Cartier v. Lussier, 473

• Decision Date: 05 February 1992
• Docket Number: D,No. 473,473
• Parties: Tara CARTIER; Donald Coates, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Paul D. LUSSIER, individually and in his official capacity, Defendant-Appellant. ocket 91-7590.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Page 841

955 F.2d 841

Tara CARTIER; Donald Coates, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Paul D. LUSSIER, individually and in his official capacity,

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 473, Docket 91-7590.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued Nov. 7, 1991.

Decided Feb. 5, 1992.

Scott M. Karsten, West Hartford, Conn. (Sack, Spector & Barrett, of counsel), for defendant-appellant.

John R. Williams, New Haven, Conn. (Williams and Wise, New Haven, Conn., Jacques J. Parenteau, Greenberg, Steenburg and Parenteau, P.C., New London, Conn., of counsel), for plaintiffs-appellees.

Before KAUFMAN ^*, CARDAMONE, and MINER, Circuit Judges.

CARDAMONE, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiffs, Tara Cartier and Donald Coates, her brother, commenced this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 civil rights action against Paul D. Lussier, a Connecticut State Trooper. Plaintiffs allege that defendant lacked probable cause to arrest them following the death of Christopher Izzo, who was present in an automobile with plaintiff Cartier when a fatal accident occurred. Coates witnessed the accident. In his motion for summary judgment dismissing plaintiffs' action, Lussier asserted that qualified immunity barred suit against him, and thus he was entitled to judgment as a matter of law. The United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (Nevas, J.) found material issues of fact precluded the application of qualified immunity and therefore denied the motion. The district court believed the mantle of qualified immunity with which public officers are enveloped simply melts away in the heat of controverted facts. We think rather the rule is when, as here, the factual disputes are immaterial to resolving the qualified immunity issue, its protective mantle remains undissolved.

BACKGROUND

On September 9, 1986 a two-car collision occurred at an intersection in the Town of North Stonington, Connecticut. Officer Lussier was dispatched to the scene. There the trooper interviewed Gary Stanley, the driver of one vehicle, Tara Cartier--who was accompanied by Christopher Izzo in the other vehicle--and Donald Coates, who claimed he witnessed the accident. The accident occurred when the vehicle containing Cartier and Izzo went through a stop sign and flashing red light into the intersection where it was broadsided by the Stanley vehicle. Izzo, who was lying on the ground unconscious, never regained consciousness, and died several weeks later. The trooper commenced an investigation of the fatal accident which led to the arrest of Tara Cartier for negligent homicide with a motor vehicle and for filing a false statement, and to the arrest of her brother Donald Coates for filing a false statement. This investigation and the resulting arrests--and the facts that Lussier set forth in the affidavit in support of the arrest warrants--are the focus of the present litigation.

At the scene of the accident, the then 17-year-old plaintiff Cartier told Lussier that 19-year-old Izzo was the driver of her vehicle when the accident occurred. Coates corroborated his sister's version, stating he observed Izzo driving Cartier's auto at the time of the accident. Although he originally said "I know my sister stopped because I saw the brake lights," when the trooper stated "So Tara was driving," Coates rejoined that he was referring to the car, and that Izzo was driving. This inconsistency led the officer to believe Coates was not telling the truth. Stanley, the driver of the other car approaching from the right or passenger's side where the impact occurred declared that he saw the "horrified look on the face of a male" who was in the passenger side of the car prior to impact. During the course of his investigation, which is required under Connecticut law in the case of a fatality, see Conn.Gen.Stat. § 14-108a(b), Lussier obtained written statements from each of these three witnesses.

He also interviewed Catherine Orr, the plaintiffs' mother, who stated that when Izzo and her daughter Tara left home five minutes before the accident, Izzo was driving. Willard Wilkinson, a friend of Cartier's and Coates', signed a statement stating that a few minutes before the fatality--about 1.5 miles from the scene--he saw Tara Cartier drive by in her gray Toyota, and she waved to him. Months later at the criminal trial Wilkinson disputed the accuracy of his signed statement, alleging that he did not tell Lussier who was driving the vehicle and that he did not read the statement that Lussier prepared before signing it.

As part of his investigation and with the assistance of State Trooper Jeffrey Megin, Trooper Lussier searched the automobile and found short black hair--correlating with Izzo's and not matching the blond hair of Cartier--imbedded in damaged plastic molding on the passenger side of the car. The officers determined that the deceased had suffered a head injury of a type corresponding to an impact with the molding at the spot where the hair was found. Tests performed by the state's forensic laboratory after the arrests were inconclusive, failing to establish either that the hair was or was not Izzo's. Officers Lussier and Megin also performed an accident reconstruction that led them to believe that Izzo could not have been driving at the time of the accident. Plaintiffs submitted an affidavit of a forensic engineer contesting the validity of the officers' reconstruction report, asserting it was contrary to the laws of physics and the evidence gathered at the scene.

Following Izzo's death, Lussier prepared and submitted affidavits on October 9, 1986, seeking arrest warrants from a Connecticut judge for Cartier and Coates. The warrants were executed on October 26. The charges against both plaintiffs for filing false statements eventually were dismissed. In November 1987, after a two-week jury trial, Tara Cartier was acquitted of negligent homicide.

Plaintiffs then commenced the present civil rights action against Trooper Lussier pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Connecticut common law, alleging that he lacked an objective basis to conclude that probable cause existed to support the issuance of the arrest warrants. They challenge the validity of the warrants' supporting affidavits, contending Lussier intentionally or recklessly misrepresented certain facts and omitted others, specifically that he misrepresented the statements provided by Coates and Wilkinson and omitted the statement provided by Orr. They also contest Lussier's accident reconstruction and the conclusions he drew based on the forensic evidence gathered at the scene.

In his summary judgment motion defendant asserted the plaintiffs' suit was barred by the doctrine of qualified immunity because an objective basis existed for finding probable cause for the arrests. After initially denying the defendant's motion, the district court granted a motion to reconsider, based on our recent decision in Magnotti v. Kuntz, 918 F.2d 364 (2d Cir.1990). On May 17, 1991 it reaffirmed its prior decision denying defendant's motion and entered judgment on May 20, 1991. From this judgment Lussier appeals. We reverse.

DISCUSSION

A.

The defense of qualified immunity is a well-settled doctrine that protects government officials from civil suits arising from the performance of their discretionary functions when that performance "does not violate 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). "[W]hether an official protected by qualified immunity may be held personally liable for an allegedly unlawful official action generally turns on the 'objective legal reasonableness' of the action ... assessed in light of the legal rules that were 'clearly established' at the time it was taken." Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 639, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3038, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987) (citing Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818-19, 102 S.Ct. at 2738-39).

A subjective inquiry into an official's personal belief is rejected in favor of an objective analysis of what a reasonable officer in defendant's position would believe. In the context of an allegedly unconstitutional arrest, the objective reasonableness standard bars the defense of qualified immunity "[o]nly where the warrant application is so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence unreasonable." Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 344-45, 106 S.Ct. 1092, 1097-98, 89 L.Ed.2d 271 (1986).

Thus, even where the law and the scope of permissible official conduct are clearly established, the defense of qualified immunity will protect a government official if it was "objectively reasonable" for him to believe his acts were lawful.

Qualified immunity for government officials--which applies only in suits against officials in their personal capacity, see generally Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S. 159, 165-68, 105 S.Ct. 3099, 3104-07, 87 L.Ed.2d 114 (1985)--serves not only as a defense from liability, but also to spare public officials from shouldering the burdens and expense of litigation. See, e.g., Warren v. Dwyer, 906 F.2d 70, 74 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 111 S.Ct. 431, 112 L.Ed.2d 414 (1990). The doctrine evolved as an accommodation between the need to provide private redress when government officials abuse their positions of public trust and the need to shield officials who responsibly perform their duties from the costs of defending an action. See Creighton, 483 U.S. at 638-39, 107 S.Ct. at 3038-39; Harlow, 457 U.S. at 814, 102 S.Ct. at 2736. If public officials were not protected from the threat of frivolous suits, the cost to society would be substantial, ranging from an inability to attract qualified candidates to serve in public positions, to a diversion from the discharge of official duties and towards the avoidance of litigation, to inhibiting the zealous performance of official obligations. See Harlow, 457 U.S. at 814, 102 S.Ct. at 2736....