City of Hialeah v. Fernandez

661 So. 2d 335, 1995 WL 567674
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedSeptember 27, 1995
Docket93-88
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 661 So. 2d 335 (City of Hialeah v. Fernandez) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City of Hialeah v. Fernandez, 661 So. 2d 335, 1995 WL 567674 (Fla. Ct. App. 1995).

Opinion

661 So.2d 335 (1995)

The CITY OF HIALEAH, Oscar Amago, and Roland Bolanos, Petitioners,
v.
Victor FERNANDEZ, Respondent.

No. 93-88.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.

September 27, 1995.

*337 Alejandro Vilarello, City Attorney, and Alan E. Krueger, Assistant City Attorney, for petitioners.

Dennis A. Koltun, Miami, Russo & Talisman and Elizabeth K. Russo, Patrice A. Talisman and Kimberly L. Boldt, Coconut Grove, for respondent.

Before HUBBART, JORGENSON and COPE, JJ.

ON REHEARING AND CLARIFICATION GRANTED

COPE, Judge.

We grant petitioners' motion for rehearing and clarification, withdraw the court's previous opinion, and substitute the following opinion:

I.

In this action, plaintiff/respondent Victor Fernandez seeks damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for alleged violations of his civil rights by defendants/petitioners. Petitioners are the City of Hialeah, a police officer, and the chief of police. The individual defendants originally filed a petition for writ of certiorari seeking review of the trial court's order denying their motions for summary judgment based on claims of qualified immunity. The City filed a petition for writ of certiorari seeking review of the trial court order denying its motion for summary judgment on liability. The petitions were denied.

During the pendency of petitioners' motion for rehearing, the Florida Supreme Court issued its opinion in Tucker v. Resha, 648 So.2d 1187 (Fla. 1994), in which it held that "an order denying summary judgment based upon a claim of qualified immunity is subject to interlocutory review to the extent that the order turns on an issue of law." Id. at 1190; see also 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' within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1291 notwithstanding the absence of a final judgment."). The court also found "the standard announced by the Supreme Court in Mitchell to be the proper one for reviewing such orders." 648 So.2d at 1190. See generally Johnson v. Jones, ___ *338 U.S. ___, 115 S.Ct. 2151, 132 L.Ed.2d 238 (1995).

In accordance with the dictates of Tucker, we find that the order denying the two individual petitioners' motions for summary judgment turned on an issue of law. We treat the individuals' petitions for certiorari as interlocutory appeals and reverse. Because the petition of the City of Hialeah is not based upon qualified immunity, we find that it is not entitled to an interlocutory appeal. We deny the City's petition for certiorari.

II.

Briefly stated, and viewed most favorably to the non-movant Fernandez,[1] the facts here are that at approximately 12:00 a.m. on November 1, 1989 Fernandez was observed by two City of Hialeah police units traveling at a rate substantially in excess of the speed limit and weaving in and out of traffic.[2] The unit operated by Officer Amago immediately began to pursue Fernandez. Officer Amago's unit was backed up by a unit driven by another officer who is not a party to this action. Fernandez did not hear the police sirens because he had his air conditioning turned up very high and was playing his radio loudly. According to the officers, Fernandez traveled about two miles before pulling over. Naturally, Fernandez does not know how long he was pursued before he actually saw the flashing lights and pulled over. After Fernandez stopped, despite offering no resistance,[3] he was pulled out of his vehicle by Officer Amago who forced his left arm behind his back, marched him to the rear of his car and forced him to bend over the trunk of his car by pulling upward on the arm behind his back. Fernandez was then pushed face forward against the trunk of the car while Officer Amago proceeded to handcuff him. Fernandez was then arrested, placed in a police unit, taken to Dade County Jail for booking, and was released that same night. At no time during the arrest or booking procedure did Fernandez make any complaint of unnecessary force or any injury.

Within a day of the arrest, Fernandez went to the Hialeah Police Department where he spoke to an Internal Affairs officer. He described the above events to the Internal Affairs officer and stated that he did not know the exact nature of his injuries, but that they involved his shoulder and mouth. At the time of this meeting, Fernandez had his left arm in a sling. The Internal Affairs officer reviewed the traffic citation and the arrest affidavit and prepared a report of the complaint. The report was submitted to petitioner/defendant Rolando Bolanos, the Chief of Police for the City of Hialeah. Upon review of the report, Bolanos determined that there was not a sufficient basis to warrant further investigation of the allegations.

In February, 1991 Fernandez filed this action seeking damages for the injuries he received and for the violations of his civil rights by the use of excessive force in effecting the arrest.

III.

The United States Supreme Court has said 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 *339 (1982). This is true with respect to both Officer Amago and Chief Bolanos. McKinney v. DeKalb County, 997 F.2d 1440, 1443 (11th Cir.1993).

The Federal Eleventh Circuit has recently summarized the law of qualified immunity as follows:

I. Qualified immunity protects government officials performing discretionary functions from civil trials (and the other burdens of litigation, including discovery) and from liability if their conduct violates no "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." The qualified immunity doctrine means that government agents are not always required to err on the side of caution.
II. That qualified immunity protects government actors is the usual rule; only in exceptional cases will government actors have no shield against claims made against them in their individual capacities. Unless a government agent's act is so obviously wrong, in the light of pre-existing law, that only a plainly incompetent officer or one who was knowingly violating the law would have done such a thing, the government actor has immunity from suit. Because qualified immunity shields government actors in all but exceptional cases, courts should think long and hard before stripping defendants of immunity.
III. For the law to be clearly established to the point that qualified immunity does not apply, the law must have earlier been developed in such a concrete and factually defined context to make it obvious to all reasonable government actors, in the defendant's place, that "what he is doing" violates federal law.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
661 So. 2d 335, 1995 WL 567674, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-of-hialeah-v-fernandez-fladistctapp-1995.