Third Circuit Reaffirms the Requirements of Disregarding Qualified Immunity for Law Enforcement Officers
Following the fatal shooting of her son during a mental health episode where he was in possession of a knife, the plaintiff brought ten federal and state law claims, seeking damages from Officer Arnold, the City of Lancaster and the former Lancaster City police chief. The defendants filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings. The issue in this matter was whether the officer who used deadly force is entitled to qualified immunity.
The Third Circuit reasoned that there are two steps to determine whether qualified immunity applies. “First, a court must decide ‘whether the facts that a plaintiff has ... shown make out a violation of a constitutional right.’” Spady v. Bethlehem Area Sch. Dist., 800 F.3d 633, 637 (3d Cir. 2015) (quoting Pearson, 555 U.S. at 232). “[S]econd, the court must determine ‘whether the right at issue was “clearly established” at the time of defendant’s alleged misconduct.’” Id. (quoting Pearson, 555 U.S. at 236).
The pleadings, when construed in favor of the plaintiff, satisfy the first prong of the qualified immunity analysis. Under current case law, there is no set of facts that the plaintiff can prove would satisfy the second prong of the qualified immunity analysis because the court could not say that the Third Circuit has “clearly established” that a police officer violates the constitutional rights of an individual experiencing a mental health episode when that officer fails to wait for backup—potentially in contravention of police policies—and that his or her decision contributes to the need for deadly force. The U.S. Supreme Court has stated: “[a] clearly established right is one that is ‘sufficiently clear’ that every reasonable official would have understood that what he is doing violates that right.’” Mullenix v. Luna, 577 U.S. 7,11.
The court further reasoned that in identifying such a right, it should not be formulated as a broad general proposition, but that the specific context of the case, because it is difficult for an officer to determine how the relevant legal doctrine will apply to a specific factual situation. To come to the conclusion that the plaintiff’s son’s rights were not clearly established, it relied on the factor that the severity and immediacy of the threat and any potential risk to public safety posed by an officer’s delayed action. Although Ms. Peña sufficiently pleaded that the Officer violated her son’s rights, the court refused to decree those rights to be clearly established. Accordingly, Officer Arnold was entitled to qualified immunity as to the shooting of Mr. Muñoz.
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