Estate of Marvin L. Booker v. Gomez

745 F.3d 405, 2014 WL 929157, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 4493
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedMarch 11, 2014
Docket12-1496
StatusPublished
Cited by508 cases

This text of 745 F.3d 405 (Estate of Marvin L. Booker v. Gomez) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

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Estate of Marvin L. Booker v. Gomez, 745 F.3d 405, 2014 WL 929157, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 4493 (10th Cir. 2014).

Opinion

MATHESON, Circuit Judge.

Denver police arrested Marvin Booker on a warrant for failure to appear at a hearing regarding a drug charge. During booking, Mr. Booker died while in custody after officers restrained him in response to his alleged insubordination. Several officers pinned Mr. Booker face-down to the ground, one placed him in a chokehold, and another tased him. After the officers sought medical help for Mr. Booker, he could not be revived.

Mr. Booker’s estate sued Deputies Faun Gomez, James Grimes, Kyle Sharp, Kenneth Robinette, and Sergeant Carrie Rodriguez (collectively “Defendants”) under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging they used excessive force against Mr. Booker and failed to provide him with immediate medical care, which resulted in Mr. Booker’s untimely death. The Defendants moved for summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds. The district court denied their motion because disputed facts precluded summary judgment. The Defendants now appeal.

Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm.

I. LEGAL BACKGROUND

We begin by defining the scope of our jurisdiction over the Defendants’ interlocutory appeal of the district court’s denial of qualified immunity. We then summarize the legal framework for evaluating the Defendants’ assertion of qualified immunity at the summary judgment stage.

A. Jurisdiction

This court has jurisdiction under § 1291 to review “all final decisions of the district courts of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Ordinarily, “[ojrders denying summary judgment are ... not appeal-able final orders for purposes of 28 U.S.C. § 1291.” Roosevelt-Hennix v. Prickett, 717 F.3d 751, 753 (10th Cir.2013). “The denial of qualified immunity to a public official, however, is immediately appealable under the collateral order doctrine to the extent it involves abstract issues of law.” Fancher v. Barrientos, 723 F.3d 1191, 1198 (10th Cir.2013); see also Fogarty v. Gallegos, 523 F.3d 1147, 1153 (10th Cir.2008) (we have interlocutory jurisdiction “over denials of qualified immunity at the summary judgment stage to the extent they ‘turn[ ] on an issue of law.’ ” (quoting Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985))).

Under this limited jurisdiction, we may review: “ ‘(1) whether the facts that the district court ruled a reasonable jury could find would suffice to show a legal violation, or (2) whether that law was clearly established at the time of the alleged violation.’ ” Roosevelt-Hennix, 717 F.3d at 753 (quoting Allstate Sweeping, LLC v. Black, 706 F.3d 1261, 1267 (10th Cir.2013)). Under the Supreme Court’s direction in Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 115 S.Ct. 2151, 132 L.Ed.2d 238 (1995), however, this court has no interlocutory jurisdiction to review “whether or not the pretrial record sets forth a ‘genuine’ issue of fact for trial.” Id. at 320, 115 S.Ct. 2151 (quotations omitted). Thus, “if a district court concludes that a reasonable jury could find certain specified facts in *410 favor of the plaintiff, the Supreme Court has indicated we usually must take them as true — and do so even if our own de novo review of the record might suggest otherwise as a matter of law.” Roosevelt-Hennix, 717 F.3d at 753 (quoting Lewis v. Tripp, 604 F.3d 1221, 1225 (10th Cir.2010)).

A key exception to Johnson’s jurisdictional rule arises if a district court fails to specify which factual disputes precluded a grant of summary judgment for qualified immunity. When faced with this circumstance, we are unable “to separate an appealed order’s reviewable determination (that a given set of facts violates clearly established law) from its unreviewable determination (that an issue of fact is ‘genuine’).” Id. (quoting Johnson, 515 U.S. at 319, 115 S.Ct. 2151). Accordingly, before we can review abstract legal questions, we “may have to undertake a cumbersome review of the record to determine what facts the district court, in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, likely assumed.” Johnson, 515 U.S. at 319, 115 S.Ct. 2151; see also Roosevelt-Hennix, 717 F.3d at 754, 756 n. 8.

This is one such “cumbersome review” case. Although the district court denied summary judgment on four claims because they “turn[ed] on issues of fact,” it did not explicitly identify which material facts were in dispute. See Appx. at 1064. We must therefore comb “the record to determine what facts the district court, in the light most favorable to [the Plaintiffs], likely assumed.” Roosevelt-Hennix, 717 F.3d at 754. Making our review less cumbersome is the district court’s observation that the “Plaintiffs’ Statement of Disputed Facts” (EOF No. 133) outlined the primary factual disputes that formed, at least in part, the basis of its decision. See Appx. at 1064 (observing that the “fact disputes” are “set forth in some summary at CM-ECF docket no. 133, but they’re everywhere in this case”). That document lays out Plaintiffs’ alleged fact disputes, and we therefore assume the district court agreed they were material and disputed. 1

Also helpful are the various video clips of the encounter. Because the district court failed to “identify the particular charged conduct that it deemed adequately supported by the record,” we must “look behind the order denying summary judgment and review the entire record,” including the video evidence submitted by the Defendants in support of their motion for summary judgment. Roosevelt-Hennix, 717 F.3d at 756 n. 8 (quotations omitted) (emphasis added). 2

*411 B. Section 1983 and Qualiñed Immunity

Title “42 U.S.C. § 1988 allows an injured person to seek damages against an individual who has violated his or her federal rights while acting under color of state law.” Cillo v. City of Greenwood Village, 739 F.3d 451, 459 (10th Cir.2013). “Individual defendants named in a § 1983 action may raise a defense of qualified immunity,” id., which “shields public officials ... from damages actions unless their conduct was unreasonable in light of clearly established law,” Gann v. Cline, 519 F.3d 1090, 1092 (10th Cir.2008) (quotations omitted).

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745 F.3d 405, 2014 WL 929157, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 4493, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/estate-of-marvin-l-booker-v-gomez-ca10-2014.