Victory! Defeating Qualified Immunity Two Cases At A Time

Lawsuits against government officials often face an uphill battle, with immunity doctrines blocking accountability at every turn. But recently, IJ scored two important first-round victories for clients wrongfully detained by police, with courts ruling that the officials responsible do not get qualified immunity for their actions.

On Christmas Eve in 2022, Jennifer Heath Box was arrested by sheriff’s deputies in Broward County, Florida, and jailed for three days. Why? Because deputies had a warrant for a different Jennifer who was 23 years younger, had a different last name, and looked completely different. Deputies ignored these obvious differences and arrested Jennifer anyway. When she was finally released, they simply told her, “It happens.”

Earlier that same year, police officers in Alexandria, Louisiana, stopped Mario Rosales and Gracie Lasyone for no reason other than that they were driving a car with an out-of-state plate. They ordered Mario and Gracie out of the car, interrogated them both, and searched Mario twice without a warrant or probable cause, all because they were “curious.” In other words, fishing for drugs—or, more likely, cash. 

IJ sued in both cases, alleging violations of the Fourth Amendment, along with other claims. 

These constitutional violations may seem obvious. And it may also seem obvious that the government should be held accountable. But as so often happens, the officers in both cases argued that qualified immunity protects them from liability—even for blatant violations of the Constitution. 

Qualified immunity is a judge-created doctrine that protects any public official from answering, in court, for their conduct.  

And overcoming a qualified immunity defense is no easy task. It’s not enough to prove that the officials violated a constitutionally protected right. A plaintiff must also show that the right was “clearly established,” meaning that officials should have known that their conduct was unconstitutional because of pre-existing case law. Courts have split incredibly fine hairs to find that a violation wasn’t clearly established, such as shielding an officer who used a dog to attack a man who surrendered by sitting down and raising his hands—even though a prior case found it unconstitutional to use a dog on someone who surrendered by lying down.

But the tide may be turning. Almost a year after we sued Broward County on Jennifer’s behalf, a federal judge ruled that Jennifer plausibly alleged a clearly established Fourth Amendment violation. And almost three years after we sued the officers who detained Mario and Gracie, a different federal judge ruled that they had plausibly alleged clearly established violations of both the Fourth and First Amendments. In both cases, the officers’ defense of qualified immunity was rejected, meaning our clients’ claims can go forward. 

And that’s a big deal. By invoking qualified immunity, the government can frequently end a case—or at least add years of expensive litigation before a claim can be heard. These victories show that qualified immunity doesn’t have to be a death knell for constitutional challenges, and they help add to the growing body of clearly established law. All of this brings us closer to removing one of the many immunities that make it all but impossible to hold the government accountable for abuse.

Bobbi Taylor is an IJ attorney.