Swanson v. Town of Mountain View, Colo.

• Decision Date: 19 August 2009
• Docket Number: No. 08-1105.,08-1105.
• Citation: 577 F.3d 1196
• Parties: P. Christopher SWANSON, Geraldine Schmidt, and Joanne Roe, individually and on behalf of all persons similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. The TOWN OF MOUNTAIN VIEW, COLORADO, Police Chief Eric Gomez, in his individual and official capacity, Police Officer David Groff, in his individual and official capacity, Police Officer Hernandez, in his individual and official capacity, and Police Officer Perez, in his individual and official capacity, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

577 F.3d 1196

P. Christopher SWANSON, Geraldine Schmidt, and Joanne Roe, individually and on behalf of all persons similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. The TOWN OF MOUNTAIN VIEW, COLORADO, Police Chief Eric Gomez, in his individual and official capacity, Police Officer David Groff, in his individual and official capacity, Police Officer Hernandez, in his individual and official capacity, and Police Officer Perez, in his individual and official capacity, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 08-1105.

United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

August 19, 2009.

Eric M. Ziporin (Elliot J. Scott with him on the briefs), Senter Goldfarb & Rice, L.L.C., Denver, CO, for Appellants.

Althea S. Licht (David A. Lane with her on the brief), Killmer, Lane & Newman, LLP, Denver, CO, for Appellees.

Before HARTZ, SEYMOUR, and TYMKOVICH, Circuit Judges.

TYMKOVICH, Circuit Judge.

This case arises from allegations that traffic police for the town of Mountain View, Colorado issued tickets for infractions committed outside the town's boundaries. Mountain View is a small suburb adjacent to Denver, sharing several streets as a common border. The plaintiffs here are motorists who were stopped and ticketed by Mountain View officers for infractions that occurred on the border streets but within the city of Denver.

In this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action, the plaintiffs contend these stops violated their clearly established Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures. The district court denied the defendants' request for qualified immunity, and the defendants brought this interlocutory appeal.

Because these traffic stops outside municipal boundaries did not violate clearly established Fourth Amendment law at the time of the violations, we REVERSE.

I. Background

Mountain View is a small town with fewer than 600 residents. It lies on the western boundary of Denver, and Sheridan Boulevard forms the dividing line between the two jurisdictions. Sheridan Boulevard is a four lane city street, but only its southbound lanes are located in Mountain View. Forty-fourth Avenue forms the northern border of Mountain View, with only the eastbound lanes in Mountain View.

Christopher Swanson and Geraldine Schmidt were each stopped by a Mountain View officer while turning onto northbound Sheridan Boulevard. Because of their locations, neither was in Mountain View when committing the infraction or when stopped.

In particular, in February 2006, Mountain View Officer David Groff stopped Swanson's vehicle after Swanson illegally turned right onto northbound Sheridan from 44th Avenue. Swanson admitted that his turn was illegal because he turned right on a red light, which was prohibited at that intersection. Swanson contested the citation on the basis of Officer Groff's jurisdiction, however, and after Swanson and Police Chief Eric Gomez discussed the issue, Swanson's citation was dismissed. No one disputes that Swanson's traffic violation occurred in Denver, not Mountain View.

The facts underlying Schmidt's stop were similar. Officer Groff stopped Schmidt's vehicle when she made an illegal right turn from westbound 41 st Avenue to northbound Sheridan. Schmidt admitted to making a prohibited turn. Unlike Swanson, however, she pleaded guilty and paid a fine of $115 to Mountain View. Mountain View does not now contest that Schmidt's traffic violation occurred in Denver.

Asserting Fourth Amendment violations, Swanson and Schmidt filed a § 1983 class action suit against various Mountain View police officers and Mountain View's police chief.¹ They sought damages for the illegal stops.²

The officers responded that they were entitled to qualified immunity because the stops did not amount to Fourth Amendment violations—or at least not violations of clearly established Fourth Amendment principles. The district court denied the defendants' request for qualified immunity, and the defendants brought this interlocutory appeal.

Before we turn to the analysis, we briefly address our jurisdiction. "The denial of a summary judgment motion ordinarily is not an appealable final order." Dixon v. Kirkpatrick, 553 F.3d 1294, 1301 (10th Cir.2009) (quoting Bass v. Richards, 308 F.3d 1081, 1086 (10th Cir.2002)). When a party has been denied qualified immunity, however, that denial can be appealed prior to a final judgment to the extent the appeal is based on an issue of law. Id. (citing Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985)). In this posture, although we may review the district court's legal conclusions, we lack jurisdiction to review factual determinations. Fogarty v. Gallegos, 523 F.3d 1147, 1153 (10th Cir.2008) (citing Behrens v. Pelletier, 516 U.S. 299, 313, 116 S.Ct. 834, 133 L.Ed.2d 773 (1996), and Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 316, 115 S.Ct. 2151, 132 L.Ed.2d 238 (1995)).

II. Analysis

Qualified immunity protects "government officials performing discretionary functions" and shields them 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, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). Qualified immunity serves to insulate public officials "from undue interference with their duties and from potentially disabling threats of liability." Id. at 806, 102 S.Ct. 2727.

In qualified immunity cases at the summary judgment stage, a plaintiff must clear two hurdles. The plaintiff must demonstrate on the facts alleged (1) that the defendant violated his constitutional or statutory rights, and (2) that the constitutional right was clearly established at the time of the alleged unlawful activity. Pearson v. Callahan, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 808, 815-16, 818, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009); Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 200, 121 S.Ct. 2151, 150 L.Ed.2d 272 (2001).

Recognizing the complexities of resolving the question of constitutional liability, the Supreme Court allows us the discretion to decide "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." Pearson, 129 S.Ct. at 817-18; see Christensen v. Park City Mun. Corp., 554 F.3d 1271, 1277 (10th Cir.2009) (explaining that Pearson granted discretion to determine which qualified immunity prong to address first).

Here, the district court denied the police officers' motion for summary judgment, finding that the plaintiffs satisfied their two-part burden. To affirm, we must agree that the plaintiffs cleared both hurdles—we must thus address both. To reverse, however, we need only find that the plaintiffs failed either requirement. Because we conclude the conduct here did not violate clearly established constitutional rights, we take the advice of Pearson and address that issue first.³

A. Clearly Established Law

The officers contend that even assuming a constitutional violation—an issue we need not reach—it was not clearly established at the time of the traffic stops that those stops would have been unconstitutional. We agree.

1. Background Principles.

A constitutional right is clearly established when, at the time of the alleged violation, the contours of the right were sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that his actions violate that right. Gann v. Cline, 519 F.3d 1090, 1092 (10th Cir.2008). Indeed, a "plaintiff must do more than identify in the abstract a clearly established right and allege that the defendant has violated it." Green v. Post, 574 F.3d 1294, ___, No. 08-1122, 2009 WL 2422762, at *4 (10th Cir. 2009) (citation omitted). "Although Plaintiff does not need to find a case with an identical factual situation, he still must show legal authority which makes it `apparent' that `in the light of pre-existing law' a reasonable official ... would have known that [the conduct in question violated the constitutional right at issue]." Id. (citation omitted). Therefore, for a right to be clearly established we look for "Supreme Court or Tenth Circuit precedent on point," or clearly established weight of authority from other courts that "found the law to be as the plaintiff maintains." Cordova v. Aragon, 569 F.3d 1183, 1192 (10th Cir.2009).

One purpose of qualified immunity is that we do not force public officials to guess how the law will have developed by the time their actions are scrutinized in federal court. Instead, we look to the relevant precedents at the time of the challenged actions and the obviousness of the violation in light of them. Milligan-Hitt v. Bd. of Trs. of Sheridan County, 523 F.3d 1219, 1233 (10th Cir.2008) (citing Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982) and Casey v. City of Fed. Heights, 509 F.3d 1278, 1284 (10th Cir.2007)).

Because the law must be clearly established at the time of the incident, Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, cases published before the incident govern our analysis. Milligan-Hitt, 523 F.3d at 1233. But we also examine cases published after the conduct in question to the extent they shed light on the fact that the law was not clearly established at the relevant time.

Before turning to the relevant precedent, we want to emphasize that the alleged conduct is, to say the least, troubling. The plaintiffs assert the Mountain View police department established a policy of allowing its officers to perform routine traffic stops outside its town boundaries, and then prosecuted the violations as if they had occurred within the town itself. Whether as a matter of administrative convenience or revenue generation, enforcing traffic laws outside city limits where not specifically authorized by state law raises serious legal concerns.⁴ Nevertheless, for us to rule in this appeal on the precise contours of the constitutional question raised by the town's policy is unnecessary because Tenth Circuit law did not clearly...