Duckett v. City of Cedar Park, Tex., 91-8060

Citation950 F.2d 272
Decision Date10 January 1992
Docket NumberNo. 91-8060,91-8060
PartiesWilliam L. DUCKETT, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. The CITY OF CEDAR PARK, TEXAS, et al., Defendants, Dianne Newsom, as Community Survivor of the Estate of Clyde Newsom, Deceased and George Hamilton, etc., Defendants-Appellants.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)

Douglas M. Becker and Roger Moore, Gray & Becker, Austin, Tex. for defendants-appellants.

Gabriel Gutierrez, Jr., Austin, Tex., for William L. Duckett.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas.

Before KING, JOHNSON, and EMILIO M. GARZA, Circuit Judges.

EMILIO M. GARZA, Circuit Judge:

Defendants Newsom and Hamilton, police officers for the City of Cedar Park, Texas, appeal from a denial of their motion for summary judgment asserting qualified immunity. Concluding that--based on the summary judgment record--defendants are entitled to qualified immunity as a matter of law, we reverse the district court's denial of summary judgment and remand for entry of judgment in defendants' favor.

I. BACKGROUND
A. Facts

During the evening of June 2, 1987, Officer George Hamilton lawfully stopped William L. Duckett in the City of Cedar Park, Texas for failing to dim his headlights. 1 Hamilton, a police officer for the City, ran a routine warrant check on the computer which revealed the existence of an outstanding warrant in Williamson County. 2 Despite Duckett's protests that the warrant had been withdrawn, Hamilton transported Duckett to the police station.

At the police station, Duckett saw Officer Newsom and asked him about the warrant. Newsom told Duckett that he would check on the warrant the next morning. 3 Later that same evening, Hamilton telephoned Duckett's mother, who informed him that the warrant for Duckett's arrest had been withdrawn. To make sure the warrant was still valid, Hamilton sought and obtained a teletyped confirmation from Williamson County which showed an outstanding warrant for Duckett's arrest. Hamilton then showed this confirmation to Newsom and, accordingly, Duckett was held in custody overnight. Duckett was released from custody the next morning after a new teletype from Williamson County indicated that the warrant for his arrest had been withdrawn.

B. Proceedings

Duckett sued the City of Cedar Park, Texas and other city officials 4 under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging they violated his constitutional rights. Specifically, Duckett alleged that defendants' actions deprived him of liberty without due process of law. 5 Throughout the litigation, defendants filed various motions for summary judgment, alleging they were entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Defendants City of Cedar Park, Newsom and Hamilton filed their initial motion for summary judgment, asserting that summary judgment was proper because: (1) Duckett's evidence failed to establish a constitutional violation; and (2) the City of Cedar Park was immune from liability on Duckett's claim. Subsequently, defendants City of Cedar Park, Newsom and Hamilton filed a supplemental motion for summary judgment, asserting summary judgment was appropriate because: (1) Duckett failed to state a constitutional claim; and (2) even if Duckett had stated a constitutional claim, Duckett could not overcome defendants' assertion of good faith defense. The district court denied the defendants' initial motion for summary judgment and set the case for trial. The district court did not rule on the supplemental motion for summary judgment.

Defendants Hamilton and Newsom appealed the district court's order denying defendants' motion for summary judgment, pursuant to Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 2817, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985) ("a district court's denial of a claim of qualified immunity, to the extent that it turns on an issue of law is an appealable 'final decision' "). This court, however, concluding that the order from which defendants appealed was not an appealable judgment, dismissed the appeal for want of jurisdiction. Duckett v. City of Cedar Park, Texas, Et Al, No. 90-8285, slip op. at 4 (5th Cir. Oct. 17, 1990) [917 F.2d 562 (table) ]. The court concluded that the district court did not expressly address whether Newsom and Hamilton were entitled to summary judgment based on qualified immunity. This court noted that dismissing the appeal would not prevent Newsom and Hamilton from filing a summary judgment motion based specifically on qualified immunity. Id.

Defendants Newsom and Hamilton filed their second supplemental motion for summary judgment where they expressly asserted they were entitled to summary judgment based on qualified immunity. The district court granted defendants' motion for summary judgment in part and denied it in part. 6 The district court denied defendants' motion for summary judgment on the issue whether Duckett was held in custody longer than necessary because it found a factual dispute as to the defendants' knowledge regarding the warrant's validity. Defendants Newsom and Hamilton now appeal, again pursuant to Mitchell v. Forsyth, the partial denial of their motion for summary judgment.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

Summary judgment is proper if the movant demonstrates that there is an absence of genuine issues of material fact. See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 247-48, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2510, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). "[T]he substantive law will identify which facts are material." Id. at 248, 106 S.Ct. at 2510. Such a showing entitles the movant to summary judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). The movant accomplishes this by informing the court of the basis for its motion, and by identifying portions of the record which reveal there are no genuine material fact issues. See Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2553, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986). Once the movant produces such evidence, the nonmovant must then direct the court's attention to evidence in the record sufficient to establish that there is a genuine issue of material fact for trial--that is, the nonmovant must come forward with evidence establishing each of the challenged elements of its case upon which it will bear the burden of proof at trial. Id. at 323-24, 106 S.Ct. at 2553. Because this case is an appeal from summary judgment, we review the record de novo, Fields v. City of South Houston, 922 F.2d 1183, 1187 (5th Cir.1991), examining the evidence in the light most favorable to Duckett, the nonmovant below. See Pfannstiel v. City of Marion, 918 F.2d 1178, 1183 (5th Cir.1990).

III. DISCUSSION

Until recently, this court would review a Mitchell v. Forsyth appeal, where the defendant pleads the qualified immunity defense, by examining defendant's entitlement to this defense before examining the merits of the plaintiff's constitutional claim. See, e.g., Pfannstiel v. City of Marion, 918 F.2d 1178, 1183 (5th Cir.1990) (on appeal from order denying motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity, plaintiff has burden of submitting summary judgment evidence to create genuine issue as to whether defendant's conduct was objectively reasonable); Mouille v. City of Live Oak, 918 F.2d 548, 551 (5th Cir.1990) (court must determine whether defendant's conduct is qualifiedly immune before reaching merits of § 1983 claim). Because the methodology for reviewing a qualified immunity defense has changed, we first examine the extant case law to ascertain the proper analytical structure. See Siegert v. Gilley, --- U.S. ----, 111 S.Ct. 1789, 114 L.Ed.2d 277 (1991); Samaad v. City of Dallas, 940 F.2d 925 (5th Cir.1991); Quives v. Campbell, 934 F.2d 668 (5th Cir.1991).

A.

The Supreme Court--while keeping all the familiar pieces--recently reassembled the analytical structure for reviewing an appeal of a denial of a motion for summary judgment asserting qualified immunity. In Siegert v. Gilley, the Court's stated purpose was to "clarify the analytical structure under which a claim of qualified immunity should be addressed." 111 S.Ct. at 1793. The Court rejected the approach taken by the Court of Appeals, 7 which denied the defendant's motion for summary judgment asserting qualified immunity because plaintiff was unable to overcome defendant's assertion of qualified immunity, id. at 1792, by "assum[ing], without deciding, that ... a constitutional claim [had been] stated." Id. at 1794. The Supreme Court, while it affirmed the Court of Appeals, concluded that the plaintiff's claim "failed at an analytically earlier stage of the inquiry into qualified immunity: his allegations ... did not state a claim for violation of any rights secured to him under the United States Constitution." Id. at 1791. The Supreme Court held that the first inquiry in the examination of a defendant's claim of qualified immunity is whether the plaintiff "allege[d] the violation of a clearly established constitutional right." Id. at 1793.

"[I]nformed by Siegert v. Gilley," this court in Quives analyzed an appeal of a grant of summary judgment on defendants' claim of qualified immunity. 8 934 F.2d at 670. The district court had granted summary judgment in defendants' favor on Quives's claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, holding that defendants were entitled to qualified immunity because defendants "could not reasonably be charged with knowledge that they might be violating a clearly established right of the Plaintiff." Id. 9 On appeal, we analyzed whether Quives had stated a claim of a constitutional violation and, concluding that she had failed to state a constitutional claim, affirmed the judgment of the district court without reaching the issue of qualified immunity. Id. We recognized that, because Quives involved an appeal from a final judgment granting the defendants' motion for summary judgment asserting qualified immunity, the procedural posture of Quives was different from that in Siegert stating:

[I]n light of the fact that the Supreme Court has recognized the question of failure to...

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