Stanley v. Gallegos
| Decision Date | 08 March 2018 |
| Docket Number | Civ. No. 11-1108 GBW/JHR |
| Parties | DAVID N. STANLEY, Plaintiff, v. DONALD GALLEGOS, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of New Mexico |
THIS MATTER comes before the Court on Defendant Gallegos's renewed Motion for Summary Judgment on Qualified Immunity Grounds (doc. 196) and Defendant Gallegos's Motion for Summary Judgment (doc. 160) on the basis of Eleventh Amendment and absolute prosecutorial immunity. The Court has reviewed the Motions and related briefing (docs. 197, 202, 165), and has heard oral argument on the Motions (docs. 205, 207, 208).
For the reasons explained more fully below, the Court finds: (1) the Eighth Judicial District Attorney's Office is an arm of the state of New Mexico and Plaintiff's official-capacity § 1983 claims against the office are therefore precluded by Eleventh Amendment immunity; (2) Defendant Gallegos was not acting in his role as a prosecutor when he took the actions at issue and is thus not entitled to absolute prosecutorial immunity on any of Plaintiff's claims; (3) Plaintiff has met his burden of showing that Defendant Gallegos violated both Plaintiff's Fourteenth Amendment right to procedural due process and his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable seizures in taking the actions at issue; (4) however, Plaintiff has not met his burden to show that Defendant Gallegos violated clearly established law which entitles Defendant Gallegos to qualified immunity on Plaintiff's individual-capacity § 1983 claims for monetary relief; and (5) Plaintiff's claims for injunctive relief are not foreclosed by either qualified immunity or the Eleventh Amendment.
Therefore, the Court will GRANT IN PART and DENY IN PART Defendant Gallegos's Motion for Summary Judgment asserting Eleventh Amendment and absolute prosecutorial immunity (doc. 160), and will GRANT IN PART and DENY IN PART Defendant Gallegos's Motion for Summary Judgment on Qualified Immunity Grounds (doc. 196).
The central dispute giving rise to the events underlying this litigation is whether a road traversing Plaintiff's property, Red Hill Road, is public or private. Plaintiff is a rancher whose ranch ("Stanley Ranch") is located in both Colfax and Mora Counties, New Mexico.
On September 6, 2002, Defendant Donald Gallegos, the New Mexico District Attorney representing Taos, Colfax, and Union Counties, sent Plaintiff a letter stating that he had received information that Plaintiff was planning to place a gate across Red Hill Road. Defendant Gallegos believed Red Hill Road was a public road pursuant to43 U.S.C. § 932, also known as Revised Statute 2477 ("R.S. 2477"). See doc. 158 at 5, 9; doc. 158-2 at 7-9. Accordingly, the letter warned Plaintiff that Red Hill Road "is a public road and any placement of a gate or any other obstruction will be dealt with appropriately, including, but not limited to, the filing of criminal charges against you." Doc. 125, Ex. C at 1.
Sometime thereafter, Plaintiff, believing Red Hill Road to be his private property, erected a gate to block access to the road by the public. He placed the gate at the county line where Red Hill Road crosses from Mora County into Colfax County. Nine years after sending the first letter, on August 3, 2011, Defendant Gallegos sent Plaintiff another letter on official stationery informing Plaintiff that he had no authority to place a gate on the road and "requesting" that he remove it. See doc. 160-1 at 17. The letter further stated that, "Should you fail to do so, I will take any and all steps necessary to make sure that the gate is opened and/or removed." Id. On August 11, 2011, Plaintiff filed a quiet title action in New Mexico's Eighth Judicial District Court, claiming title to Stanley Ranch, including the portion of Red Hill Road that traverses the ranch. Doc. 21 at 2.1 Thirteen days later, on August 24, 2011, Defendant Gallegos, along with Defendant Ed Olona and several other individuals including officers from the Mora and Colfax County Sheriff's Departments, went to the gate on Red Hill Road. Doc. 125 at 1-2. Together, they removed the obstruction from the road by cutting the locked chainsecuring the gate, and by removing a barbed-wire fence and T-posts set up at the cattle crossing. Doc. 21 at 3; doc. 40 at 4. The T-posts, fence, and gate itself were left at the scene, although not intact. See id.
On August 26, 2011, Defendant Gallegos sent Plaintiff a letter on his official letterhead informing him:, "Since I did not hear back from you regarding the letter I had sent you, I have taken action to open the gate on Red Hill Road." See doc. 21, Ex. C. Defendant Gallegos reiterated that Red Hill Road "is a public road" and that if Plaintiff locked the gate or obstructed the cattle guard again, he would "take action to have criminal charges filed against [Plaintiff] for obstructing a public road." Id. Plaintiff did not heed this letter and instead erected the gate again soon thereafter. On September 10, 2011, a Colfax County Deputy Sheriff, Tony Aguirre, went to Red Hill Road along with Defendant Olona and others to again unlock the gate. Plaintiff alleges that the second unlocking was done at Defendant Gallegos's direction. Doc. 21 at 3-4. County Sheriff Patrick Casias swore by affidavit that, based on Defendant Gallegos's previous legal advice that the road was public, Sheriff Casias instructed Deputy Aguirre to remove the obstruction after receiving a phone call from Defendant Olona that the gate was again locked. Doc. 40-1 at 3.
On December 19, 2011, Plaintiff filed this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging various constitutional violations on the basis that Defendants' actions constituted (1) an unlawful taking of private property for public use without justcompensation in violation of the Fifth Amendment; (2) an unreasonable search and seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment; and (3) deprivation of his property without due process in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. See doc. 21 at 5-7. In addition, Plaintiff alleged violations of the New Mexico Constitution on the same grounds and brought state law statutory trespass claims against various Defendants.
The procedural history of this case is extensive and will not be recounted in its entirety here. Pertinent to the present motions, Defendant Gallegos moved for summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity on January 30, 2015. Doc. 115. The Court denied that motion on August 25, 2015, ruling that Defendant Gallegos acted outside the scope of his authority as a district attorney when he removed the gate from Red Hill Road, and he was therefore not entitled to invoke qualified immunity. Doc. 167. The Court's qualified immunity ruling was appealed to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals on September 18, 2015. Doc. 176. On March 17, 2017, in a 1-1-1 decision, the Court of Appeals overturned the Court's ruling and remanded the case for a qualified immunity analysis absent application of a scope-of-authority exception. See doc. 191. The Court of Appeals denied Plaintiff's petition for a rehearing en banc on June 7, 2017.
Prior to the appeal on the qualified immunity issue, on July 10, 2015, Defendant Gallegos filed a separate Motion for Summary Judgment in which he asserted both Eleventh Amendment Immunity and absolute prosecutorial immunity as alternative grounds for dismissing the claims against him. See doc. 160. That motion was fullybriefed but remained pending while the qualified immunity issue was on appeal. See doc. 165.
Following remand, the parties were ordered to file supplemental briefing regarding Defendant Gallegos's assertion of qualified immunity, which was completed on August 24, 2017. See docs. 194, 196, 197, 202. On September 11, 2017, the Court held a motion hearing regarding all pending motions in the case, including Defendant Gallegos's renewed Motion for Summary Judgment on Qualified Immunity Grounds (doc. 196) and his Motion for Summary Judgment on the basis of Eleventh Amendment and absolute prosecutorial immunity (doc. 160). See docs. 195, 198, 205. Both motions are now ripe for ruling.2
Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(a), this Court must "grant summary judgment if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). The movant bears the initial burden of "show[ing] 'that there is an absence of evidence to support the nonmoving party's case.'" Bacchus Indus., Inc. v. Arvin Indus., Inc., 939 F.2d 887, 891 (10th Cir. 1991) (quoting Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 325 (1986)). Once the movant meets this burden, the non-moving party is required to designate specificfacts showing that "there are . . . genuine factual issues that properly can be resolved only by a finder of fact because they may reasonably be resolved in favor of either party." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 250 (1986); Celotex, 477 U.S. at 324.
However, summary judgment motions based upon the defense of qualified immunity are reviewed differently from other summary judgment motions. Qualified immunity is "designed to protect public officials from spending inordinate time and money defending erroneous suits at trial." Clark v. Edmunds, 513 F.3d 1219, 1222 (10th Cir. 2008). Therefore, when a public official is entitled to qualified immunity, the entitlement relieves the official from bearing any of the burdens of litigation, including discovery. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 672 (2009). The Supreme Court "has directed the lower federal courts to apply qualified immunity broadly, to protect from civil liability for damages all officers except 'the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law,'" in order to avoid unduly inhibiting officers in performing their official duties. Wilson v. City of Lafayette, 510 F. App'x 775, 780 (10th Cir. 2013) (unpublished) (...
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