FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
May 24, 2010
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
PUBLISH Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
TENTH CIRCUIT
JACK WADE FLETCHER,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v. No. 09-7003
JEROME BURKHALTER,
Defendant - Appellant,
MCINTOSH COUNTY BOARD OF
COUNTY COMMISSIONERS,
Oklahoma,
Defendant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA *
(D.C. NO. 6:07-CV-00338-SPS)
Submitted on the Briefs:
Chris J. Collins and Timothy M. Melton, Collins, Zorn & Wagner, P.C.,
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for Defendant - Appellant.
Jim Wilcoxen, Wilcoxen & Wilcoxen, Muskogee, Oklahoma, and Dennis N.
Shook, Wagoner, Oklahoma, for Plaintiff - Appellee.
*
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously to honor the parties’ request for a decision on the briefs without oral
argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore
ordered submitted without oral argument.
Before HARTZ, MCKAY, and O’BRIEN, Circuit Judges.
HARTZ, Circuit Judge.
Jack Wade Fletcher (Plaintiff Fletcher) sued McIntosh County Deputy
Sheriff Jerome Burkhalter 1 under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. He alleged that Deputy
Burkhalter had violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment (as applied to the
states under the Fourteenth Amendment, see Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 655
(1961)), by signing a probable-cause affidavit that led to his improper arrest for
engaging in a fraudulent land sale. According to Plaintiff Fletcher, the evidence
provided to Deputy Burkhalter by the victim of the fraud clearly showed that he
was not the Jack Fletcher who had committed the offense.
Deputy Burkhalter sought summary judgment on the ground of qualified
immunity. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma
denied his motion. He appeals, contending that the evidence does not support a
finding of malice, that he did not proximately cause Plaintiff Fletcher’s arrest,
and that a reasonable person in his position would not have recognized that his
actions violated a clearly established constitutional right. We lack jurisdiction to
1
Deputy Burkhalter’s last name was misspelled Burkholter on the district
court’s docket and in pleadings filed below. We also note that he is no longer a
sheriff’s deputy. But in this court the parties have referred to him as Deputy
Burkhalter, and we do likewise.
-2-
consider some of Deputy Burkhalter’s arguments and reject those that we have
jurisdiction to consider.
I. BACKGROUND
A. Investigation and Arrest
On October 5, 2004, James Gollhardt reported to Deputy Burkhalter that he
had been the victim of a fraudulent land sale. Gollhardt identified the seller as
Jack Fletcher (Seller Fletcher) and gave Deputy Burkhalter several documents
relating to the transaction. One document set forth personal information about
Seller Fletcher, including his post-office box in Eufala, Oklahoma; his cell-phone
number; and the license-plate number, make, model, and color of his car. With
respect to his age, the document says “Estimated in his 70’s 86.” Aplt. App. at
116. (When the word 70’s was crossed out is not apparent from the record.)
Another sheet contained a hand-drawn map showing where Seller Fletcher lived.
The map included street names, highway numbers, and the name of a nearby
landmark, but did not give a town name. Gollhardt also gave Deputy Burkhalter
an executed bill of sale that contained the initials “JEF” next to a minor
modification of the sale terms.
Deputy Burkhalter filled out an incident report and attached to it the
materials provided by Gollhardt. In addition, he searched for records under the
name Jack Fletcher in an Oklahoma Department of Public Safety (DPS) database.
The search yielded data on Plaintiff Fletcher, including his address, driver-license
-3-
number, and date of birth (October 19, 1970). The search also returned data on
another Jack Fletcher, this one a resident of Oklahoma City, whose vehicle
information matched the vehicle description provided by Gollhardt. Plaintiff
Fletcher’s data from the DPS were included in Deputy Burkhalter’s incident
report. Defendant Burkhalter contended in district court that the data were added
to the report by someone else after he had signed it.
Soon after preparing the report, Deputy Burkhalter was reassigned from day
to night shifts. He had no further involvement in the investigation until
August 17, 2005, when he signed an affidavit prepared by the district attorney’s
office to obtain an arrest warrant for Plaintiff Fletcher. The criminal-case caption
at the top of the affidavit named the suspect as “Jack Wade Fletcher,” and
included Plaintiff Fletcher’s driver-license number and date of birth. The
substance of the affidavit states:
Affiant, Jerome Burkhalter is a certified police officer
employed as a deputy sheriff for the McIntosh county sheriff’s
department. On the[]5th day of October, 2004, affiant received
complaint from James Gollhardt stating that Jack Fletcher had sol[d]
him property at Porum Landing for $10,000.00 on or about the 26 th
day of July, 2003. That the property sold to Mr. Gollhardt by Jack
Fletcher did not belong to Mr. Fletcher.
Based on this information, the undersigned prays that this
Honorable Court issue a finding of fact that probable cause exists to
believe that a crime has been committed and that there is probable
cause to believe the defendant above named committed the crime.
-4-
Aplt. App. at 50. The state court determined that there was probable cause to
arrest Plaintiff Fletcher. He was charged by a criminal information with
obtaining money by false pretenses, and a felony warrant for his arrest was
issued.
On February 26, 2006, Plaintiff Fletcher was stopped for a traffic violation
and then arrested on the warrant. After he posted bond and retained counsel, the
case against him was dismissed.
B. District-Court Proceedings
On October 12, 2007, Plaintiff Fletcher brought this suit against Deputy
Burkhalter and the Board of County Commissioners of McIntosh County. An
amended complaint added Terry Jones, the McIntosh County Sheriff, as a
defendant. Plaintiff Fletcher alleged causes of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983,
Oklahoma’s common law of negligence, and Oklahoma’s government-torts
statute. The district court entered summary judgment for the Board and Jones on
all claims, and granted summary judgment to Deputy Burkhalter on Plaintiff
Fletcher’s state-law claims.
As for the § 1983 claim against Deputy Burkhalter, he argued that he was
entitled to qualified immunity because (1) the factual statements in his affidavit
were true, (2) he had “not ‘knowingly or recklessly ma[d]e a false statement in an
affidavit in support of an arrest or search warrant,’” Aplt. App. at 43 (quoting
Bruning v. Pixler, 949 F.2d 352, 357 (l0th Cir. 1991)), and (3) the district
-5-
attorney’s and judge’s actions were superseding causes of Plaintiff Fletcher’s
arrest.
Because Plaintiff Fletcher had been arrested on a judicial warrant, the
district court analyzed Deputy Burkhalter’s § 1983 constitutional-tort claim by
analogizing it to the common-law tort of malicious prosecution. See Pierce v.
Gilchrist, 359 F.3d 1279, 1285–91 & n.3 (l0th Cir. 2004) (the elements of the
common-law tort are merely a starting point; they are not dispositive). The
elements of such a claim are (1) initiation of the action against the plaintiff by the
defendant, (2) termination of the action in favor of the plaintiff, (3) lack of
probable cause to initiate the action by the arrest, (4) malice of the defendant
(which, the parties agree, requires intentional or reckless disregard of the truth),
and (5) damages. See id. at 1286, 1291–97. The district court ruled that there
was sufficient evidence to raise a bona fide factual issue regarding each element
of the constitutional tort, and it therefore denied Deputy Burkhalter’s motion for
summary judgment on the § 1983 claim.
On appeal Deputy Burkhalter does not contest the district court’s rulings
that the original action terminated in Plaintiff Fletcher’s favor, that there was not
probable cause for Plaintiff Fletcher’s arrest, or that Plaintiff Fletcher suffered
damages. He argues (1) that the evidence does not support a finding of the
requisite malice, (2) that his actions were not the proximate cause of Plaintiff
Fletcher’s arrest or prosecution (that is, he is not responsible for the initiation of
-6-
the action against Plaintiff Fletcher), and (3) that a reasonable person in his
position would not have recognized that his actions violated a clearly established
constitutional right. As we now explain, (1) we lack jurisdiction to review his
argument regarding malice; (2) to the extent that we have jurisdiction to review
his proximate-cause argument, we affirm the district court; and (3) we affirm the
district court on his clearly-established-law argument because it amounts to no
more than a recharacterization of his other arguments.
II. DISCUSSION
Deputy Burkhalter contends that the § 1983 claim against him is barred by
the qualified-immunity doctrine. Under that doctrine, “government officials
performing discretionary functions generally are shielded 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.” Harlow v.
Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). Once a defendant pleads qualified
immunity, the plaintiff bears the burden of (1) presenting evidence that the
defendant’s actions violated a federal constitutional or statutory right and (2)
showing that the federal right was clearly established at the time of the challenged
conduct. See Cortez v. McCauley, 478 F.3d 1108, 1114 (10th Cir. 2007).
Although the plaintiff bears this burden, the evidence is reviewed in the light
most favorable to the plaintiff when, as here, the defendant seeks summary
judgment on the ground of qualified immunity. See id. at 1115.
-7-
Qualified immunity protects public servants not only from liability, but also
from the burdens of litigation. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1945–46
(2009). Thus, in certain circumstances a defendant claiming qualified immunity
is entitled to appeal from a district-court denial of a motion for judgment on the
pleadings or a motion for summary judgment, even though such denials are
ordinarily not final judgments appealable under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. See id. A
denial of qualified immunity may be an appealable “collateral order” when the
denial satisfies the conditions that it “[1] conclusively determine the disputed
question, [2] resolve an important issue completely separate from the merits of
the action, and [3] be effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment.”
Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 310 (1995) (brackets in Johnson; internal
quotation marks omitted). As the Supreme Court has explained:
The requirement that the issue underlying the order be “effectively
unreviewable” later on . . . means that failure to review immediately
may well cause significant harm. The requirement that the district
court’s order “conclusively determine” the question means that
appellate review is likely needed to avoid that harm. The
requirement that the matter be separate from the merits of the action
itself means that review now is less likely to force the appellate court
to consider approximately the same (or very similar) matter more
than once, and also seems less likely to delay trial court proceedings
(for, if the matter is truly collateral, those proceedings might
continue while the appeal is pending).
Id. at 311 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
Not all denials of qualified immunity satisfy these requirements for an
appealable collateral order. In Johnson the Supreme Court held that the
-8-
defendant could not appeal a denial of a summary-judgment motion that raised
“only a question of ‘evidence sufficiency.’” 15 U.S. at 313. The Court suggested
that such questions generally do not satisfy the collateral-order requirement that
they be “completely separate from the merits of the action” and also noted that
district judges have much greater experience with such questions than do
appellate judges. See id. at 314–18. It further observed that interlocutory review
of an evidence-sufficiency issue can lead to duplicative review because “in the
many instances in which [the appellate court] upholds a district court’s decision
denying summary judgment, [it] may well be faced with approximately the same
factual issue again, after trial, with just enough change (brought about by the trial
testimony) to require it, once again, to canvass the record.” Id. at 316–17. The
Court concluded:
[C]onsiderations of delay, comparative expertise of trial and
appellate courts, and wise use of appellate resources argue in favor
of limiting interlocutory appeals of “qualified immunity” matters to
cases presenting more abstract issues of law. Considering these
competing considerations, we are persuaded that immunity appeals
interfere less with the final judgment rule if they are limited to cases
presenting neat abstract issues of law.
Id. at 317 (brackets, ellipsis, and internal quotation marks omitted); see Gross v.
Pirtle, 245 F.3d 1151, 1156–57 (10th Cir. 2001) (“[W]e lack jurisdiction only if
our review would require second-guessing the district court’s determinations of
evidence sufficiency.”).
-9-
We now turn to the arguments raised by Deputy Burkhalter on appeal. We
recognize that “the categories of ‘fact-based’ and ‘abstract’ legal questions used
to guide the Court’s decision in Johnson are not well defined.” Iqbal, 129 S. Ct.
at 1947. But the application of Johnson appears to us to be noncontroversial in
this case. Our analysis differs for each of Deputy Burkhalter’s three arguments.
A. Malice
We lack jurisdiction to consider Deputy Burkhalter’s argument that the
district court erred in holding that there is sufficient evidence to support a finding
of malice. Such a determination is a quintessential evidence-sufficiency issue.
Indeed, intent was the one issue singled out by the Court in Johnson in explaining
why evidence-sufficiency issues should not be addressed in interlocutory appeals.
It wrote:
Many constitutional tort cases, unlike the simple “we didn’t do it”
case before us, involve factual controversies about, for example,
intent—controversies that, before trial, may seem nebulous. To
resolve those controversies—to determine whether there is or is not a
triable issue of fact about such a matter—may require reading a vast
pretrial record, with numerous conflicting affidavits, depositions, and
other discovery materials.
515 U.S. at 316. Even if this case does not present “a vast pretrial record,” the
Supreme Court “decide[s] appealability for categories of orders rather than
individual orders,” and does not “in each individual case engage in ad hoc
balancing to decide issues of appealability.” Id. at 315. We follow the Supreme
Court’s guidance in holding that the sufficiency of the evidence of malice is not
-10-
an appealable issue when qualified immunity is denied, particularly because we
see no abstract legal issue in whether Deputy Burkhalter acted with malice. We
find support in our recent summary ruling that we lacked jurisdiction in a
qualified-immunity appeal to consider whether the district court had erred in
deciding that the defendant’s motive was a factual dispute for the jury to resolve.
See McBeth v. Himes, 598 F.3d 708, 717 (10th Cir. 2010). Accordingly, we
dismiss Deputy Burkhalter’s appeal on this issue.
B. Causation
Deputy Burkhalter contends that even if he erred in his affidavit, “[t]he acts
of the DA’s Office (drafting the probable-cause affidavit for Deputy Burkhalter to
sign and filing charges against Plaintiff) and the acts of the district court (finding
that probable cause existed for Plaintiff’s arrest and issuing a felony warrant)
superseded Deputy Burkhalter’s act of merely signing the affidavit as the cause of
Plaintiff’s arrest[,]” and that “[t]herefore, Deputy Burkhalter was not the
proximate cause of any Fourth Amendment or other constitutional violation.”
Aplt. Br. at 13. We have jurisdiction to review one component of this argument,
but nothing more.
The abstract legal issue that we can review is whether the acts of the
district attorney or the judge can or must be considered superseding causes of
Plaintiff Fletcher’s injuries. But our review can be brief. The issue was resolved
by our decision in Pierce. In that case defendant Gilchrist had allegedly provided
-11-
false forensic analyses leading to the charges against Pierce. Gilchrist argued that
“[s]ince she was not involved in Mr. Pierce’s arrest nor was she responsible for
filing charges, . . . as a matter of law, she is not liable for her alleged fabrication
of evidence and failure to disclose exculpatory evidence.” 359 F.3d at 1291. We
rejected the argument:
Gilchrist cannot “hide behind” the fact that she neither initiated nor
filed the charges against Mr. Pierce. The actions of a police forensic
analyst who prevaricates and distorts evidence to convince the
prosecuting authorities to press charges is no less reprehensible than
an officer who, through false statements, prevails upon a magistrate
to issue a warrant. In each case the government official maliciously
abuses a position of trust to induce the criminal justice system to
confine and then to prosecute an innocent defendant.
Id. at 1293. We noted that we had “previously held that officers who conceal or
misrepresent material facts to the district attorney are not insulated from a § 1983
claim for malicious prosecution simply because the prosecutor, grand jury, trial
court, and appellate court all act independently to facilitate erroneous
convictions.” Id. at 1292. Accordingly, we reject Deputy Burkhalter’s argument
that the approvals of the district attorney and the judge absolved him of liability,
and we affirm the denial of summary judgment on that issue.
To the extent that Deputy Burkhalter is relying on the specific facts of this
case to argue that he was not responsible for Plaintiff Fletcher’s arrest, he is
raising merely an evidence-sufficiency issue, and we therefore lack jurisdiction to
review his argument. We recognize that in Pierce we reviewed the particulars of
-12-
the case in rejecting the qualified-immunity argument. But Pierce concerned the
denial of a motion to dismiss the complaint. There was no need to review the
evidence in the record, because the allegations of the complaint are deemed true
on a motion to dismiss. As the Supreme Court stated in Iqbal, “The concerns that
animated the decision in Johnson are absent when an appellate court considers the
disposition of a motion to dismiss the complaint for insufficient pleadings.” 129
S. Ct. at 1947.
C. Clearly Established Law
Deputy Burkhalter entitles a section of his opening brief, “A Reasonable
Person in Defendant’s Position Would Not Have Recognized That Deputy
Burkhalter’s Actions Violated a Clearly Established Constitutional Right.” Aplt.
Br. at 18. But this section fails to argue that any legal doctrine relied on by the
district court had not been clearly established law at the time of his challenged
conduct. Rather, he merely reiterates his malice and causation arguments. He
asserts that he did nothing wrong; that if he did, he was at most merely negligent;
and that he was not the cause of Plaintiff Fletcher’s arrest. Then he argues that
the law was not clearly established that an officer can be liable despite having
acted without malice and despite not having been the proximate cause of the
violation of the plaintiff’s constitutional rights. The district court, however, held
that there was sufficient evidence to support findings of both malice and
causation. Thus, Deputy Burkhalter’s clearly-established-law argument depends
-13-
on his successfully challenging those holdings. Because we have refused to
reverse those holdings, this argument must fail.
III. CONCLUSION
We lack jurisdiction to review the district court’s determinations of factual
sufficiency, and the district court did not err on the abstract issues of law raised
by Deputy Burkhalter. We therefore AFFIRM the district court’s denial of
Deputy Burkhalter’s motion for summary judgment.
-14-