Lowinger v. Broderick
| Decision Date | 10 February 1995 |
| Docket Number | No. 94-2077,94-2077 |
| Parties | Lazar LOWINGER, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. William T. BRODERICK, Defendant-Appellant. . Heard |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
James F. Lamond, with whom Alan J. McDonald and McDonald and Associates, Newton, MA, were on brief, for appellant William T. Broderick.
Thomas J. Chirokas, Lexington, MA, for appellees Lazar Lowinger and Audrey Lowinger.
Before SELYA and BOUDIN, Circuit Judges, and CARTER, * District Judge.
In this case Plaintiffs, Lazar and Audrey Lowinger, seek recovery under 42 United States Code Section 1983 and state tort law 1 from Defendants, Sergeant William T. Broderick ("Broderick") and Commissioner Francis M. Roache, both of the Boston Police Department; former Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn; and the City of Boston for damages caused by Defendants' allegedly false arrest of Lazar Lowinger. Defendant Broderick, who was sued in his individual and official capacities, moved for summary judgment asserting his entitlement to qualified immunity for any of the acts alleged by Plaintiffs. The district court concluded that the record contained genuine issues of material fact regarding whether Broderick was entitled to summary judgment and denied Broderick's motion. We now reverse. The essential facts, as presented to the district court by the parties, follow.
On September 9, 1987, Defendant Broderick, a sergeant with the Boston Police Department, was assigned to a police district located in Brighton as a patrol supervisor. Shortly after midnight, Broderick responded to a complaint of a loud party and arrested one person, Stephen Quinn, for disturbing the peace and possession of a false liquor purchase identification card. Quinn was taken back to the district station where he was booked and detained.
At approximately the same time as Quinn's arrest, Plaintiff Lazar Lowinger ("Lowinger"), an attorney, was contacted at his home by an individual requesting that Lowinger undertake to represent Quinn. Lowinger contacted the district station and spoke to Broderick, who refused to provide any information regarding Quinn's arrest over the phone. Lowinger went to the police station and entered with two young men, both of whom had been in the station earlier that night in connection with Quinn's arrest and had been told to leave because they were intoxicated, and one of whom had contacted Lowinger to represent Quinn.
Lowinger presented himself at the counter in the station as Quinn's attorney and showed the officer a small hand-held tape recorder, stating that he wanted to see Quinn and intended to record the "proceedings." At that time, Broderick instructed the two men accompanying Lowinger to leave the station and expressly told Lowinger that he did not authorize the recording of the conversation and to turn the recorder off. The two men left and Lowinger turned off the recorder, placed it on the counter, and proceeded to have a "heated discussion" with Broderick regarding the use of the recorder during which Broderick informed Lowinger that the recording of a conversation without the knowledge or authorization of the participants was a felony. 2 The upshot of the discussion was that Lowinger was unsuccessful in convincing Broderick to permit him to see Quinn.
At some point thereafter, Broderick saw the recorder in Lowinger's possession once again with its red light on and the tape moving inside. It is disputed whether Broderick was speaking at the time the machine was recording. Broderick instructed the other officers to take Lowinger into custody for violation of Massachusetts state law against unauthorized interception of communications. In the criminal prosecution that followed, Lowinger successfully moved to suppress the small tape recorder after the state court concluded that, because there were only a "few words" on the tape from that incident, Lowinger was merely dictating a memo to himself when he turned on the recorder.
Lowinger and his wife, Audrey, commenced this civil action for Defendants' alleged infringement on the Lowingers' civil rights and for violations of state tort law. Broderick moved for summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity and submitted an affidavit to support his position. Plaintiffs filed an untimely response to the motion and submitted a copy of the "Findings Regarding Allowance of Defendant's Motion to Suppress" ("Findings") issued by the Massachusetts District Court during the unsuccessful criminal prosecution of Lowinger. 3 When the summary judgment motion was decided in recorded proceedings before the district court, the court considered both Broderick's affidavit and the state court's Findings, concluding that a genuine issue of material fact existed regarding whether Broderick was entitled to qualified immunity. This interlocutory appeal by Broderick followed.
As a preliminary matter, Lowinger disputes whether this Court has proper jurisdiction over the appeal since the district court's denial of summary judgment was not a "final order" from which an appeal may follow.
It is well-settled that a court of appeals has jurisdiction over an interlocutory appeal from a district court's denial of qualified immunity. Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985). The Supreme Court in Mitchell explained that immunity, whether absolute or qualified, has the "essential attribute" of entitling its possessor to avoid standing trial. Thus, the doctrine provides "immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability; and ... it is effectively lost if a case is erroneously permitted to go to trial." Id. at 526, 105 S.Ct. at 2815. See also Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987).
This Court, time and again, has heeded the Supreme Court's instructions in this area and exercised jurisdiction over such appeals, including appeals from district courts that had concluded that there were genuine issues of material fact, and, on several occasions, this Court has reversed the denial of summary judgment. See, e.g., Febus-Rodriguez v. Betancourt-Lebron, 14 F.3d 87, 90 (1st Cir.1994); Rogers v. Fair, 902 F.2d 140, 142 (1st Cir.1990); Fonte v. Collins, 898 F.2d 284, 285 (1st Cir.1990); Newman v. Massachusetts, 884 F.2d 19, 22 (1st Cir.1989); Mariani-Giron v. Acevedo-Ruiz, 877 F.2d 1114, 1120 (1st Cir.1988); Unwin v. Campbell, 863 F.2d 124, 132 (1st Cir.1989). If the district court was in error in denying summary judgment, permitting the immediate appeal of such denials avoids subjecting officials unnecessarily to discovery and trial. Accordingly, our review of the district court's actions here is proper and, since those actions address questions of law, the district court's conclusions are subject to plenary review. Febus-Rodriguez, 14 F.3d at 90.
The central question presented by this appeal is whether the district court properly concluded that the record demonstrated genuine issues of material fact regarding Broderick's entitlement to immunity and, therefore, that Broderick was not entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law. Broderick argues on appeal that the record in this case substantiates his entitlement to qualified immunity and that the district court erred when it concluded that genuine issues of material fact were generated through the parties' submissions on the motion. Although Broderick has raised other issues in this appeal, our resolution of this primary matter eliminates our need to reach these other issues. 4
The inquiry for a district court's resolution on a motion for summary judgment brought by an official seeking qualified immunity is "whether a reasonable official could have believed his actions were lawful in light of clearly established law and the information the official possessed at the time of his allegedly unlawful conduct." Id. at 91 (quoting McBride v. Taylor, 924 F.2d 386, 389 (1st Cir.1991)). Although, as with any summary judgment determination, all facts and reasonable inferences are construed in favor of the nonmoving party, the analysis employed to determine whether an official is entitled to summary judgment is quite generous. A "reasonable, although mistaken, conclusion about the lawfulness of one's conduct does not subject a government official to personal liability." Cookish v. Powell, 945 F.2d 441, 443 (1st Cir.1991). This Court has observed that the "qualified immunity standard 'gives ample room for mistaken judgments' by protecting 'all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.' " Rivera v. Murphy, 979 F.2d 259, 263 (1st Cir.1992) (quoting Hunter v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224, 229, 112 S.Ct. 534, 537, 116 L.Ed.2d 589, 596 (1991) (per curiam)). Under this analysis, "A court must look to the 'objective legal reasonableness' of an official's conduct, as measured by reference to clearly established law." Mariani-Giron, 877 F.2d at 1116. Therefore, since even erroneous decisions by officials may be entitled to qualified immunity, the analysis employed to determine entitlement to qualified immunity warrants an entirely different approach from that employed to evaluate the merits of Plaintiffs' underlying claims. Id.; Morales v. Ramirez, 906 F.2d 784, 787 (1st Cir.1990).
Although the district court here correctly observed at the outset that Broderick was entitled to summary judgment "if a reasonable police officer could have believed he had probable cause to arrest the plaintiff," it is clear from the court's subsequent remarks that its true focus was the merits of Plaintiffs' underlying case when it determined whether a genuine issue of material fact existed on this record. Appendix at 776. Without reaching the issue of whether the state court Findings constituted a proper form of supporting documentation for consideration on a ...
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