Coffin v. Brandau, 08-14538.

Citation609 F.3d 1204
Decision Date22 June 2010
Docket NumberNo. 08-14538.,08-14538.
PartiesJohn COFFIN, Cynthia Coffin, Plaintiffs-Appellants,v.Stacy BRANDAU, individually, f.k.a. Stacy Ferris, James Lutz, individually, Defendants-Appellees.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit)

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Yardley Drake Buckman, II, Amiee Ruth Buckman, Buckman & Buckman, P.A., Sarasota, FL, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Richard R. Garland, Dickinson & Gibbons, P.A., Nevin Alan Weiner, Nevin & Weiner, P.A., Sarasota, FL, for Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

ON PETITION FOR PANEL REHEARING

Before TJOFLAT and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges, and WOOD,* District Judge.

TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge:

The previous opinions issued in this case John Coffin v. Stacy Brandau, 597 F.3d 1205 (11th Cir.2010), are hereby VACATED. In their place, on petition for panel rehearing, we file these revised opinions. The petition for panel rehearing is otherwise DENIED.

In this case, Cynthia Coffin attempted to shut her open garage door to prevent two Sarasota County Sheriff's deputies, James Lutz and Stacy Brandau, from serving a court order on her husband, James Coffin.1 Brandau stepped into the garage while the door was closing, breaking the electronic-eye safety beam on the garage door and causing the door to retreat to its open position. The Deputies, who did not possess a search or arrest warrant, entered the Coffins' garage and subsequently arrested Mrs. Coffin for obstruction of justice.2 The Coffins sought damages against Lutz and Brandau under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 on the ground that the Deputies' warrantless entry into their garage and Mrs. Coffin's arrest violated their Fourth Amendment rights.3 The Deputies contended that qualified immunity shields them from liability, and the district court agreed, granting them summary judgment. The court concluded that the Deputies had violated the Coffins' Fourth Amendment rights but were shielded by qualified immunity because the law governing “arrests at or just within the threshold of the house” was not clearly established until McClish v. Nugent, 483 F.3d 1231 (11th Cir.2007), was decided.

The Coffins now appeal the district court's judgment.4 We do not treat this case as a threshold case, but nonetheless agree that the Deputies did not violate the Coffins' clearly established Fourth Amendment rights and conclude that the Deputies are entitled to qualified immunity. We therefore affirm.

I.
A.

On April 18, 2006, at 6:30 p.m., Deputy James Lutz attempted to serve Mr. Coffin with an Order of Temporary Injunction Against Repeat Violence, which his tenant had obtained six days earlier from the Circuit Court for Charlotte County, Florida.5 The injunction required Mr. Coffin to surrender any firearms or ammunition in his possession to the Sarasota County Sheriff and directed [t]he Sheriff of Sarasota County, or any other authorized law enforcement officer ... to serve this temporary injunction ... as soon as possible after its issuance.”

The Coffins' home is close to the sidewalk and has an attached, street-facing garage to the right of the front door with shrubs in between. Lutz approached the Coffin home and noticed that the garage door and the front bay window's curtains were open, allowing him to see inside the garage and home. It was still light outside. Lutz, clothed in his full uniform, rang the doorbell. Mrs. Coffin answered the door, and Lutz told her that he had important papers for Mr. Coffin.6 Mrs. Coffin stated that he was in the bathroom, to which Lutz replied that he would wait. Mrs. Coffin shut and locked the door.

After waiting a few minutes, Lutz walked down the sidewalk to the bay window. Lutz could see Mrs. Coffin and he waved the paperwork over his head to get her attention. Lutz walked back to the door where he thought he overheard a man's voice asking, “What did he want?” Lutz rang the doorbell again but did not receive an answer. He walked through some bushes and went back to the front bay window, causing Mrs. Coffin to scream at him to get off of her property and to threaten to call the police. Lutz went back to the driveway in front of the garage, out of view of the window, where he called for backup because he believed the Coffins were avoiding service. Deputy Stacy Brandau arrived as backup five to eight minutes later.

Lutz explained to Brandau what had transpired. Lutz then saw Mr. Coffin through the front bay window. Brandau knocked on the door but received no answer. The Deputies were standing about five feet from the garage when Mrs. Coffin pushed an automatic button to shut her garage door. Seeing that the garage door was closing, Brandau stepped into the garage, breaking the electronic-eye safety beam for the door and causing the garage door to retreat to its open position. Lutz witnessed this act. Brandau entered the garage; Lutz followed. Brandau knocked on the interior door leading from the garage to the house. Mrs. Coffin opened the interior door and stepped into the garage, yelling at the Deputies to leave her property.

Mrs. Coffin initially approached Brandau because she felt “less frightened because she was a woman.” After Mrs. Coffin told the Deputies that Mr. Coffin was not home, the Deputies told Mrs. Coffin she was going to jail and attempted to handcuff her. Before they succeeded, Mr. Coffin came into the garage and hit Brandau. A struggle ensued in which Mr. Coffin attempted to pull his wife inside the house and the Deputies tried to keep her in the garage and arrest her. They all entered the kitchen, where a physical altercation between Mr. Coffin and the Deputies occurred. Additional deputies eventually arrived, and the Coffins were arrested.7

B.

On May 15, 2007, as a result of these events, the Coffins instituted this action for damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that Deputies Brandau and Lutz, acting within their official capacities, violated their Fourth Amendment rights by illegally entering their garage and arresting Mrs. Coffin. 8 In their answers to the Coffins' complaint, the Deputies asserted the defense of qualified immunity. Following discovery, the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment.

On July 31, 2008, the district court entered an order denying the Coffins' motion and granting the Deputies' motion, concluding that the Deputies were entitled to qualified immunity. The court held that the Deputies' warrantless entry into the Coffins' garage, which occurred absent consent or exigent circumstances, and Mrs. Coffin's subsequent arrest violated the Fourth Amendment. The court found, however, that the law did not fairly warn the Deputies that their warrantless entry of the garage would constitute a Fourth Amendment violation until our ruling in McClish v. Nugent, 483 F.3d 1231 (11th Cir.2007), decided after the incident at the Coffins'. As there was no clearly established law at the time of the Deputies' entrance, the court held, the Deputies could not have known whether their warrantless entry was a clear violation of the Coffins' rights; accordingly, the Deputies were entitled to qualified immunity.9

On August 7, 2008, the Coffins lodged this appeal challenging the district court's holding that no clearly established law provided fair warning to the Deputies that a warrantless entry into their garage under these circumstances constituted a Fourth Amendment violation.

II.

We review de novo a district court's grant of summary judgment based on qualified immunity and apply the same legal standards as the district court.” Bashir v. Rockdale County, 445 F.3d 1323, 1326 (11th Cir.2006) (citing Durruthy v. Pastor, 351 F.3d 1080, 1084 (11th Cir.2003)). We must resolve ‘all issues of material fact in favor of the plaintiff, and then determine the legal question of whether the defendant is entitled to qualified immunity under that version of the facts.’ Id. at 1327 (quoting Durruthy, 351 F.3d at 1084).

III.
A.

The doctrine of qualified immunity provides that “government officials performing discretionary functions generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct 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).10 This doctrine is intended to balance “the need to hold public officials accountable when they exercise power irresponsibly and the need to shield officials from harassment, distraction, and liability when they perform their duties reasonably.” Pearson v. Callahan, --- U.S. ----, 129 S.Ct. 808, 815, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009).

In Saucier v. Katz, the Supreme Court mandated a two-step process for lower courts to follow in resolving qualified immunity claims. 533 U.S. 194, 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 2156, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001). First, the court had to decide whether the facts that the plaintiff alleged showed a violation of a constitutional right. Id. Second, if the plaintiff satisfied the first step, the court had to determine whether “the right at issue was ‘clearly established’ at the time of defendant's alleged misconduct.” Pearson, 129 S.Ct. at 816 (quoting Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151).

The Supreme Court revisited Saucier's mandatory two-step inquiry in Pearson. Id. at 815-18, 129 S.Ct. 808. The Court held that while the Saucier process

is often appropriate, it should no longer be regarded as mandatory. The judges of the district courts and the court of appeals should be permitted to exercise their sound discretion in deciding which of the two prongs of the qualified immunity analysis should be addressed first in light of the circumstances in the particular case at hand.

Id. at 818. Here, we find it appropriate to first address the clearly established prong. Finding that the Deputies did not violate a right of the Coffins' that was “clearly established,” we are able to conclude the inquiry there.

B.

We...

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