Dillard v. O'Kelley

• Decision Date: 15 June 2020
• Docket Number: No. 17-3287,No. 17-3284,17-3284
• Citation: 961 F.3d 1048
• Parties: Jill DILLARD; Jessa Seewald; Jinger Vuolo; Joy Duggar, Plaintiffs - Appellees v. Kathy O'KELLEY; Ernest Cate; Rick Hoyt, in their individual and official capacities, Defendants - Appellants
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

961 F.3d 1048

Jill DILLARD; Jessa Seewald; Jinger Vuolo; Joy Duggar, Plaintiffs - Appellees

v.Kathy O'KELLEY; Ernest Cate; Rick Hoyt, in their individual and official capacities, Defendants - Appellants

No. 17-3284

No. 17-3287

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: January 14, 2020

Filed: June 15, 2020

Steven E. Bledsoe, Stephen G. Larson, Lauren S. Wulfe, LARSON O'BRIEN LLP, Los Angeles, CA, Shawn Bradley Daniels, DANIELS LAW FIRM, Fayetteville, AR, Steven A. Haskins, MCCUNE & WRIGHT, Ontario, CA, Sarah Coppola Jewell, MCMATH & WOODS, Little Rock, AR, for Plaintiffs - Appellees.

Jason E. Owens, JASON OWENS LAW FIRM, Conway, AR, Michael R. Rainwater, RAINWATER & HOLT, Little Rock, AR, for Defendant - Appellant Rick Hoyt.

Before SMITH, Chief Judge, LOKEN, COLLOTON, GRUENDER, BENTON, KELLY, ERICKSON, GRASZ, STRAS, and KOBES, Circuit Judges, En Banc.

LOKEN, Circuit Judge, with whom COLLOTON, GRUENDER, BENTON, ERICKSON, STRAS, and KOBES, Circuit Judges, join.

Jill Dillard, Jessa Seewald, Jinger Vuolo, and Joy Duggar ("Plaintiffs") rose to prominence as members of the cast of "19 Kids and Counting," a television show about Jim Bob Duggar, his wife Michelle, and their nineteen children in Washington County, Arkansas. In 2015, the City of Springdale Police Department ("SPD") and the Washington County Sheriff's Office ("WCSO"), responding to a tabloid's request under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA"), Ark. Code § 25-19-101 et seq. , released redacted copies of reports of a 2006 investigation into sexual misconduct by the Duggars’ oldest child, Josh Duggar, which included interviews of Plaintiffs, who were minors at the time. Despite redactions, social media users identified Plaintiffs as the victims of Josh's reported sexual abuse. The resulting negative publicity brought about the show's demise, and then, this lawsuit.

Plaintiffs sued the City, the County, and several of their employees, asserting claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Arkansas Civil Rights Act, along with state law tort claims for the tort of outrage and invasion of privacy. As relevant here, Plaintiffs alleged that Springdale Police Chief Kathy O'Kelley, Springdale City Attorney Ernest Cate, and WCSO Enforcement Major Rick Hoyt ("individual defendants" or "Defendants") violated Plaintiffs’ Fourteenth Amendment rights to informational privacy by disclosing the redacted reports to the media. The district court denied the individual defendants’ motions to dismiss the § 1983 claims based on qualified immunity and the state law claims based on official immunity under Ark. Code § 21-9-301.¹ Defendants appealed; a panel of this court affirmed. We granted Defendants’ petition for rehearing en banc of the panel's qualified immunity ruling. Reviewing de novo , we conclude that the asserted due process right to informational privacy was not clearly established and therefore reverse the denial of qualified immunity. Lyons v. Vaught, 781 F.3d 958, 960 (8th Cir. 2015) (jurisdiction and standard of review). We otherwise reinstate the panel opinion.

I. Factual Allegations

Plaintiffs’ Complaint alleges that on December 7, 2006, the Arkansas State Police ("ASP") Child Abuse Hotline received an anonymous tip that Josh Duggar had molested his younger sisters Jill, Jessa, Jinger, and Joy, along with another unnamed individual, at various times in 2002 and 2003. SPD opened an investigation and requested an "agency assist" from WCSO. An ASP investigator questioned Plaintiffs about the assaults; they were promised their answers would remain confidential. A WCSO detective interviewed Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, who acknowledged the allegations and identified the victims, location, and frequency of Josh's sexual misconduct. WCSO documented the Duggar interview in an Incident Report; SPD summarized both the Duggar and sibling interviews in an Offense Report. Based on the interviews, SPD submitted an affidavit to the Washington County Family in Need of Services Division and the Washington County Prosecutor's Office. No criminal charges were filed, nor were the allegations made public.

The Complaint further alleges that on May 15, 2015, a tabloid called In Touch Weekly submitted FOIA requests to the SPD and the WCSO, seeking files related to Jim Bob Duggar, Michelle Duggar, Josh Duggar, and multiple addresses. The request stated that In Touch had reason to believe the agencies had filed reports regarding the sexual assaults. The Arkansas FOIA required a response by May 20. On May 19, before SPD or WCSO responded, In Touch Weekly published an online article titled, " ‘19 Kids and Counting’ Son Named in Underage Sex Probe." The article stated that "multiple sources who have seen the police report and are familiar with the case" told the tabloid that police had investigated an alleged sexual assault. "Josh was brought into the Arkansas State Police by his father," after Jim Bob "caught [Josh] leaving a young girl's bedroom and ‘learned something inappropriate happened.’ " "Rumors about Josh have swirled for years," the article continued; "In Touch's investigation has uncovered the secret he has been hiding."

According to the Complaint, appellants O'Kelley and Cate "directed, oversaw, and approved" SPD's FOIA response. Officials suspected that employees were leaking details of the investigation to the media; O'Kelley worried that her department would "soon end up in the tabloids" and become the target of "worldwide media attention." Without seeking guidance from the Arkansas Municipal League or the City's child services department, O'Kelley and Cate decided to release a redacted Offense Report in response to the FOIA request and "rushed to prepare" the report. Appellant Hoyt "organized, oversaw, and approved" WSCO's redactions, while County Attorney Steve Zega "oversaw, counseled, and approved" the release of the report. On the evening of the May 20 deadline, O'Kelley received the redacted SPD Offense Report and sent it to In Touch Weekly and a local news organization. The next day, Hoyt and Zega directed WCSO employees to mail the redacted Incident Report to In Touch Weekly .

The redactions did not prevent identification of Plaintiffs as four of Josh's victims. Both reports included Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar's names, their current and former addresses, and "other personal details" about each individual victim. The Offense Report contained "full descriptions" of the victim interviews, and the Complaint alleges that Plaintiffs were "obviously identifiable." The Incident Report "expressly identified one of Josh's victims as his then 5-year-old sister." In response to a request from Cate, the Arkansas Municipal League advised that Arkansas law prohibited disclosing the identity of sex crime victims. O'Kelley then asked In Touch Weekly to refrain from using Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar's names and accept a different version of the SPD report. Instead, the tabloid published the original Offense Report with an article titled, "Bombshell Duggar Police Report: Jim Bob Duggar Didn't Report Son Josh's Alleged Sex Offenses For More Than A Year," and reporting that "explosive new information is contained in a Springdale, Ark. police report obtained by In Touch magazine." The article revealed details of the sexual assaults, including that some occurred while the victims were sleeping, one victim was fourteen at the time, and the victims forgave Josh after he apologized.

The Complaint alleges a "public backlash" against the disclosures. Based on interview details, social media users identified Plaintiffs as the victims. Some commentators expressed sympathy, others "chastised [Plaintiffs’] personal decision to forgive their brother," while others "reveled in the ad hoc disclosure of the lurid details" and subjected Plaintiffs to "spiteful and harsh comments and harassment." In response to Joy Duggar's motion, a state court judge ordered the Offense Report expunged from the public record, ordered all copies destroyed, and ruled that interviews and information about the sexual assaults were not subject to FOIA disclosure. Undeterred, In Touch Weekly continued to post copies of the Offense Report and expanded its coverage of the scandal. A June 3 article highlighted a "new report ... from the Washington County Sheriff's Office," which had "fewer redactions" and "show[ed] the extent of Josh's abuse." A June 15 article quoted an "insider" as saying, "The four Duggar girls ‘forgave’ Josh for his sins, but that's not how you get over sexual abuse." The Complaint alleges that publicizing their trauma subjected Plaintiffs and their families "to extreme mental anguish and emotional distress."

II. The Federal Constitutional Claims

A. The issue presented by this interlocutory appeal is whether individual Defendants O'Kelley, Cate, and Hoyt are entitled to qualified immunity from Plaintiffs’ § 1983 damage claims. Qualified immunity shields public officials from liability for civil damages if their conduct did 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, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). The Supreme Court has repeatedly "stressed the importance of resolving immunity questions at the earliest possible stage in litigation." Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 232, 129 S.Ct. 808, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009). To defeat a motion to dismiss based on qualified immunity, Plaintiffs must "plead[ ] facts showing (1) that the official violated a statutory or constitutional right, and (2) that the right was ‘clearly established’ at the time of the challenged conduct." Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 735, 131 S.Ct. 2074, 179 L.Ed.2d 1149 (2011) (quotation omitted).

Qualified immunity "protects all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law." Mullenix v. Luna, ––– U.S. ––––, 136 S. Ct. 305, 308, 193 L.Ed.2d 255 (2015) (quotation omitted). Thus, "[a] clearly...