USCA4 Appeal: 21-2391 Doc: 70 Filed: 11/21/2022 Pg: 1 of 17
UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 21-2391
KATRINA REEVES, individually and as Executrix of the Estate of James Lee Reeves,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
HOWARD MEDDINGS, individually,
Defendant - Appellant,
and
WAYNE COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION; WAYNE COUNTY; WAYNE COUNTY COMMISSION; WAYNE COUNTY SHERRIF RICHARD THOMPSON, individually; TODD ALEXANDER, individually; DEPUTY HARRY SOWARDS, individually,
Defendants.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, at Huntington. Robert C. Chambers, District Judge. (3:20-cv-00423-RCC)
Argued: September 16, 2022 Decided: November 21, 2022
Before AGEE and HARRIS, Circuit Judges, and MOTZ, Senior Circuit Judge
Dismissed in part, vacated in part, and remanded by unpublished opinion. Judge Harris wrote the opinion, in which Judge Agee and Senior Judge Motz joined. USCA4 Appeal: 21-2391 Doc: 70 Filed: 11/21/2022 Pg: 2 of 17
ARGUED: Perry W. Oxley, OXLEY RICH SAMMONS, PLLC, Huntington, West Virginia, for Appellant. Hoyt Eric Glazer, GLAZER SAAD ANDERSON L.C., Huntington, West Virginia, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: David E. Rich, Samantha J. Fields, OXLEY RICH SAMMONS, PLLC, Huntington, West Virginia, for Appellant. Abraham J. Saad, Eric B. Anderson, GLAZER SAAD ANDERSON L.C., Huntington, West Virginia, for Appellees.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PAMELA HARRIS, Circuit Judge:
The plaintiffs in this action, James and Katrina Reeves, allege that a supervisor at a
school bus facility in Wayne County, West Virginia, falsely accused them of stealing from
the facility, and then conspired with other Wayne County officials to falsify evidence
against them and cause their arrests. The defendant supervisor, Howard Meddings, moved
for summary judgment, asserting federal qualified immunity and statutory immunity under
West Virginia law. The district court denied summary judgment and Meddings filed an
appeal.
Because Meddings’s fact-based challenge to the denial of state statutory immunity
falls outside our jurisdiction in this interlocutory posture, we must dismiss that part of his
appeal. But we agree with Meddings that the district court did not consider his federal
qualified immunity claim under the proper legal standard. Accordingly, we vacate the
district court’s judgment in part and remand so that the district court may undertake the
correct qualified immunity analysis in the first instance.
I.
A.
In this interlocutory appeal of a denial of immunity, and except as otherwise noted,
we recount the facts as the district court viewed them – that is, in the light most favorable
to the plaintiffs, James and Katrina Reeves, drawing all justifiable inferences in their
favor. See Hicks v. Ferreyra, 965 F.3d 302, 305 (4th Cir. 2020).
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This case arises from an alleged break-in at the Wayne County Board of Education
bus garage and the investigation that followed. Howard Meddings, a defendant in this
action, is a Board of Education employee and a parts supervisor at the garage. He was
involved in the investigation of the break-in, which centered around two of his Board of
Education co-employees: plaintiff James Reeves, who worked alongside Meddings in the
bus parts “barn,” and his wife and co-plaintiff Katrina Reeves, who worked as a bus driver.
The investigation was led by Wayne County Deputy Sherriff Harry Sowards – a longtime
friend of Meddings’s.
The gist of the plaintiffs’ claim, as relevant here, is that Meddings and Sowards
worked together, along with other WCBOE employees, to frame James and Katrina for
theft and to effectuate their false arrests and other violations of their Fourth and First
Amendment rights. According to the plaintiffs, Meddings had a long history of animus
towards them and an especially fraught relationship with James Reeves: James and
Meddings had once applied for the same job, with the position going to James, and
Meddings had filed multiple grievances against James. But despite this history, the
plaintiffs assert, Meddings was permitted to play a key role in the investigation of the
break-in.
Throughout the investigation, Meddings allegedly spread information he knew to
be false to implicate the plaintiffs. He also inserted himself centrally into the criminal
inquiry led by his friend Sowards, texting and meeting with Sowards privately about the
case. Meddings was on the scene with law enforcement during the search of the Reeveses’
home, identifying items purportedly stolen from the garage. Through Deputy Sowards, the
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plaintiffs allege, he obtained pictures and texts gathered from a search of James Reeves’s
cell phone, which he planned to use against the Reeveses. And he further tainted the
investigation by contacting other bus garage employees and discouraging them from
cooperating in the Reeveses’ private investigation to prepare for filing of this § 1983 action.
As a result of the investigation, the plaintiffs were arrested. James Reeves was
charged with three counts of felony embezzlement, and both Reeveses were charged with
conspiracy to embezzle. The conspiracy charges were soon dropped, but James Reeves
was indicted for embezzlement by a grand jury after Deputy Sowards presented the case
against him.
James Reeves moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that Sowards had testified
falsely before the grand jury. The state court agreed and issued an order explaining that it
was prepared to dismiss the case on that ground. Sowards, the court found, had indeed
presented false and material evidence to the grand jury, and his confessed “mistakes” were
so frequent that they were “reckless at best” and warranted dismissal of the indictment “as
misleading to the jury.” J.A. 663. But because James Reeves passed away before the court
could issue its decision, the court dismissed the charges against Reeves on that basis,
instead, and dismissed his motion as moot. 1
1 Mr. Reeves died unexpectedly on November 27, 2021, after this suit was filed in the district court. Mrs. Reeves moved to proceed with the suit both in her own capacity and as executrix of her husband’s estate, and pursues this appeal in the same capacities. For ease of reference, we continue to refer in this opinion to James and Katrina Reeves as the plaintiffs. The question of which of Mr. Reeves’s original claims, if any, survive his death has been briefed in the district court, and we leave that issue to the district court in the first instance.
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Because of the criminal charges brought against them, the Reeveses were terminated
from their jobs. Their arrests and termination were covered by local news publications and
media, humiliating the Reeveses and allegedly damaging their reputations.
B.
In August 2020, the Reeveses filed an eleven-count complaint against Meddings,
Sowards, and several other county entities and officials. Relevant to this appeal are the
three counts against Meddings: one for conspiracy to violate the plaintiffs’ civil rights
under 42 U.S.C. § 1983; and two alleging state-law claims, for defamation and intentional
infliction of emotional distress. 2 After discovery, both parties moved for summary
judgment. The plaintiffs sought summary judgment on their defamation claim alone, while
Meddings sought summary judgment on the merits of all three claims against him.
Meddings also argued that he was entitled to federal qualified immunity and to statutory
immunity under § 29-12A-5(b) of the West Virginia Code, which protects employees of
the state’s political subdivisions. See W. Va. Code § 29-12A-5(b) (2022).
The district court denied summary judgment to both parties on the merits, finding
that genuine disputes of material fact precluded an award of judgment as a matter of law.
Reeves v. Wayne Cnty. Bd. of Educ., No. 3:20-0423, 2021 WL 5417396, at *3-5 (S.D.W.
Va. Nov. 19, 2021). Although that part of the court’s ruling is not directly before us now,
we describe it briefly here because it bears on the immunity issues in the case.
2 The plaintiffs’ complaint also included a state-law invasion of privacy claim based on a “false light” theory. The district court granted Meddings’s motion to dismiss that claim against him, and it is not before us on appeal.
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The court began with the § 1983 conspiracy claim, which, as the court recognized,
would require the plaintiffs to establish that Meddings acted in concert with Deputy
Sowards, and that some overt action was taken which led to a deprivation of the Reeveses’
constitutional rights. Id. at *3 (quoting Penly v. McDowell Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 876 F.3d
646, 658 (4th Cir. 2017)). The court acknowledged Meddings’s deposition testimony –
corroborated by Sowards – purporting to establish that his actions in assisting Sowards had
been well within the scope of his employment at the bus garage, and that he had been only
“tangentially” involved in the criminal investigation. Id. But the deposition testimony
offered by the plaintiffs, the court explained, “establishe[d] the exact opposite.” Id. A
reasonable jury, the court concluded, could credit that evidence and find that Meddings in
fact was “personally very involved in the [] police investigation” and had conspired with
Sowards to “falsely accuse the Reeves[es] and subject them to arrest.” Id.
In particular, the court determined, the record evidence would support a finding that
Meddings engaged in private communications with Deputy Sowards about the
investigation; that Sowards forwarded him records recovered from a search of Mr.
Reeves’s cell phone; and that Meddings had contacted multiple other garage employees
about the Reeveses’ private investigation preparing for this lawsuit, instructing them not to
cooperate with the private investigator. Id. And it was undisputed that Meddings was on
the scene when the Reeveses’ home was searched, with his level of involvement in the
search subject to dispute. Id. In sum, the court concluded, the record evidence regarding
Meddings’s role in the investigation “conflicts greatly and could lead to a reasonable
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inference in favor of either party’s version of events,” making summary judgment
inappropriate. Id.
The court reached a similar determination with respect to the record evidence on the
defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress (“IIED”) claims. As to both,
Meddings’s principal defense was that he had acted not from any animus against the
Reeveses but only in good faith, believing his accusations to be true – which would entitle
him to a qualified privilege as to the plaintiffs’ defamation claim, id. at *4, and preclude a
finding that he acted intentionally or outrageously for purposes of their IIED claim, id. at
*5. But here again, the court concluded that the summary judgment record gave rise to
genuine disputes of fact as to Meddings’s subjective state of mind. With respect to
defamation, the district court held, neither party was entitled to summary judgment,
because the record was “inconclusive” as to whether Meddings believed in “good faith”
that the Reeveses were guilty. The “total circumstances” of Meddings’s “alleged animus
and past conduct towards the [p]laintiffs,” that is, would allow – but not compel – a
reasonable jury to reject Meddings’s good-faith defense. Id. at *4. And likewise, with
respect to IIED, a rational jury could disagree with Meddings that he acted “in good faith
and with no personal vendetta against the Reeveses.” Id. at *5.
Directly relevant here, the district court also denied Meddings summary judgment
on federal qualified immunity and state statutory immunity grounds. Id. at *2. The court
began by laying out the standard for qualified immunity:
The doctrine of qualified immunity protects government officials 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. In
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determining whether qualified immunity applies, the court must conduct a two-step analysis. First, the court must determine whether the record supports a violation of a constitutional right. Second, the court must determine whether the right was clearly established at the time of defendant's alleged misconduct.
Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The district court then articulated the
West Virginia statutory immunity standard, which “provides statutory immunity from
liability for an employee of a political subdivision unless his acts were manifestly outside
the scope of employment or were done with malicious purpose, bad faith, or in a wanton
or reckless manner.” Id. (citing W. Va. Code Ann. § 29-12A-5(b)).
The court appeared to turn first to the question of state statutory immunity, noting
that Meddings qualified as an employee of a political subdivision, the Wayne County
Board of Education, as defined by West Virginia law. Id. at *3. Meddings argued, the
court explained, that he had acted within the scope of his employment, merely assisting the
police in their investigation, and that the plaintiffs had failed to produce any evidence of a
“malicious purpose.” Id.; see W. Va. Code Ann. § 29-12A-5(b)(1) (“scope of
employment” requirement for statutory immunity); id. § 29-12A-5(b)(2) (“malicious
purpose” exception to statutory immunity). But the court disagreed, at least as to
“malicious purpose.” The evidentiary record included testimony from multiple witnesses
“about [Meddings’s] animus towards the Reeveses,” the court explained, and from that
evidence, a reasonable jury could infer that Meddings “acted maliciously,” foreclosing
statutory immunity. Id.
The court did not return to the familiar two-step standard governing federal qualified
immunity. Instead, it seems to have disposed of that issue with the following reasoning:
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The same jury that could find Meddings “acted maliciously and intentionally” towards the
plaintiffs could further infer that he “intended [his] accusations to lead to false criminal
charges, depriving the Reeveses of their constitutional rights.” And that, the court
concluded, would be enough to “prevent[] him from relying on qualified immunity to
insulate him from their claims.” Id.
Meddings noted a timely appeal of the district court’s denial of summary judgment
on immunity grounds.
II.
We review de novo a district court's denial of immunity at summary judgment. Cox
v. Quinn, 828 F.3d 227, 235 (4th Cir. 2016). The immunity standard we apply is the same
as that used by the district court: We view the facts in the light most favorable to the
nonmoving party – here, the Reeveses – and recognize that summary judgment may be
granted only if “no material facts are disputed” and Meddings is “entitled to judgment as a
matter of law” on his immunity claims. Hicks, 965 F.3d at 308 (internal quotation marks
omitted); see Henry v. Purnell, 652 F.3d 524, 531 (4th Cir. 2011) (en banc); Fed. R. Civ.
P. 56(a).
The scope of our review is further limited by the procedural posture of this appeal.
Ordinarily, denials of summary judgment are interlocutory orders not subject to appellate
review. See Williams v. Strickland, 917 F.3d 763, 767 (4th Cir. 2019). But denials of
federal qualified immunity, and denials of state-law immunities that likewise protect
against standing suit, may be appealed immediately under the collateral order doctrine. See
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Hicks, 965 F.3d at 308; R.A. v. Johnson, 36 F.4th 537, 541 (4th Cir. 2022) (“An order
denying immunity is immediately appealable when, under state law, the immunity is an
immunity from suit, not merely from liability.”) (internal quotation marks omitted). Our
review in such cases, however, is limited to legal questions; we have jurisdiction over the
denial of immunity only “to the extent it turns on an issue of law.” Gould v. Davis, 165
F.3d 265, 268 (4th Cir. 1998); see also, e.g., Cox, 828 F.3d at 235. “Whether we agree or
disagree with the district court’s assessment of the record evidence,” in other words, “is of
no moment in the context of [an] interlocutory appeal,” Culosi v. Bullock, 596 F.3d 195,
201 (4th Cir. 2010), and we may not evaluate the evidentiary record ourselves, Hensley ex
rel. North Carolina v. Price, 876 F.3d 573, 579 (4th Cir. 2017). Instead, we must take the
facts as the district court “gives them to us,” and determine whether, viewed in the light
most favorable to the plaintiffs, they allow for a grant of immunity to the defendant as a
matter of law. Hicks, 965 F.3d at 309.
That restriction on our jurisdiction is sufficient to dispose of Meddings’s appeal as
to the denial of state statutory immunity. There is no dispute that under West Virginia law,
as the district court explained, Meddings is not protected by public official immunity if he
acted “with malicious purpose” or in bad faith. See W. Va. Code Ann. § 29-15A-5(b)(2);
Reeves, 2021 WL 5417396, at *2. The district court went on to hold that the evidentiary
record before it would allow a reasonable jury to find that Meddings had indeed “acted
maliciously” towards James and Katrina Reeves – both in its immunity analysis, see id. at
*3, and in denying summary judgment on the merits, see id. at *4 (finding the evidentiary
record “inconclusive” as to Meddings’s good-faith belief in the truth of the information he
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provided and noting that evidence of Meddings’s “alleged animus and past conduct
towards the [p]laintiffs could lead to a finding that precludes good faith”); id. at *5 (finding
dispute of fact as to whether Meddings “acted in good faith and with no personal vendetta
against the Reeveses”).
On appeal, Meddings raises no legal argument with respect to that conclusion. He
does not contend, for instance, that the district court applied the wrong legal standard, and
he does not dispute that if, as the district court determined, there is evidence from which a
jury could find “malicious purpose,” he is not entitled to statutory immunity as a matter of
law. Instead, Meddings takes issue with the district court’s assessment of the evidentiary
record, arguing on appeal – as he did before the district court – that there are not genuine
issues of fact regarding malice. See, e.g., Br. of Appellant at 32 (arguing that there “is no
evidence to suggest that the information provided by Meddings in connection with the
criminal investigation was in any way malicious”). That is precisely the type of fact- and
record-based argument that we are foreclosed from entertaining in this posture. See Gould,
165 F.3d at 268 (finding absence of jurisdiction to “review the district court’s order insofar
as that order determines whether or not the pretrial record sets forth a genuine issue of fact
for trial” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Because Meddings’s claim that he is entitled
to state statutory immunity rests on his disagreement with the district court’s “assessment
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of the record evidence,” Culosi, 596 F.3d at 201, it is not properly before us, and we must
dismiss that portion of his appeal. 3
As to federal qualified immunity, by contrast, Meddings does raise a legal argument
over which we have jurisdiction: that the district court failed to apply the correct legal
standard in considering whether he is entitled to qualified immunity from the Reeveses’
claim that he conspired to deprive them of their constitutional rights in violation of § 1983.
On this point, we agree with Meddings, and therefore vacate the district court’s judgment
in part.
In § 1983 cases, qualified immunity protects “government officials performing
discretionary functions . . . 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 (1982). If a public official engages in conduct
“that is entirely beyond [his] discretionary authority,” then he is not protected by this
3 As noted above, we may hear an interlocutory appeal of a denial of state-law immunity only when that immunity – like federal qualified immunity – is an immunity from suit, and not merely from liability. See R.A., 36 F.4th at 541. Because we dismiss this part of Meddings’s appeal on the threshold ground described above, we need not address whether we would have jurisdiction over an interlocutory appeal of the denial of public official immunity under § 29-12A-5(b) based on legal rather than factual arguments. See Manns v. Smith, 203 F.3d 821 (4th Cir. 2000) (unpublished) (dismissing interlocutory appeal from denial of immunity under § 29-12A-5 because it rested on factual dispute and assuming without deciding that court would have jurisdiction to hear appeal turning on “abstract issues of law”); see also State ex rel. City of Bridgeport v. Marks, 759 S.E.2d 192, 199 (W. Va. 2014) (quoting Hutchison v. City of Huntington, 479 S.E.2d 649, 658 (1996), for the proposition that qualified immunity under § 29-12A-5(b) is “immunity from suit” because “‘[i]mmunities under West Virginia law are more than a defense to a suit in that they grant . . . public officials the right not to be subject to the burden of trial at all.’”).
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immunity. See In re Allen, 106 F.3d 582, 594 (4th Cir. 1997). But in the more common
case in which a § 1983 defendant has acted within the scope of his authority, we engage in
a two-prong qualified immunity inquiry, asking whether the plaintiff has shown (a) that a
constitutional violation occurred, and (b) that the “right violated was clearly established”
at the time of the defendant’s conduct. See Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201 (2001);
Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 236 (2009) (granting courts discretion as to order in
which two steps are addressed). The “clearly established” standard is satisfied only where
“existing precedent” puts the constitutional question “beyond debate,” ensuring that
officials can “reasonably anticipate when their conduct may give rise to liability.” Reichle
v. Howards, 566 U.S. 658, 664 (2012) (cleaned up).
That is not the standard applied by the district court here. The district court included
no discussion of this two-prong standard in its analysis of Meddings’ immunity from suit.
Reeves, 2021 WL 5417396, at *2. In denying summary judgment to Meddings on the
merits of the § 1983 conspiracy claim against him, the court determined that the evidence
would allow a finding that Meddings conspired with Sowards to “falsely accuse the
Reeves[es] and subject them to arrest,” Reeves, 2021 WL 5417396, at *3 – and as discussed
above, in this interlocutory posture, we take that determination as a given. But the district
court did not go on to identify the constitutional right of which the Reeveses were deprived
as a result of this conspiracy. See Penly, 876 F.3d at 658 (identifying elements of § 1983
conspiracy claim). Nor, as Meddings emphasizes on appeal, did the district court ever
consider whether this right – presumably, a right to be free of a knowingly false arrest,
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perhaps under a malicious prosecution theory, see J.A. 20 (amended complaint) – was
“clearly established” at the time of the conspiracy.
Instead, the district court appears to have conflated the state and federal immunity
standards, holding that Meddings was not entitled to summary judgment based on federal
qualified immunity because a jury could find that he “acted maliciously” towards the
Reeveses, “intend[ing] [his] accusations to lead to false criminal charges.” Reeves, 2021
WL 5417396, at *3. That a jury could reasonably find subjective malice is indeed
dispositive as to state statutory immunity, as discussed above. But it has no bearing on
federal qualified immunity, which considers only the “objective reasonableness of an
official’s conduct, as measured by reference to clearly established law.” Harlow, 457 U.S.
at 818 (emphasis added). Contrary to what seems to have been the district court’s
understanding, see Reeves, 2021 WL 5417396, at *2 (“Both qualified immunity and
statutory immunity can be overcome by a showing of malicious conduct.”), “evidence that
the defendant’s conduct was malicious or otherwise improperly motivated” is “simply
irrelevant” to the federal qualified immunity defense. See Crawford-El v. Britton, 523 U.S.
574, 588 (1998).
Because of its truncated analysis, the district court also failed to consider whether
this might be the “rare[]” case in which a defendant’s conduct is so “totally beyond the
scope of his authority” that he is not protected by qualified immunity. See In re Allen, 106
F.3d at 594; id. at 595 n.4 (asking whether a defendant’s action was “clearly established to
be beyond the scope of his authority” under state statutes or regulations). In analyzing the
§ 1983 conspiracy claim, the district court concluded that there was record evidence that
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Meddings, contrary to his protestations, had been “personally very involved in the [] police
investigation and causing the criminal complaint to issue” – by, for instance, obtaining
records from a search of James Reeves’s cell phone from Sowards, participating in some
manner in the search of the Reeveses’ home, and instructing bus garage employees not to
cooperate with the investigation. Reeves, 2021 WL 5417396, at *3. As the court
recognized, whether that level of involvement in a criminal investigation would take
Meddings – a parts supervisor at a Board of Education bus garage – “manifestly outside
the scope of employment” was relevant to his state statutory immunity claim. See id. at
*2; W. Va. Code Ann. § 29-12A-5(b)(1) (precluding immunity if an employee’s acts are
“manifestly outside the scope of employment or official responsibilities”). But because the
court relied on record evidence of “malicious purpose” to resolve (properly) the state
statutory immunity claim and (improperly) the federal qualified immunity claim, it did not
further consider the “scope of employment” issue.
We thus vacate the district court’s judgment to the extent it denied Meddings’s
motion for summary judgment as to the Reeveses’ § 1983 conspiracy claim based on
federal qualified immunity. Because “this Court is a court of review, not of first view,”
Fusaro v. Cogan, 930 F.3d 241, 264 (4th Cir. 2019) (internal quotation marks omitted), we
follow our usual practice and remand to the district court to address in the first instance
whether, under the correct standard, Meddings is entitled to federal qualified immunity as
a matter of law.
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III.
For the foregoing reasons, the appeal is dismissed in part, the judgment of the district
court is vacated in part, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this
opinion.
DISMISSED IN PART, VACATED IN PART, AND REMANDED