Lynch v. Barrett , 703 F.3d 1153 ( 2013 )

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
January 4, 2013
PUBLISH Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
TENTH CIRCUIT
NICK LYNCH,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v. No. 12-1222
ADAM BARRETT; SGT. STEPHEN
KENFIELD; MICHAEL MORELOCK;
CITY AND COUNTY OF DENVER,
Defendants-Appellants,
and
ABBEGAYLE DORN,
Defendant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
(D.C. No. 1:11-CV-01120-RBJ-MEH)
Wendy J. Shea, Assistant City Attorney, Office of City Attorney, Litigation Section
(Stuart Shapiro, Assistant City Attorney, Douglas Jewell, Bruno, Colin, Jewell &
Lowe, P.C., and Reid J. Elkus, Elkus, Sisson & Rosenstein, P.C., with her on the
brief), Denver, Colorado, for Defendants-Appellants.
Robert M. Liechty, Cross Liechty Lance PC, Greenwood Village, Colorado, for
Plaintiff-Appellee.
Before HARTZ, BALDOCK, and GORSUCH, Circuit Judges.
BALDOCK, Circuit Judge.
Plaintiff Nick Lynch claims Defendants Adam Barrett, Stephen Kenfield, and
Michael Morelock, all police officers for Defendant City and County of Denver,
violated his constitutional right to court access by refusing to disclose who exercised
excessive force against him in the course of an arrest. Plaintiff further claims
Defendant City violated his right to court access by adopting a policy and practice
that precipitated the “conspiracy of silence” waged against him. As to Plaintiff’s
first claim, the district court entered an order denying Defendant Officers qualified
immunity in the context of their motion for summary judgment. As to Plaintiff’s
second claim, the district court in the same order denied Defendant City’s “standard”
motion for summary judgment, i.e., one that simply asserts the lack of any genuine
issue of material fact for trial. Defendant Officers appeal. We exercise jurisdiction
over their appeal, to the extent permitted by law, under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 pursuant
to the collateral order doctrine first announced in Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan
Corp., 337 U.S. 541 (1949). Our review is de novo. See Morris v. Noe, 672 F.3d
1185, 1189 (10th Cir. 2012). Defendant City too appeals, asking us to exercise
pendent party jurisdiction over what is, from the City’s perspective, an otherwise
unappealable order. See Swint v. Chambers Cnty. Comm’n, 514 U.S. 35, 41–43
(1995). After sorting through this kettle of fish, we reverse the district court’s
decision denying Defendant Officers qualified immunity, dismiss Defendant City’s
appeal for lack of jurisdiction, and remand for further proceedings.
2
I.
According to the district court, the problem arose in March 2008 after Plaintiff
punched another individual outside a nightclub in downtown Denver. Plaintiff fled
the scene, jumped over the fence of a gated parking lot, and hid in some bushes. Up
to six officers followed him into the lot. With game over, Plaintiff stood up. One
or more officers then threw Plaintiff to the ground and struck him several times in
the back of his left thigh with a baton or flashlight. Because Plaintiff was face-down
on the ground, he could not identify the officer or officers responsible.
In its written order, the district court first reached two legal conclusions as
they bore upon Defendant Officers’ claim to qualified immunity:
This court is satisfied that intentional concealment of evidence by a
police officer that interferes with an individual’s ability to obtain
redress for police misconduct is unconstitutional. This court is also
satisfied that it would be clear to a reasonable police officer that
intentional concealment of evidence of another officer’s misconduct,
the so-called conspiracy of silence, is unlawful. Accordingly, if these
officers did intentionally conceal evidence of another officer’s [use] of
excessive force, they are not entitled to qualified immunity.
Lynch v. Barrett, 2012 WL 1890442, at *3 (D. Colo. 2012) (unpublished) (internal
citations omitted). The court next recited some of the evidence that supported
Plaintiff’s version of events and concluded a jury could find Defendant Officers
intentionally concealed the identity of the officer or officers who had exercised
excessive force against him.
[Officer Barrett] testified [in his deposition] that as he approached the
bushes he “saw [Plaintiff] start to stand up, and then the [arresting]
3
officers rushed the bush, and he was taken down.” This testimony
raises the factual questions of whether Officer Barrett saw who rushed
[Plaintiff], who arrested him, and who either used excessive force or
was in a position to know, if anyone, did. . . .
Officer Morelock states in an affidavit that “after I went over the fence,
I turned towards the bushes and noticed several other officers already
present. Therefore, I ran over to assist them.” Officer Barrett testified
. . . that Officer Morelock climbed the fence with him . . . . There is
at least some evidence that [Officer Morelock] was in a position to
observe the arrest or, at least, who participated in it.
Sgt. Kenfield reports in his affidavit that he did not participate in the
arrest or witness it. . . . However, Sgt. Kenfield also reports that even
though it took him four or five minutes to get over the fence, several
officers were already present in the fenced-in area. He was by his own
admission, in the near vicinity of the arrest when it happened and saw
which officers were present.
Id. at *3–*4 (internal record cites and brackets omitted).
Unlike the facts bearing upon Defendant Officers’ involvement in Plaintiff’s
arrest, the facts surrounding Defendant City’s alleged establishment of a policy or
practice that caused Defendant Officers’ “cover-up” are unimportant for present
purposes. Suffice to say the district court concluded Plaintiff raised genuine issues
of material fact for trial on his municipal liability claim against Defendant City. The
court decided a reasonable jury could find Defendant City maintained a policy or
practice that caused Defendant Officers’ cover-up and Plaintiff’s consequent inability
to obtain legal redress on his excessive force claim.
II.
As a preliminary matter, we point out that Plaintiff’s “backwards looking”
4
denial-of-access claim is ripe for adjudication in the district court. A backwards
looking access claim may arise where a plaintiff alleges an underlying claim cannot
be tried, or be tried with all the evidence, because official conduct caused the loss
or inadequate resolution of that claim. See Jennings v. City of Stillwater, 383 F.3d
1199, 1208–09 (10th Cir. 2004) (distinguishing between “forward looking” and
“backwards looking” court access claims). In Christopher v. Harbury, 536 U.S. 403
(2002), the Supreme Court assumed a backwards looking denial-of-access claim is
actionable where based on a lost opportunity to seek legal redress on an underlying
claim. Id. at 412 n.6, 414 n.9. To allege a compensable injury, a plaintiff claiming
denial of court access under such circumstances,
must identify a remedy that may be awarded as recompense but not
otherwise available in some suit that may yet be brought. There is,
after all, no point in spending time and money to establish facts
constituting denial of access when a plaintiff would end up just as well
off after litigating a simpler case without the denial-of-access element.
Id. at 415.
Plaintiff has already litigated his underlying claim of excessive force against
Defendant Officers unsuccessfully, and so his opportunity to recover on that claim
has passed. The district court granted Defendant Officers’ Rule 50 motion for
judgment as a matter of law at the close of Plaintiff’s case because Plaintiff’s proof
was insufficient to establish the Officers were responsible for the force used against
him. Plaintiff did not appeal that ruling. Instead, Plaintiff now seeks, by way of his
denial-of-access claim in the district court, relief against Defendant Officers that is
5
unavailable on his underlying claim for excessive force. 1
III.
Both Defendant Officers and Defendant City tell us we can assume “for the
purpose of this appeal” that “a cognizable right of access claim may arise from an
alleged cover-up by police officers.” Aplts’ Op. Br. at 11–12. As a prelude to their
principal argument, Defendant Officers “presume . . . that certain circumstances may
exist under which a plaintiff may establish a cognizable right of access claim based
upon a police officer’s intentional, bad faith cover-up of excessive force.” Id. at 17.
But “even assuming the validity of a backwards looking right of access claim based
on a cover-up,” Defendant Officers argue “the facts in this case are insufficient to
show that any [of them] personally participated in a cover-up to intentionally hide
the identities of the officers who arrested [Plaintiff] for the purpose of denying
him access to the courts.” Id. at 36–37. At this point, Defendant City makes its
1
Where a plaintiff prior to filing an underlying claim knows of facts
suggesting an evidentiary cover-up by government officials, the underlying claim and
the denial-of-access claim generally should be joined in the same action even if that
requires bifurcated trials. See Harbury, 536 U.S. at 416. The district court in
Plaintiff’s first suit, however, ruled Plaintiff could not join his denial-of-access claim
with his excessive force claim. The court dismissed Plaintiff’s access claim as
unripe. Lynch v. Barrett, 2010 WL 3938359, at *5–*6 (D. Colo. 2010). After the
court granted Defendant Officers’ Rule 50 motion on Plaintiff’s excessive force
claim, Plaintiff moved to amend his complaint to include his denial-of-access claim.
The court denied the motion. Plaintiff did not appeal that denial, but filed his access
claim anew in the district court. Notably, Defendant Officers have not asserted the
affirmative defense of claim preclusion in this case and the viability of such defense
is not before us.
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pitch: “Because the record confirms that [Plaintiff] has failed to meet his burden of
showing the undisputed facts of this case demonstrate a cognizable right of access
claim [against Defendant Officers], his claim against [Defendant City] also fails as
a matter of law.” Id. at 36. Finally, Defendant Officers argue in the alternative that
because “the Tenth Circuit has never expressly recognized a [constitutional] cause
of action based upon an alleged cover-up,” they are entitled to qualified immunity
for lack of clearly established law informing them their alleged obstinacy violated
Plaintiff’s right to court access. Id. at 33.
A.
We begin with Defendant Officers’ appeal based on their claim to qualified
immunity. “The doctrine of qualified immunity protects government officials ‘from
liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly
established . . . constitutional rights of which a reasonable officer would have
known.’” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009) (quoting Harlow v.
Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982)). In contrast to a standard motion for summary
judgment, which places the burden on the moving party to point out the lack of any
genuine issue of material fact for trial, a motion based on a claim of qualified
immunity imposes the burden on the plaintiff to show “both that a constitutional
violation occurred and that the constitutional right was clearly established at the
time of the alleged violation.” Green v. Post, 574 F.3d 1294, 1300 (10th Cir. 2009)
(internal quotations omitted). Here, the district court concluded Plaintiff carried his
7
burden. The court held Plaintiff presented facts sufficient to warrant a finding that
Defendant Officers violated his constitutional right to court access. The court also
held Plaintiff had shown, based on those facts, that his right to court access was
clearly established at the time of Defendant Officers’ violation. That is according
to the district court, a reasonable officer would have understood Defendant Officers
violated Plaintiff’s right to access by intentionally concealing the identity of the
officer or officers responsible for subjecting him to excessive force.
That portion of the district court’s order denying Defendant Officers qualified
immunity constitutes a “final decision[]” within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1291,
and is appealable—at least in part. In Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511 (1985), the
Supreme Court held a district court order denying an official’s claim to qualified
immunity constituted a “collateral order,” and thus a final decision under § 1291,
where the issue appealed concerned, not which facts the parties might be able
to prove at trial, but rather, whether certain facts “support a claim of violation of
clearly established law.” Id. at 528 n.9. Subsequently, in Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S.
304 (1995), the Supreme Court held a court order denying officials’ motion for
summary judgment based on their claim to qualified immunity was not appealable
where “[t]he order in question resolved a fact-related dispute about the pretrial
record, namely, whether . . . the evidence in the pretrial record was sufficient to
show a genuine issue of fact for trial.” Id. at 307. Explaining “immunity appeals
interfere less with the final judgment rule if they are limited to cases presenting neat
8
abstract issues of law,” id. at 317 (internal brackets, ellipses, and quotations
omitted), the Court reiterated that an “appellate court reviewing the denial of the
defendant’s claim of immunity need not consider the correctness of the plaintiff’s
version of the facts.” Id. at 313 (quoting Mitchell, 472 U.S. at 528).
In other words, “if a district court concludes a reasonable jury could find
certain specified facts in 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.” Lewis v. Tripp, 604 F.3d
1221, 1225 (10th Cir. 2010). Bound by those facts, we may consider only “the
‘abstract’ legal questions [1] whether those facts suffice to show a violation of law
and [2] whether that law was clearly established at the time of the alleged violation.”
Id. If we answer both questions yes, we affirm the district court’s denial of qualified
immunity. If we answer either question no, we reverse. For any number of reasons
outlined by the Supreme Court, we are permitted to exercise our sound discretion in
deciding whether to bypass the first question and proceed directly to the second.
Pearson, 555 U.S. 236–43.
1.
A prerequisite to the district court’s decision that Plaintiff presented facts
sufficient to warrant a finding Defendant Officers violated his constitutional right to
court access was its determination that “intentional concealment of evidence by a
police officer that interferes with an individual’s ability to obtain redress for police
9
misconduct is unconstitutional.” Lynch, 2012 WL 1890442, at *3; cf. Siegert v.
Gilley, 500 U.S. 226, 232 (1991). As explained, Defendant Officers do not challenge
that determination. Rather, Defendant Officers challenge the court’s decision that
the facts warrant a finding they violated Plaintiff’s right to court access. Which
facts? Defendant Officers say the facts in the record, a “majority” of which the
district court ignored:
To survive summary judgment, [Plaintiff] was required to present
evidence sufficient to raise a genuine issue of material fact concerning
each officer’s personal participation in an intentional . . . cover-up to
hide the identities of the officers who allegedly used excessive force
against him. The district court found that Plaintiff presented such
evidence as to [Defendant] [O]fficers . . .; however, a review of the
record reveals that the evidence concerning [Defendant Officers]
alleged involvement in a cover-up is . . . speculative . . . .
***
[T]he record is devoid of any evidence to suggest that from their
various locations [Defendant Officer] Barrett, Morelock, or Kenfield
would have been able to see what was happening regardless of darkness
and the potential obstruction of their view . . . .
Aplts’ Op. Br. at 18–20 (emphasis added).
The problem with Defendant Officers argument is that at this stage of the
litigation we have no jurisdiction to resolve “fact-related disputes about the pretrial
record, namely, whether . . . the evidence in the pretrial record was sufficient to
show a genuine issue of fact for trial.” Johnson, 515 U.S. 307. Yet this is precisely
what Defendant Officers propose we resolve. The Supreme Court has made the point
(as have we) time and again: “[D]eterminations of evidentiary sufficiency at
10
summary judgment are not immediately appealable merely because they happen to
arise in a qualified-immunity case.” 2 Behrens v. Pelletier, 516 U.S. 299, 313 (1996).
We choose to belabor this matter no further. Instead we now simply assume (1) a
2
In Lewis, we pointed out two exceptions that may allow us to look behind
a district court’s order denying officials qualified immunity at the summary judgment
stage. First, where the district court’s order “fails to identify the particular charged
conduct that it deemed adequately supported by the record,” we may “review the
entire record de novo to determine for ourselves as a matter of law which factual
inferences a reasonable jury could and could not make.” Lewis, 604 F.3d at 1225;
see also Johnson, 515 U.S. at 319 (noting that if a district court does not state the
facts a jury could find, “a court of appeals may have to undertake a cumbersome
review of the record to determine [those] facts”). Second, where the “‘version of
events’ the district court holds a reasonable jury could credit ‘is blatantly
contradicted by the record,’” we may “assess the case based on our own de novo
view of which facts a reasonable jury could accept as true.” Lewis, 604 F.3d at
1225–26 (quoting Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 380 (2007)). Whether a district
court has stated facts tending to establish each element of a plaintiff’s claim, i.e., a
violation of the law, should be readily discernable, or we should hope. A mere claim
that the record “blatantly” contradicts the district court’s factual recitation, however,
may not be so easily resolved. Such claim alone does not require us to look beyond
the facts found and inferences drawn by the district court. Rather, the court’s
findings must constitute “visible fiction.” Scott, 550 U.S. at 380–81. Scott
illustrates the point. In that case, a videotape capturing the events in question “quite
clearly contradict[ed] the version of the story told by [plaintiff] and adopted by the
Court of Appeals.” Id. at 378. Only in their reply brief do Defendant Officers cite
Lewis and argue we should look behind the district court’s summary judgment order
because that order “fails to identify the specific facts upon which a reasonable jury
might rely to find that [Defendant] [O]fficers engaged in an intentional cover-up or
conspiracy.” Aplts’ Reply Br. at 3. To be sure, the district court’s order tells us
only that Defendant Officers were at the scene of Plaintiff’s arrest and were in a
position to witness the use of excessive force against him, but cannot identify the
responsible officer or officers. But whether this evidence is alone sufficient to
establish a “cover-up”, and thus a violation of Plaintiff’s right to court access, or
whether it is so lacking as to permit us to look behind the district court’s order to
ascertain those facts supporting Plaintiff’s claim, is a question not properly before
us because we do not consider arguments raised for the first time in a reply brief.
See Iqbal v. Holder, 693 F.3d 1189, 1195 n.4 (10th Cir. 2012).
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police cover-up designed to hinder pursuit of a legal claim may violate an
individual’s constitutional right to court access and (2) the facts set forth in the
district court’s order are sufficient to warrant a finding that Defendant Officers
violated Plaintiff’s right in this case. This allows us to broach the more manageable
question of whether Plaintiff’s right to court access was clearly established in the
specific context of this case.
2.
The second prong of the qualified immunity analysis shields a government
official from a claim of unconstitutional conduct where a reasonable official might
not have understood that such conduct violated the Constitution. “The contours of
the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that
what he is doing violates that right.” Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 202 (2001),
overruled in part on other grounds by Pearson 555 U.S. at 236. To overcome
Defendant Officers’ claim of qualified immunity, Plaintiff must show the scope of
his right to court access was sufficiently clear such that a reasonable officer would
have understood Defendant Officers’ refusal to name those responsible for exercising
excessive force against him was not merely ill-advised, but violated that right:
Because the focus is on whether the officer had fair notice that her
conduct was unlawful, reasonableness is judged against the backdrop of
the law at the time of the conduct. If the law at that time did not clearly
establish that the officer’s conduct would violate the Constitution, the
officer should not be subject to liability or, indeed even the burdens of
litigation.
12
It is important to emphasize that this inquiry must be undertaken in
light of the specific context of the case, not as a broad general
proposition.
Brosseau v. Haugen, 543 U.S. 194, 198 (2004) (internal quotations omitted). If a
reasonable officer would have had difficulty determining how the law concerning the
right to court access applied to the facts of this case, Defendant Officers are entitled
to qualified immunity. All this is not to say that qualified immunity shields official
action unless controlling precedent squarely holds the challenged action unlawful;
rather “in the light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness must be apparent.” Hope v.
Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 739 (2002) (internal quotations omitted).
While the precise source of the constitutional right to court access remains
ambiguous, the existence of such right, generally speaking, is quite clear. Over two
decades ago we observed:
The right of access to courts is basic to our system of government, and
it is well established today that it is one of the fundamental rights
protected by the Constitution. This right is one of the privileges and
immunities accorded citizens under article 4 of the Constitution and the
Fourteenth Amendment. It is also one aspect of the First Amendment
right to petition the government for redress of grievances. Finally, the
right of access is founded on the due process clause and guarantees the
right to present to a court of law allegations concerning the violation of
constitutional rights.
Smith v. Maschner, 899 F.2d 940 at 947 (10th Cir. 1990) (internal citations omitted).
But simply to say the Constitution recognizes a right to court access casts too high
a level of generality over our inquiry. To show his alleged right to court access was
clearly established in the proper sense, Plaintiff should identify “cases of controlling
13
authority . . . at the time of the incident . . . [or] a consensus of cases of persuasive
authority” clearly establishing the scope of the right encompasses the facts presented,
“such that a reasonable officer could not have believed that his actions were
[consistent with that right].” Wilson v. Layne, 526 U.S. 603, 617 (1999); see also
Green, 574 F.3d at 1300.
In 2002, the Supreme Court in Harbury “was careful not to endorse the validity
of . . . backwards looking [right to access] claims.” Jennings, 383 F.3d at 1209
(citing Harbury, 536 U.S. at 414 n.9). Henceforth, the Supreme Court has never
defined the right of court access to include a backwards looking claim based on a
“conspiracy of silence” aimed at interfering with an individual’s ability to procure
evidence of official misconduct. Nor have we ever endorsed such constitutional
claim. In McKay v. Hammock, 730 F.2d 1367, 1375 (10th Cir. 1984), we stated that
“conduct under color of law which interferes with [the] right [to court access] gives
rise to a cause of action under § 1983.” In that case, plaintiff alleged police officers
“threatened to see that his probation was revoked if he filed a civil rights action
based on [unlawful] arrests.” Id. (emphasis added); see Foster v. City of Lake
Jackson, 28 F.3d 425, 429–31 (5th Cir. 1994) (characterizing the right of access as
encompassing only the right to file suit and not the right to proceed free of discovery
abuses or even an evidentiary cover-up). A decade later in Wilson v. Meeks, 52 F.3d
1547 (10th Cir. 1995), we squarely rejected a right to access claim based on, among
other things, allegations that a police official “ordered a ‘code of silence’ concerning
14
the Wilson shooting:”
Insofar as the “code of silence” refers to [the official’s] directive to
police officers not to discuss the case, it is not a constitutional
violation. There is no constitutional duty for a police department to
disclose details concerning a police shooting to the public. Naturally,
the duty to disclose such facts may arise in response to discovery or
other legal process. In such case, however, the duty is merely legal
rather than constitutional.
Id. at 1557 (emphasis added).
This brings us to our 2004 decision in Jennings. In that case, plaintiff claimed
police officers violated her right to court access by intentionally undermining her
ability to bring a private tort action against her alleged sexual assailants, members
of the Oklahoma State football team. We began our analysis of plaintiff’s claim by
observing that “[t]his Circuit has not recognized a constitutional cause of action
based on denial of access to courts under these circumstances.” Jennings, 383 F.3d
at 1207. We then embarked on a discussion of Wilson:
On appeal from the district court’s denial of summary judgment for the
defendants based on qualified immunity, [Wilson] noted that while other
circuits have recognized a cause of action for police cover-up, the Tenth
Circuit had not endorsed this cause of action. Further, Wilson explained
that even the Fifth Circuit, which first articulated the access-to-courts
claim, had since limited these claims to cases alleging interference with
the filing of a complaint [as opposed to interference with discovery]
Wilson thus strongly suggests that a police cover-up does not give rise
to a constitutional claim of denial of access to courts in this Circuit.[ 3]
3
In Jennings we eventually assumed Wilson did not foreclose plaintiff’s right
to access claim. Rather, Harbury foreclosed it because plaintiff was not denied court
access insofar as she had sought and obtained a like measure of damages in a prior
(continued...)
15
Id. at 1208 (emphasis added) (internal citations, brackets, and quotations omitted).
The foregoing discussion makes apparent the point. At least in the Tenth
Circuit, the question of whether an evidentiary cover-up by police officials may
violate an individual’s constitutional right to court access was not clearly established
at the time of the alleged violation. A reasonable officer might not have understood
what Defendant Officers did (or refused to do) violated that right. “[I]n the light of
pre-existing law,” the unconstitutionality of Defendant Officers’ misfeasance simply
was not clear. Hope, 536 U.S. at 739. In other words, whether the scope of the right
to access extended as far as Plaintiff claims was “far from obvious.” Pearson, 555
U.S. at 237. What is obvious is that such right as defined by Plaintiff was not clearly
established. Assuming the truth of Plaintiff’s version of events, Defendant Officers’
conduct is inexcusable. “But that we are ‘morally outraged’ . . . by the alleged
conduct . . . does not mean necessarily that the offic[ers] should have realized that
it violated a constitutional right of access.” Foster, 28 F.3d at 430. Because
Defendant Officers are entitled to qualified immunity on Plaintiff’s right to access
claim based on the absence of clearly established law recognizing such right, we
reverse the district court’s decision denying them the same.
3
(...continued)
suit against four football players and the university. Jennings 383 F.3d at 1208–09;
see also Harbury 536 U.S. at 415.
16
B.
We now turn to Defendant City’s appeal from the denial of their standard
motion for summary judgment. The district court’s denial of that motion, a motion
which raised a “mere defense to liability” based on the insufficiency of the evidence,
does not constitute a final decision under § 1291 and is not appealable as such.
Swint, 514 U.S. at 43. Unlike Defendant Officers, Defendant City is unable to claim
immunity from suit and “cannot invoke the collateral order doctrine to justify appeal
of an otherwise nonappealable decision.” Moore v. City of Wynnewood, 57 F.3d
924, 929 (10th Cir. 1995). Defendant City therefore asks us to exercise pendent
party appellate jurisdiction, claiming its appeal is inextricably intertwined with
Defendant Officers’ appeal.
The Supreme Court has not “universally required courts of appeals to confine
review to the precise decision independently subject to appeal.” Swint, 514 U.S. at
50. Yet in Swint, the Court evinced concern that a “rule loosely allowing pendent
appellate jurisdiction would encourage parties to parlay Cohen-type collateral orders
into multi-issue interlocutory appeal tickets.” Id. at 49–50. The parties there,
however, did not assert the district court’s decision denying the county commission
summary judgment was “inextricably intertwined with that court’s decision to deny
the individual defendants[] qualified immunity . . . or that review of the former
decision was necessary to ensure meaningful review of the latter.” Id. at 51. So the
Court did not address “whether or when it may be proper for a court of appeals, with
17
jurisdiction over one ruling, to review, conjunctively, related rulings that are not
themselves independently appealable.” Id. at 50–51.
Subsequently in Moore, a § 1983 case raising constitutional claims against a
police chief and the city that employed him, we seized upon Swint to reason:
As we read Swint, a pendant appellate claim can be regarded as
inextricably intertwined with a properly reviewable claim on collateral
appeal only if the pendent claim is coterminous with, or subsumed in,
the claim before the court on interlocutory appeal—that is when the
appellate resolution of the collateral appeal necessarily resolves the
pendent claim as well. Here, we conclude that the two appeals are
coterminous [1] because [plaintiff’s] federal . . . claim[] against the
City . . . [is] premised on his claim that [the police chief] violated his
First Amendment rights and [2] because we hold that no such First
Amendment violation occurred. As such, the issues presented in the
City’s appeal are no broader than those in [the police chief’s]
permissible collateral appeal [from the denial of qualified immunity],
and our disposition of [the police chief’s] appeal fully disposes of
[plaintiff’s] claims against the City.
Moore, 57 F.3d at 930.
Moore tells us that if we had held in this case that Defendant Officers’ conduct
did not violate Plaintiff’s constitutional right to court access, that holding would
have resolved any issue presented by Defendant City’s appeal. This is because
Plaintiff’s claim against the City is premised on his claim Defendant Officers
violated his right to court access. See City of Los Angeles v. Heller, 475 U.S. 796,
799 (1986) (holding that if a police officer inflicted no constitutional injury on
the suspect, “it is inconceivable” the police commissioners could be liable to the
suspect); Camuglia v City of Albuquerque, 448 F.3d 1214, 1223 (10th Cir. 2006)
18
(recognizing a municipality may not be held liable for a policy or practice in the
absence of an underlying constitutional violation by an individual official). In that
case, nothing would be gained by declining to dispose of the City’s appeal on the
merits because “appellate resolution of the collateral appeal necessarily [would]
resolve[] the pendent claim as well.” Moore, 57 F.3d at 930.
But because we assumed Defendant Officers violated Plaintiff’s right to court
access and held they were entitled to qualified immunity based on the lack of clearly
established law, Defendant City’s appeal in not “inextricably intertwined” with
Defendant Officer’s appeal. Nor need we resolve the City’s appeal to ensure
meaningful review of the Officers’ appeal. See id. (“[T]he city’s appeal might
present different issues than [the police chief’s] appeal if we concluded that [he]
violated [plaintiff’s] [constitutional] rights, but . . . was protected by qualified
immunity because those rights were not clearly established.”) “[T]here is nothing
anomalous about allowing . . . a suit [against the city] to proceed when immunity
[based on a lack of clearly established law] shields the individual defendants.”
Watson v. City of Kansas City, 857 F.2d 690, 697 (10th Cir. 1988). Nothing at this
point prevents Plaintiff’s claim against Defendant City from proceeding.
Accordingly, we dismiss Defendant City’s appeal for want of subject matter
jurisdiction.
REVERSED IN PART; DISMISSED IN PART; and REMANDED for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion.
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