Camilo-Robles v. Toledo-Davila
Case Date: 07/22/1998
Court: United States Court of Appeals
Docket No: 97-2260
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FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT _________________________ No. 97-2260 GRANCID CAMILO-ROBLES, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. DR. GUILLERMO HOYOS AND DR. HECTOR O. RIVERA-GONZALEZ, Defendants, Appellants. _________________________ No. 97-2261 GRANCID CAMILO-ROBLES, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. PEDRO A. TOLEDO-DAVILA, Defendant, Appellant. _________________________ No. 97-2262 GRANCID CAMILO-ROBLES, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. GILBERTO DIAZ-PAGAN, Defendant, Appellant. _________________________ No. 97-2264 GRANCID CAMILO-ROBLES, Plaintiff, Appellee, v. PABLO SANTIAGO-GONZALEZ, Defendant, Appellant. _________________________ APPEALS FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO [Hon. Carmen Consuelo Cerezo, U.S. District Judge] _________________________ Before Selya, Circuit Judge, Campbell, Senior Circuit Judge, and Stahl, Circuit Judge. _________________________ Roberto Lefranc Romero, with whom Martinez Alvarez, Menendez Cortada & Lefranc Romero was on brief, for appellants Hoyos and Rivera-Gonzalez. John F. Nevares, with whom Ayleen Charles, Lizzie Portela, and Smith & Nevares were on brief, for appellant Toledo-Davila. Orlando Duran-Medero, with whom Ricardo R. Rodriguez Padilla Law Offices was on brief, for appellant Diaz-Pagan. Roberto Santana Aparicio, with whom Marisol Vega Coputo and Del Toro & Santana were on brief, for appellant Santiago-Gonzalez. Judith Berkan, with whom Peter Berkowitz was on brief, for appellee. _________________________ June 29, 1998 _________________________ SELYA, Circuit Judge. After suffering indignities at the hands of an unstable police officer, plaintiff-appellee Grancid Camilo-Robles sued an array of defendants under 42 U.S.C. 1983 (1994). In due season, five such defendants, appellants here, moved for summary judgment on the ground of qualified immunity. The district court rejected their motions (in some instances without waiting for an opposition). Although the timing of the district court's ruling and the lack of any authoritative insight into the court's reasoning complicate our task, we affirm. I. BACKGROUND Parking privileges denote special status in our motorized society, and emotions often run high when a parking space is at stake. This case vividly illustrates that verity. On May 13, 1994, Miguel Diaz-Martinez, a police officer assigned to the Bayamon Criminal Investigation Corps (CIC), sought to park in an area reserved for judges at the Bayamon Judicial Center. Camilo-Robles, a security guard sworn to protect that hallowed ground, told Diaz-Martinez that he could not park there. In response to this perceived affront, Diaz-Martinez placed his hand on his gun, arrested Camilo-Robles, handcuffed him, shoved the prisoner into his (Diaz-Martinez's) police cruiser, and drove to the station house (pausing to punch Camilo-Robles in the stomach and slap him in the face). Upon their arrival, Diaz-Martinez forced the plaintiff to remove his belt and shoes and placed him in a cell with other detainees. Cooler heads prevailed, and Diaz- Martinez's prey was released, uncharged, some three hours later. Camilo-Robles sued Gilberto Diaz-Pagan (director of the Bayamon CIC), Pablo Santiago-Gonzalez (Bayamon area commander), and Pedro A. Toledo-Davila (superintendent of police). In addition to these high-ranking police officials, Camilo-Robles named a host of other defendants including inter alia two psychiatrists who worked for the police department, Drs. Guillermo Hoyos and Hector O. Rivera-Gonzalez. Invoking section 1983, Camilo-Robles alleged that these five named defendants (collectively, "the appellants") had deprived him of his civil rights by their deliberate indifference in carrying out their supervisory responsibilities (with the result that Diaz-Martinez, a demonstrably unstable officer, was allowed to remain on active duty). The district court issued its scheduling order on February 21, 1996. In December of that year, the appellants filed summary judgment motions. Camilo-Robles responded on the merits to the psychiatrists' summary judgment motion, but served a cross- motion seeking additional time in which to oppose the police officials' motions, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(f), explaining that they had stonewalled during pretrial discovery. The district court granted this cross-motion without limit of time and referred all pending discovery matters to a magistrate judge. Lassitude set in, and the magistrate made no rulings until August 26, 1997. Two days later, the district court denied the appellants' summary judgment motions in a curt, two-page order. These appeals followed. II. A CAREER TO MAKE ST. SEBASTIAN WEEP Because the allegations of liability and the defenses thereto hinge upon what actions the various defendants took (or should have taken) in light of Diaz-Martinez's flagitious history of violence, the latter's career is of great relevance. We extract the facts from the summary judgment record, resolving all conflicts in favor of the plaintiff. See Garside v. Osco Drug, Inc., 895 F.2d 46, 50 (1st Cir. 1990). Diaz-Martinez joined the police force as a cadet in March 1984. That December, he was suspended for an assault. Despite the suspension, he became a regular officer and served as such for the next five years. His record reflects numerous disciplinary infractions involving violent and/or threatening behavior we count at least eighteen many of which entailed unwarranted brandishing of his weapon. The denouement occurred in August 1989 when, after assaulting his wife, Diaz-Martinez entered the Catano police station, seized a shotgun, and held several gendarmes (including the acting police superintendent) hostage for several hours. Subsequent to this bizarre display, Diaz-Martinez was committed involuntarily to a psychiatric hospital and diagnosed as schizophrenic. The hospital discharged him and three months later a police psychiatrist, Dr. Pagan-Davis, recommended that he be separated from the force and given a civilian position. The police department suspended Diaz-Martinez in 1990 and formally expelled him in 1991. Justice sometimes moves in mysterious ways. Diaz- Martinez successfully appealed his expulsion and the police department reinstated him in May 1993. While on desk duty, he assaulted a civilian. Nevertheless, Drs. Hoyos and Rivera-Gonzalez found Diaz-Martinez free from mental illness and fit for active duty (with no restrictions) when they examined him in August. The department promptly rearmed him and assigned him to work in a high- tension neighborhood. On September 8, 1993 (the day following his return to active duty), Diaz-Martinez engaged in an altercation with two unarmed, law-abiding neighborhood residents. In the course of this fracas, he shot both of them, wounding one and killing the other. See Diaz v. Diaz Martinez, 112 F.3d 1, 2 (1st Cir. 1997) (summarizing the facts of that episode). The police department immediately confiscated his weapon. After a self-imposed exile, Diaz-Martinez returned to desk duty in November 1993. On January 20, 1994, while still unarmed, Diaz-Martinez threatened to kill a fellow officer at the Bayamon Radio Center. Six days later, he was transferred to the Bayamon CIC. On February 28, 1994, Drs. Hoyos and Rivera-Gonzalez again examined Diaz-Martinez and again declared him ready for unrestricted active duty and fit to carry a weapon. The police department rearmed him forthwith. The incident that sparked this suit occurred in May of 1994. The police department again expelled Diaz-Martinez that August. He eventually pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter in connection with the September 1993 shootings and was sentenced to serve a prison term. III. THE LEGAL LANDSCAPE Before tackling the vagaries of each defendant's appeal, we first must map the crossroads at which the qualified immunity doctrine and principles of supervisory liability under section 1983 intersect. We then discuss pertinent questions of appellate jurisdiction and pause to note the somewhat tentative nature of orders denying summary judgment in the qualified immunity context. A. Qualified Immunity and Supervisory Liability. Federal law provides a cause of action when an individual, acting under color of state law, deprives a person of federally assured rights. See 42 U.S.C. 1983. Public officials who stand accused of civil rights violations under section 1983 nonetheless can avoid liability for money damages by showing either that they did not violate a right clearly established under federal law or that they acted with objective legal reasonableness. SeeHarlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 819 (1982); Buenrostro v. Collazo, 973 F.2d 39, 42 (1st Cir. 1992). The Supreme Court has emphasized that a section 1983 plaintiff must allege a violation of a clearly established right secured either by the Constitution or by some other federal law. See County of Sacramento v. Lewis, ___ S. Ct. ___, ___ n.5 (1998) [1998 WL 259980 at *4 n.5]. Here, the plaintiff vaults this hurdle with room to spare. The right to be free from unreasonable seizure (and, by extension, unjustified arrest and detention) is clearly established in the jurisprudence of the Fourteenth Amendment (through which the Fourth Amendment constrains state action). The right to due process of law (and, by extension, to be free from police brutality) is likewise clearly established under the Fourteenth Amendment (through which the Fifth Amendment constrains state action). We have not had occasion to address the question whether, to be liable under section 1983, a supervisor must have violated an independent, "clearly established" right, or whether a supervisor may be liable based only on his proximity to a subordinate's violation of a "clearly established" right. Other circuits, however, have addressed this interplay between the "clearly established" requirement and supervisory liability. We follow their lead and adopt an approach that comports with the core principle of qualified immunity by protecting supervisory officials from suit when they could not reasonably anticipate liability. When a supervisor seeks qualified immunity in a section 1983 action, the "clearly established" prong of the qualified immunity inquiry is satisfied when (1) the subordinate's actions violated a clearly established constitutional right, and (2) it was clearly established that a supervisor would be liable for constitutional violations perpetrated by his subordinates in that context. See Doe v. Taylor Indep. Sch. Dist., 15 F.3d 443, 456 (5th Cir. 1994); Shaw v. Stroud, 13 F.3d 791, 801 (4th Cir. 1994). In other words, for a supervisor to be liable there must be a bifurcated "clearly established" inquiry one branch probing the underlying violation, and the other probing the supervisor's potential liability. Here, both elements are satisfied. We already have noted that the plaintiff's clearly established rights were violated, seesupra Part III(A), and it is equally well settled that a deliberately indifferent police supervisor may be held liable for the constitutional violations of his subordinates. See Diaz, 112 F.3d at 4. The question, then, reduces to the test of objective legal reasonableness. This test does not serve as a proxy for liability, because even state actors who commit constitutional violations may be entitled to qualified immunity. See, e.g., Ringuette v. City of Fall River, ___ F.3d ___, ___ (1st Cir. 1998) [No. 96-1107, slip op. at 10]; Brennan v. Hendrigan, 888 F.2d 189, 194 (1st Cir. 1989). Instead, the test's utility is restricted to the qualified immunity inquiry. In that milieu, the test provides a method for determining whether, in relation to a clearly established right, a defendant's conduct was (or was not) reasonable. Withal, objective legal reasonableness is a concept that grew up in the prototypical section 1983 context a context in which a state actor ("A") inflicts injury directly on a victim ("V") in derogation of V's constitutionally-protected rights. Where the context shifts as where A is not a direct actor (i.e., he himself did not perpetrate the seizure, detention, or assault of which V complains), but, rather, stands accused of permitting a third person ("B"), also a state actor, to violate V's rights the test remains intact, but its focus shifts. In this tri-cornered situation, objective legal reasonableness (and, hence, qualified immunity) necessarily depends upon the relationship between A's acts or omissions and B's conduct. This brings us to the doctrine of supervisory liability, which holds that a supervisor (defined loosely to encompass a wide range of officials who are themselves removed from the perpetration of the rights-violating behavior) may be liable under section 1983 if he formulates a policy or engages in a practice that leads to a civil rights violation committed by another. See City of Oklahoma City v. Tuttle, 471 U.S. 808, 823-24 (1985). Notice is a salient consideration in determining the existence of supervisory liability. See Febus-Rodriguez v. Betancourt-Lebron, 14 F.3d 87, 93 (1st Cir. 1994) (treating as "[a]n important factor . . . whether [the supervisor] was put on notice of behavior which was likely to result in the violation of . . . constitutional rights"). Nonetheless, supervisory liability does not require a showing that the supervisor had actual knowledge of the offending behavior; he "may be liable for the foreseeable consequences of such conduct if he would have known of it but for his deliberate indifference or willful blindness." Maldonado-Denis v. Castillo-Rodriguez, 23 F.3d 576, 582 (1st Cir. 1994). To demonstrate deliberate indifference a plaintiff must show (1) a grave risk of harm, (2) the defendant's actual or constructive knowledge of that risk, and (3) his failure to take easily available measures to address the risk. See Manarite v. City of Springfield, 957 F.2d 953, 956 (1st Cir. 1992). This formulation correctly implies that deliberate indifference alone does not equate with supervisory liability; a suitor also must show causation. See Maldonado-Denis, 23 F.3d at 582 (explaining that the supervisor must have "had the power and authority to alleviate [the violation]"). In other words, the plaintiff must "affirmatively connect the supervisor's conduct to the subordinate's violative act or omission." Id. This affirmative connection need not take the form of knowing sanction, but may include tacit approval of, acquiescence in, or purposeful disregard of, rights-violating conduct. See id. This returns us to the point of our beginning: the relationship between qualified immunity and supervisory liability. By definition, a defendant who claims qualified immunity must do so either on the theory that the asserted right is not clearly established or on the theory that the conduct attributed to him satisfies the test of objective legal reasonableness. See Harlow, 457 U.S. at 819. Because the constitutional rights and supervisory liability doctrine that underlie Camilo-Robles's claim are clearly established, the qualified immunity analysis here turns on whether, in the particular circumstances confronted by each appellant, that appellant should reasonably have understood that his conduct jeopardized these rights. See Ringuette, ___ F.3d at ___ [slip op. at 10]; Berthiaume v. Caron, ___ F.3d ___, ___ (1st Cir. 1998) [No. 97-1958, slip op. at 7]. The inquiry into qualified immunity is separate and distinct from the inquiry into the merits. Consequently, courts are well-advised to separate "qualified immunity" analysis from "merits" analysis whenever practicable. In some circumstances, however, these inquiries overlap. So it is here: the appellants stand accused of culpable conduct in a setting that requires an inquiry into deliberate indifference (which is customarily a merits-related topic). Given this setting, discerning whether a particular appellant's behavior passes the context-specific test of objective legal reasonableness to some extent collapses the separate "qualified immunity" and "merits" inquiries into a single analytic unit. Such an approach is unusual, but we occasionally have engaged in precisely this sort of merits-centric analysis in the course of deciding questions of qualified immunity. See, e.g., Morales v. Ramirez, 906 F.2d 784, 787 (1st Cir. 1990) (explaining "that, in certain cases, some aspect of the merits may be inexorably intertwined with the issue of qualified immunity") (citation and internal quotation marks omitted); Amsden v. Moran, 904 F.2d 748, 753-58 (1st Cir. 1990) (examining the substance of the plaintiff's due process claims to determine the defendants' eligibility for qualified immunity). We weave these strands together into a thread that binds these appeals. The plaintiff alleges a violation of clearly established constitutional rights and asserts that several defendants bear supervisory liability for that violation. Responding to these allegations, each defendant claims qualified immunity and, because both the rights in question and each defendant's susceptibility to supervisory liability are clearly established, these qualified immunity claims hinge on whether that defendant's conduct was objectively reasonable. Since our inquiry into objective legal reasonableness involves deliberate indifference, however, we are compelled to engage the merits to a greater extent than is usual. B. Considerations Affecting Appellate Jurisdiction. Were we reviewing a district court's grant of summary judgment based on qualified immunity, our course would be clear: we would determine de novo whether the affected defendant was entitled to a favorable judgment as a matter of law. Here, however, the summary judgment motions were denied, not granted, and this fact complicates our analysis. In the qualified immunity realm, the dividing line between appealable and non-appealable denials of summary judgment is blurred. Cases are clear enough at the extremes. We know, for instance, that when a motion for summary judgment that asserts qualified immunity is rejected, the denial cannot ground an interlocutory appeal if the operative question is "whether or not the pretrial record sets forth a genuine issue of fact for trial." Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 320 (1995). Similarly, we know that the denial of such a motion is immediately appealable if the operative question is purely legal in nature. See id. at 319. In fine, "a summary judgment order which determines that the pretrial record sets forth a genuine issue of fact, as distinguished from an order that determines whether certain given facts demonstrate, under clearly established law, a violation of some federally protected right, is not reviewable on demand." Stella v. Kelley, 63 F.3d 71, 74 (1st Cir. 1995); accord Behrens v. Pelletier, 516 U.S. 299, 306 (1996). Determining the existence vel non of appellate jurisdiction in cases closer to the equator is more difficult. Some examples may be useful. In Diaz, we determined that we lacked jurisdiction to entertain an interlocutory appeal from a pretrial decision denying qualified immunity because the decision turned on the existence of a factual conflict or on what the lower court perceived to be a factual conflict. 112 F.3d at 4-5. This contrasts with situations in which the district court assumes a set of facts and decides, as a matter of law, that those facts will not support a qualified immunity defense in which event jurisdiction exists to entertain an immediate appeal. See Behrens, 516 U.S. at 313. If this were not complex enough, the district judge is not legally obliged to explain the basis on which a denial of summary judgment rests. See Johnson, 515 U.S. at 319 (acknowledging that "[d]istrict judges may simply deny summary judgment motions without indicating their reasons for doing so"); Domegan v. Fair, 859 F.2d 1059, 1065-66 (1st Cir. 1988) (similar). When the district court's order is unilluminating, the appellate court must fend for itself. Anticipating the dilemma that such an inscrutable order may pose in the qualified immunity context, the Court prophesied "that a court of appeals 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. Hence, we must perform the equivalent of an archeological dig and endeavor to reconstruct the probable basis for the district court's decision. Here, the district court denied the appellants' motions for summary judgment before the plaintiff filed oppositions to several of those motions. As a result of this hastiness, the data before the court were limited and limited further by the appellants' apparent intransigence in furnishing discovery. Withal, the district court had before it a great deal of information from sources such as the psychiatrists' summary judgment papers, the plaintiff's opposition to the psychiatrists' motion, and evidentiary materials submitted by a former codefendant in connection with an earlier summary judgment motion. The court also had before it all the appellants' moving papers (which contain more than a smidgen of intramural fingerpointing). The court was at liberty to consult all these sources, and we, too, can consult them in endeavoring to determine whether the court below based its decision on contested facts as opposed to a quintessentially legal judgment. C. A Note of Caution. Having performed the exercise described in Part III(B), supra, we conclude, for reasons made manifest in our subsequent discussion of the appellants' claims, that we have jurisdiction over all these appeals and that the lower court appropriately denied all four summary judgment motions. We note, however, that this endorsement of the district court's ruling has a somewhat tentative cast. We offer three pertinent observations. First, our approach assumes, despite the awkwardness of the conceptual fit, that deliberate indifference cases are amenable to standard qualified immunity analysis a proposition that logically may be debatable, but that nevertheless follows from the Supreme Court's broad pronouncements. See, e.g., Harlow, 457 U.S. at 819. Second, a pretrial refusal to grant qualified immunity is only a way station in the travel of a case. When a defendant fails on a pretrial qualified immunity claim, he nonetheless can plead qualified immunity as an affirmative defense and resurrect the claim at trial. See Ringuette, ___ F.3d at ___ [slip op. at 6]; King v. Macri, 993 F.2d 294, 299 (2d Cir. 1993); Vazquez Rios v. Hernandez-Colon, 819 F.2d 319, 329 (1st Cir. 1987). Third, notwithstanding a pretrial rejection of qualified immunity, the merits remain open. IV. THE PSYCHIATRISTS The plaintiff alleges that the psychiatrists, Drs. Hoyos and Rivera-Gonzalez, evaluated Diaz-Martinez on February 28, 1994, with complete indifference to the constitutional rights of others and recklessly declared him fit for duty and able to carry a weapon. The psychiatrists' joint summary judgment motion addressed this claim on two levels, positing that they enjoy (1) absolute immunity from suit under Puerto Rico law, and (2) qualified immunity from suit under federal law because their performance was objectively reasonable and, in any event, had no direct bearing on the decision to restore an armed Diaz-Martinez to active duty. We grapple with these asseverations in sequence. A. Absolute Immunity. A district court's refusal to grant summary judgment on an absolute immunity claim is, generally speaking, within the scope of our appellate jurisdiction on interlocutory appeal. SeeAcevedo-Cordero v. Cordero-Santiago, 958 F.2d 20, 21 (1st Cir. 1992). In this instance, it invokes the Puerto Rico Medico- Hospital Professional Liability Insurance Act, which provides in pertinent part: No health service professional may be included as a defendant in a civil suit for damages due to malpractice caused in the performance of his/her profession while said health service professional acts in compliance with his duties and functions as an employee of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, its dependencies, instrumentalities and municipalities. P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 26, 4105 (1994). The psychiatrists contend that this statute immunizes them because they examined Diaz- Martinez pursuant to the terms of a contract purporting to free them from liability under section 4105 (incorrectly identified as section 5105). We do not agree. In the first place, the statute on its face applies to "employees." The contract states that the psychiatrists are independent contractors, not employees, and the record at the very least raises unanswered factual questions anent the statute's applicability. See, e.g., Flores Roman v. Ramos-Gonzalez, 127 P.R. Dec. 601, 608-09 (P.R. 1990) (examining the relevant contract to determine whether a given defendant is an employee or independent contractor); see also Nieves v. University of P.R., 7 F.3d 270, 273 (1st Cir. 1993) (discussing section 4105). In the second place, even if section 4105 applies, it at most gives government-employed physicians immunity from claims brought under Puerto Rico law. A state-conferred immunity cannot shield a state actor from liability under section 1983. SeeMartinez v. California, 444 U.S. 277, 284 n.8 (1980) ("Conduct by persons acting under color of state law which is wrongful under 42 U.S.C. 1983 . . . cannot be immunized by state law.") (quoting Hampton v. City of Chicago, 484 F.2d 602, 607 (7th Cir. 1973)). Indeed, a regime that allowed a state immunity defense to trump the imposition of liability under section 1983 would emasculate the federal statute. See id. We therefore reject the proposition that absolute immunity entitled the psychiatrists to summary judgment. B. Qualified Immunity. Before confronting the psychiatrists' qualified immunity defense, we make a preliminary point. The psychiatrists are private practitioners, not government employees in the traditional sense. Consequently, one might wonder whether they could be liable at all under section 1983, or, if so, whether they would be entitled to qualified immunity even on a "best case" scenario. The answer to both questions is in the affirmative. A private party's conduct is attributable to the state if the state "has so far insinuated itself into a position of interdependence with [the private party] that it must be recognized as a joint participant in the challenged activity." Barrios- Velazquez v. Asociaci |