, qualified immunity almost always protects the defendant." Post v. City of Fort Lauderdale, 7 F.3d 1552, 1557 (11th Cir.1993), modified, 14 F.3d 583 (11th Cir.1994); accord Kelly v. Curtis, 21 F.3d 1544, 1554 (11th Cir.1994). 4 "The line is not to be found in abstractions--to act reasonably, to act with probable cause, and so forth--but in studying how these abstractions have been applied in concrete circumstances." Barts, 865 F.2d at 1194. And, as the en banc court recently accepted:

When considering whether the law applicable to certain facts is clearly established, the facts of cases relied upon as precedent are important. The facts need not be the same as the facts of the immediate case. But they do need to be materially similar. See, e.g., Edwards v. Gilbert, 867 F.2d 1271, 1277 (11th Cir.1989). Public officials are not obligated to be creative or imaginative in drawing analogies from previously decided cases.

Adams v. St. Lucie County Sheriff's Dept., 962 F.2d, 1563, 1573, 1575 (11th Cir.1992), (Edmondson, J., dissenting) (emphasis added), approved en banc, 998 F.2d 923 (11th Cir.1993). For qualified immunity to be surrendered, pre-existing law must dictate, that is, truly compel (not just suggest or allow or raise a question about), the conclusion for every like-situated, reasonable government agent that what defendant is doing violates federal law in the circumstances.

IV. Because qualified immunity is a doctrine of practical application to real-life situations, courts judge the acts of defendant government officials against the law and facts at the time defendants acted, not by hindsight, based on later events. See Hunter, 502 U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 537 ("the court should ask whether the agents acted reasonably under settled law in the circumstances, not whether another reasonable, or more reasonable, interpretation of the events can be construed five years after the fact").

V. The subjective intent of government actor defendants plays no part in qualified immunity analysis. Anderson, 483 U.S. at 641, 107 S.Ct. at 3040 (despite that courts may inquire into "information possessed" by defendant, the defendant's "subjective beliefs ... are irrelevant"); Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 517, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 2810, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985) (in Harlow, "this Court purged qualified immunity doctrine of its subjective components"); Hansen v. Soldenwagner, 19 F.3d 573, 578 (11th Cir.1994) ("[t]he Supreme Court in Harlow staked a new path for immunity law by abandoning the subjective element of 'good faith' immunity in favor of an objective test"). Objective legal reasonableness is the touchstone.

VI. A decision on qualified immunity is separate and distinct from the merits of the case--a principle illustrated by the Supreme Court's willingness to treat the denial of qualified immunity at summary judgment as an appealable collateral order. Mitchell, 472 U.S....

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