Ray v. Township of Warren

PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

No. 09-4353

LAWRENCE V. RAY,

Appellant,

v.

TOWNSHIP OF WARREN; CAROLANN GARAFOLA,
Mayor, in her official capacity; WARREN TOWNSHIP
POLICE DEPARTMENT; WILLIAM STAHL, Chief of
Police, in his official capacity; RUSSELL W. LEFFORT,
Lieutenant; ANGELO PAOLELLA; JOSEPH E. COHEN,
Officer; DONALD V. CALABRESE, Officer; LARRY
FRANK, Officer; RAE S. QUAST, Officer, in their individual
capacities and official capacities as Police
Officers in the Township of Warren;
RICHARD M. SASSO, Judge of Warren Township
Municipal Court, in his official capacity,
 On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of New Jersey
(D.C. No. 3-07-cv-02812)
District Judge: Hon. Joel A. Pisano

Argued
October 12, 2010

Before: SCIRICA, FUENTES and JORDAN, Circuit
Judges.

(Filed: November 23, 2010)

Michael V. Gilberti
Epstein & Gilberti
21 East Front Street - #210
Red Bank, NJ 07701

Paul H. Levinson [ARGUED]
McLaughlin & Stern
260 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Counsel for Appellant

2
Juan C. Fernandez [ARGUED]
Dawn M. Sullivan
O’Toole Fernandez Weiner Van Lieu
60 Pompton Avenue
Verone, NJ 07044
Counsel for Appellees

OPINION OF THE COURT

JORDAN, Circuit Judge.

Lawrence V. Ray appeals from an order of the United
States District Court for the District of New Jersey granting
summary judgment, based on qualified immunity, to several
officers of the Warren Township Police Department on his
Fourth Amendment claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Ray claims
that the officers violated his Fourth Amendment right against
unlawful searches when they entered his home while
investigating concerns expressed by his estranged wife about the
Rays’ daughter. For the following reasons, we will affirm.

3
I. Background

A. Factual Background

On the evening of June 17, 2005, Theresa Ray1 went to
her husband’s home in Warren, New Jersey, to pick up their
youngest daughter for court-ordered visitation.2 After ringing
the doorbell, Ms. Ray observed a man whom she believed to be
her husband moving about in the home. Ms. Ray continued to
ring the doorbell and knock on the door for several minutes in
an attempt to alert the man to her presence. After receiving no
response, she called the police.

Sergeant Angelo Paolella and Officers Donald Calabrese
and Larry Frank responded to the call and were soon joined by
Officer Joseph Cohen (collectively, the “responding officers”).
Some of the responding officers had been called by the Rays in
the past to deal with domestic problems and were aware of the
“acrimonious nature of the Ray’s [sic] divorce proceedings and
child custody disputes at the home.” (App. at 114, 117.) On the
evening in question, Ms. Ray informed the responding officers
that she had arrived at the home to pick up her child for
visitation pursuant to a final restraining order that, in part,

1
We will refer to Lawrence Ray as “Ray” and his wife as
“Ms. Ray.”
2
While the record is not clear on the point, it appears from the
briefing that the Rays’ daughter was four or five years old at the
time of these events.
4
addressed visitation rights.3 She informed the officers that she
had seen someone inside the home who was not responding to
the door, whom she believed to be her husband and whom she
assumed had custody of the child at the time.4 Ms. Ray was
visibly upset and told the officers that she was concerned for the
well-being of her daughter.5 The officers shared her concern.

3
Ray asserts that it is not clear whether his wife was actually
entitled to visitation on that evening and complains that the
officers never confirmed that she had a visitation order.
However, the record reflects that Ms. Ray showed Officer
Calabrese a copy of the order and that Officer Paollela
confirmed through dispatch that there was a restraining order in
effect. (App. at 39, 75, 114.) Regardless of whether Ms. Ray
was legally entitled to visitation at the time – a fact that the
District Court correctly concluded was immaterial – there is no
dispute that the officers were aware of ongoing custody issues
with the couple and that they had been informed that evening
that Ms. Ray had arrived at the house to pick up her daughter for
visitation.
4
The record does not indicate that Ms. Ray saw her daughter
while she was at the door; however, some of the officers
testified that they had been informed that the child was in the
house.
5
Ray argues that Ms. Ray did not have any concern for the
little girl. He relies on the fact that, at her deposition, when
asked about the basis for her concern, Ms. Ray responded, “My
husband’s acting like completely nuts, not giving me my
daughter for visitation ... and I can tell you I did not see her
5
They circled the perimeter of the house, knocked on the doors
and windows, and called Ray’s home telephone, but received no
response. That heightened the officers’ apprehensions because
on other occasions when police had been called to the residence,
Ray had always responded and turned over his daughter to his
wife.

In light of the circumstances, Officer Calabrese, at
Sergeant Paolella’s instruction, contacted a municipal court
judge for guidance as to whether the officers could “go in the
house to look” for the child.6 (App. at 70.) Exactly what was
discussed during the phone call is not clear. Paolella and
Calabrese testified that they only sought approval to enter the
home out of concern for the Rays’ daughter and that the judge
gave them such authorization. Both Paolella and Calabrese
testified that they did not regard the call to the judge as a request
for a warrant of any kind. In contrast, the judge understood the

since June first. He is increasing his alienation of my children.
He’s already turned ... one daughter against me ... .” (App. at
93). Regardless of Ms. Ray’s actual motivations for calling the
police, the record is clear that the officers on the scene were
genuinely concerned for the child’s well-being and that they
perceived Ms. Ray was as well.
6
The officers called into headquarters and either someone
provided Calabrese the contact information or someone there
contacted the judge, who called Calabrese on his cell phone. It
appears that Officer Calabrese failed to follow department
protocol when he called the judge rather than Lieutenant Russell
Leffert, his immediate supervisor, or the prosecutor’s office.
6
officers to be asking for an arrest warrant based on Ray’s
violation of the terms of the restraining order, though he
indicated that Officer Calabrese “was afraid for the safety of the
kids.” (App. at 82). Based on the call, the judge issued an arrest
warrant for Ray, which was later voided. Regardless of the
ambiguity regarding the call to the judge, the record reflects that
the primary motivation of the officers on the scene was to enter
the home so that they could check on the child.7

The officers entered Ray’s home through an unlocked
door that was ajar, but obstructed by a piece of lumber meant to
keep the door secured.8 The lumber was moved aside with a
“slim jim,” a device used to gain access to a locked vehicle.
Upon entering the home, the officers encountered Ray’s father,
who explained to the officers that he had been sleeping and that
his son was not at home. After quickly looking through the
home, the officers found neither Ray nor his daughter. The
event was captured on video by cameras installed in Ray’s
home. Shortly after the incident, the officers were informed that

7
Officer Calabrese initially filed a handwritten police report
including a reference to the phone call made to the judge prior
to entry into the home. That report was later typed and the
reference to the phone call was omitted at the request of
Lieutenant Leffert.
8
During the call to the judge, Calabrese described the door as
“open.” The record clearly indicates that the door could not be
closed – hence the use of the lumber as an improvised lock since
the lock on the door was of no practical use. (App. at 88, 108.)
7
someone had made contact with Ray and that he was bringing
the child to police headquarters.

B. Procedural History

Ray filed a complaint asserting a claim under § 1983 and
several state law claims based upon the allegedly
unconstitutional search of his home. Ray named as defendants
the responding officers and Lieutenant Leffert in their individual
and official capacities, the Township of Warren, the Township
of Warren Police Department, and Chief of Police William Stahl
in his official capacity, all of whom filed a joint motion for
summary judgment.9 In that motion, the responding officers and
Leffert (“Appellees”) asserted that they were entitled to
qualified immunity.

The District Court agreed and, based upon qualified
immunity, granted summary judgment to the Appellees on Ray’s
§ 1983 claim.10 The District Court also dismissed Ray’s claims

9
Ray named three other defendants in his amended complaint,
all of whom were dismissed from the matter before the
remaining defendants filed for summary judgment.
10
Appellee Officer Larry Frank was inadvertently omitted
from the motion as a movant, thus the District Court did not
include Officer Frank in its opinion and order. However, the
court amended its order granting summary judgment to include
Officer Frank, with the agreement of the parties. Appellees also
moved for summary judgment based on New Jersey’s Tort
Claims Act. The District Court granted summary judgment on
8
against the officers, Lieutenant Leffert, and Chief Stahl in their
official capacities, as well as his claim against the Warren
Township Police Department, because all of those claims were
redundant of the claim against the Township. Thereafter, the
parties stipulated to the dismissal of the claims against the
Township. Ray then filed this timely appeal.

II. Discussion11

We exercise de novo review over the District Court’s
grant of summary judgment. Kopec v. Tate, 361 F.3d 772, 775
(3d Cir. 2004). An order granting summary judgment is
appropriate when the evidence reveals there is “no genuine issue
as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a
judgment as a matter of law.” FED. R. CIV. P. 56(c). In
reviewing the record, we are required to view the facts and draw
inferences in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.
Kopec, 361 F.3d at 775.

“The doctrine of qualified immunity protects government
officials 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.”
Pearson v. Callahan, 129 S.Ct. 808, 815 (2009) (internal

all of Ray’s state law claims, and that decision is not before us
on appeal.
11
The District Court had jurisdiction over this action based
upon 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1343. We exercise jurisdiction
pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291.
9
quotations omitted). Thus, if a reasonable officer is not on
notice that his or her conduct under the circumstances is clearly
unlawful, then application of qualified immunity is appropriate.
Qualified immunity protects “all but the plainly incompetent or
those who knowingly violate the law.” Malley v. Briggs, 475
U.S. 335, 341 (1986).

The Supreme Court has established a two-part analysis
that governs whether a government official is entitled to
qualified immunity. Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201 (2001).
The first question in the Saucier analysis asks whether the
official’s conduct violated a constitutional or federal right. Id.
This is not a question of immunity, but whether there is any
wrong to address. Curley v. Klem, 499 F.3d 199, 207 (3d Cir.
2007). The second question asks whether the right at issue was
“clearly established.” Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201. To be clearly
established, “[t]he contours of the right must be sufficiently
clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is
doing violates that right.” Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635,
640 (1987). If “the officer made a reasonable mistake about the
legal constraints on his actions,” then qualified immunity should
protect him from suit. Curley, 499 F.3d at 207. In considering
that question, we judge the officer’s actions from the perspective
of an objectively reasonable law enforcement officer under the
circumstances, and we endeavor to avoid hindsight. Graham v.
Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989).

The Supreme Court has held that the questions in the
Saucier analysis need not be addressed in sequence. Pearson,
129 S.Ct. 818. Instead, courts may “exercise their sound
discretion in deciding which of the two prongs of the qualified

10
immunity analysis should be addressed first in light of the
circumstances in the particular case at hand.” Id.

The constitutional right at issue in this appeal is Ray’s
right under the Fourth Amendment to be free from an
unreasonable search of his home. U.S. CONST. amend. IV.
Searches of a home without a warrant are presumptively
unreasonable, though the warrant requirement is subject to
carefully defined exceptions. See Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S.
177, 191 (1990). Since the responding officers did not have a
warrant to search Ray’s home, the question of whether Ray’s
rights have been violated rests on whether an exception to the
warrant requirement applies. While one might have thought the
officers would claim that their search was justified by exigent
circumstances, which is a well-recognized exception to the
warrant requirement, they do not. To justify their actions, they
instead point to what has come to be called the “community
caretaking” exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant
requirement. Ray, of course, contends that no such exception
applies here.

The Supreme Court first recognized the community
caretaking exception in Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, 439
(1973). In Cady, a Chicago police officer named Dombrowski
was visiting in Wisconsin and reported to the local police that he
had been in an automobile accident. The police picked him up
and returned to the scene of the accident. Id. at 435-36.
Dombrowski had been drinking, appeared intoxicated to the
officers, and offered conflicting versions of the accident. Id. He
informed the local officers that he was a Chicago policeman. Id.
at 436. The local officers believed that members of the Chicago

11
police force were required to carry a service revolver at all
times, so, when no gun was found on Dombrowski’s person, an
officer checked the front seat and the glove compartment of the
wrecked car, but to no avail. Id. The effort to find the weapon
was motivated by the obligation of the police “to protect the
public from the possibility that a revolver would fall into
untrained or perhaps malicious hands.” Id. at 443. The police
had the vehicle towed to a privately owned garage, where it was
left parked outside. Id. at 436. After taking Dombrowski to a
local hospital for treatment of injuries he sustained in the
accident, one of the Wisconsin officers returned to
Dombrowski’s car to again try to recover the service revolver,
id. at 436-37, again pursuant to standard departmental procedure
“to protect the public from a weapon’s possibly falling into
improper hands.” Id. at 434. Upon opening the trunk, the
officer discovered various items that linked Dombrowski to a
murder. Id. at 437-38.

The Supreme Court held that the search of Dombrowski’s
vehicle was permissible because it was the result of a police
officer’s community caretaking function, “totally divorced from
the detection, investigation, or acquisition of evidence relating
to the violation of a criminal statute.” Id. at 441; see also United
States v. Smith, 522 F.3d 305, 313 (3d Cir. 2008) (“In
performing this community caretaking role, police are ‘expected
to aid those in distress, combat actual hazards, prevent potential
hazards from materializing and provide an infinite variety of
services to preserve and protect public safety.’” (quoting United
States v. Rodriguez-Morales, 929 F.2d 780, 784-85 (1st Cir.
1991))). The Court determined that the search for the gun was

12
reasonable, though its holding was based largely on the
constitutional distinction between automobiles and dwellings:

Because of the extensive regulation of motor
vehicles and traffic, and also because of the
frequency with which a vehicle can become
disabled or involved in an accident on public
highways, the extent of police citizen contact
involving automobiles will be substantially
greater than police-citizen contact in a home or
office ... . The Court’s previous recognition of the
distinction between motor vehicles and dwelling
places leads us to conclude that the type of
caretaking “search” conducted here of a vehicle
that was neither in the custody nor on the
premises of its owner, and that had been placed
where it was by virtue of lawful police action,
was not unreasonable solely because a warrant
had not been obtained.

Id. at 439, 447-448.

The Cady Court recognized that, while some contact
between police officers and vehicles will occur because of a
possible violation of a criminal statute, much of the contact will
be completely unrelated to criminal law enforcement and will
occur when officers are acting as community caretakers. Id. at
441. The Court expressly distinguished automobile searches
from searches of a home, saying that a search of a vehicle may
be reasonable “although the result might be the opposite in a
search of a home.” Id. at 440. That distinction recognizes that

13
the sanctity of the home “has been embedded in our tradition
since the origins of the Republic.” Payton v. New York, 445
U.S. 573, 601 (1980). Indeed, the Supreme Court has
emphasized that “[t]he physical entry of the home is the chief
evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is
directed.” United States v. United States District Court, 407
U.S. 297, 313 (1972).

There is some confusion among the circuits as to whether
the community caretaking exception set forth in Cady applies to
warrantless searches of the home. The majority of circuits have
reasoned that the community caretaking doctrine announced in
Cady is limited to searches of automobiles. The Ninth Circuit,
in United States v. Erickson, 991 F.2d 529, 533 (9th Cir. 1993),
held that Cady was based on the distinction made between
vehicles and residences and that an officer acting as a
community caretaker may only enter a building based on an
already acknowledged exception to the warrant requirement,
like exigent circumstances. 991 F.2d at 531-32 (“Although it
involved a community caretaking function, Cady clearly turned
on the ‘constitutional difference’ between searching a house and
searching an automobile.”). The Seventh Circuit took a similar
approach in United States v. Pichany, 687 F.2d 204 (7th Cir.
1982), which concerned a warrantless search of a privately
owned warehouse. The court held that Cady was limited to
automobile searches and refused to create a “warehouse
exception,” even if the officers were acting as community
caretakers. Id. at 207-09 (“[T]he plain import from the language
of the Cady decision is that the Supreme Court did not intend to
create a broad exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant
requirement to apply whenever the police are acting in an

14
‘investigative,’ rather than a ‘criminal’ function.”). Likewise,
the Tenth Circuit held that the community caretaking doctrine
announced in Cady applies only to automobiles. United States
v. Bute, 43 F.3d 531, 535 (10th Cir. 1994). There the court
found that the search of an old manufacturing plant under the
auspices of the community caretaking doctrine was
unconstitutional because the holding in Cady was based on the
“constitutional difference” between searches of automobiles and
searches of homes or businesses. Id.

Some circuits do appear to have relied on the community
caretaking exception created in Cady to uphold warrantless
entries into houses. In United States v. Quezada, 448 F.3d 1005
(8th Cir. 2006), the Eighth Circuit held that an officer acting in
a community caretaking role may enter a residence when the
officer has a reasonable belief that an emergency exists that
requires attention. 448 F.3d at 1007-08. The Sixth Circuit took
a similar approach in United States v. Rohrig, 98 F.3d 1506 (6th
Cir. 1996), when it held that two officers’ warrantless entry into
a home was permissible since they were acting as community
caretakers to abate a significant noise nuisance. 98 F.3d at 1509.

Those cases, however, do not simply rely on the
community caretaking doctrine established in Cady. They
instead apply what appears to be a modified exigent
circumstances test, with perhaps a lower threshold for exigency
if the officer is acting in a community caretaking role. For
example, in Quezada, the Eighth Circuit held that the officer had
to have a “reasonable belief that an emergency exists requiring
his or her attention” for the community caretaking doctrine to
apply to a warrantless search of a home. 448 F.3d at 1007

15
(emphasis added). And in Rohrig, the Sixth Circuit recognized
that some situations addressed by officers within their
community caretaking functions, though not within the scope of
traditional law enforcement, can still present important
government interests that may rise to the level of traditionally
recognized “exigent circumstances.” 98 F.3d at 1521-22. In
fact, the Sixth Circuit itself has questioned whether Rohrig
created a new community caretaking exception to the warrant
requirement for entry into a home. United States v. Williams,
354 F.3d 497, 508 (6th Cir. 2003) (“[D]espite references to the
doctrine of Rohrig, we doubt that community caretaking will
generally justify warrantless entries into private homes.”).12

We agree with the conclusion of the Seventh, Ninth, and
Tenth Circuits on this issue, and interpret the Supreme Court’s
decision in Cady as being expressly based on the distinction
between automobiles and homes for Fourth Amendment
purposes. The community caretaking doctrine cannot be used
to justify warrantless searches of a home. Whether that
exception can ever apply outside the context of an automobile
search, we need not now decide. It is enough to say that, in the
context of a search of a home, it does not override the warrant
requirement of the Fourth Amendment or the carefully crafted
and well-recognized exceptions to that requirement.

12
While the Eleventh Circuit has cited Rohrig as one case that
“ha[s] recognized that police officers may enter a house without
a warrant based on what could be characterized as their
community caretaking functions,” United States v. McGough,
412 F.3d 1232, 1238 (11th Cir. 2005), we defer to the Sixth
Circuit’s interpretation of its own precedent.
16
 Those exceptions include exigent circumstances, which
may involve circumstances beyond those confronted by police
in a criminal investigatory context. See United States v. Coles,
437 F.3d 361, 366 (3d Cir. 2006) (“Examples of exigent
circumstances include, but are not limited to, hot pursuit of a
suspected felon, the possibility that evidence may be removed
or destroyed, and danger to the lives of officers or others.”)
(emphasis added). Circumstances involving the protection of a
child’s welfare, even absent suspicions of criminal activity, may
present an exigency permitting warrantless entry, but only if the
officer reasonably believes that “someone is in imminent
danger.” Parkhurst v. Trapp, 77 F.3d 707, 711 (3d Cir. 1996).
Under the circumstances of this case, it is debatable whether the
officers confronted exigent circumstances.13

Regardless of whether there were exigent circumstances
in this case, however, the responding officers are entitled to
qualified immunity. “The qualified immunity question is
whether the officer was reasonably mistaken about the state of
the law.” Curley v. Klem, 499 F.3d 199, 214 (3d Cir. 2007).
There is no dispute that at the time of the officers’ actions in this
case, two Circuits had arguably extended the community
caretaking doctrine to warrantless entries into homes. See

13
We note that, on the surface at least, the facts of this case
raise the question of whether a valid entry may have been made
under the exigent circumstances doctrine, since the belief of the
officers on the scene was that a four or five year-old child was
left alone in a home with an unresponsive adult who had always
previously promptly responded to police contacts and who was
involved in a bitter custody dispute over the child.
17
Quezada, 448 F.3d at 1007; Rohrig, 98 F.3d at 1521-22.
Moreover, this Circuit had addressed the issue only in a non-
precedential opinion, Burr v. Hasbrouck Heights, 131 Fed.
Appx. 799 (3d Cir. 2005), one month prior to the officers’
actions, and had left unresolved whether a community
caretaking exception might justify a warrantless search of a
home. Until our decision in this case, the question of whether
the community caretaking doctrine could justify a warrantless
entry into a home was unanswered in our Circuit. Given the
conflicting precedents on this issue from other Circuits, we
cannot say it would have been apparent to an objectively
reasonable officer that entry into Ray’s home on June 17, 2005
was a violation of the law.

That conclusion is amply supported by the record. The
officers were aware of the contentious circumstances underlying
the Rays’ divorce and custody proceedings between Ray and his
wife. Ms. Ray was visibly concerned and had informed the
officers she was at the residence to pick up her daughter for
scheduled visitation and that her husband was in the home but
failing to respond. On previous occasions, Mr. Ray had always
come to the door and turned over his daughter when the police
arrived. It was objectively reasonable for the officers to be
concerned for the young child and to believe that entry was
appropriate under the state of the law at that time.

Ray accuses the District Court of indulging in a “skewed”
reading of the record (Appellant’s Op. Br. at 20); however, it is
his own reading of the record that appears to be out of balance.
Instead of looking at what the officers were told on the evening
in question, he essentially accuses them of taking his wife’s side

18
in their marital disputes and implies that they were biased
against him. Ray’s entire theory depends on an inference that
the officers conspired to acquire an invalid arrest warrant from
the judge in order to permit them to enter the house. That
inference is too far a stretch to survive summary judgment on
the record before us.14 While the police may not have acted

14
In support of his theory, Ray points out that Officer Cohen
searched a dresser drawer too small to contain a child, which
must have reflected a search “for evidence.” (Appellant’s Op.
Br. at 29.) First, the record does not suggest that the police were
searching for evidence. Even if the police were, as Ray
contends, “investigating” Ray’s failure to make his daughter
available for visitation, it would not make sense to open and
immediately shut a drawer. Regardless, while Officer Cohen
probably should not have opened the drawer at all – a casual and
thoughtless act caught by the surveillance camera – that fact
cannot be stretched into a material issue on this record.
Additionally, Ray argues that Officer Calabrese’s telling
the judge that the door was “open,” rather than “unlocked,”
illustrates the officers’ acknowledgment that their actions were
in violation of the law. That is likewise too far a stretch. The
record indicates that the door was “open” in the sense that it was
ajar since it could not close entirely. Furthermore, the police
department form filled out by Calabrese after the incident lists
several options that an officer can circle to indicate method of
entry. Calabrese circled “open/unlocked,” which suggests that
he understood the two words to be essentially interchangeable
in this context.
Ray also alleges that Officer Calabrese’s failure to follow
department protocol when he called Judge Sasso rather than his
19
ideally in the situation,15 what is quite clear from the record is
that they were trying to do a difficult job in a potentially

immediate supervisor or the prosecutor’s office indicates that
the officers’ actions were not reasonable under the
circumstances. It may be that some training or disciplinary steps
are warranted to encourage more careful adherence to the chain
of command, see infra note 15, but that does not mean that the
call to the judge reflected a lack of reasonableness in seeking
entry to check on the child.
15
Although the officers acted within the bounds of
reasonableness, we cannot say that all of their actions were
commendable. Their failure to follow department procedure
resulted in the issuance of an invalid warrant, which could have
resulted in Ray’s unnecessary arrest. That could have been a
particularly serious though unintended consequence and perhaps
explains why the officers altered the police report. Of course,
we do not condone the officers’ alteration of the initial police
report to remove the reference to the judge. Regardless, even if
the officers may have acted inappropriately after the search, that
does not mean that the search itself was objectively
unreasonable.
We realize that the police must have been frustrated in
their dealings with the Rays. The record shows that both Ray
and his wife repeatedly and unnecessarily involved the police in
their marital disputes. Law enforcement officers do not, of
course, have the luxury of not responding to calls for help, even
though they may at times be ill-used in domestic dramas like the
Rays’. In the future, though, we anticipate that police officers
will follow proper procedures in exercising their judgment.
20
dangerous situation. They were acting out of concern for the
well-being of the Rays’ young daughter, and, for that reason, we
cannot say that they acted unreasonably in mistakenly believing
that they were permitted to enter the house pursuant to the
unclear boundaries of the community caretaking exception at
that time.

Under the circumstances, the officers were not on notice
that their conduct was a clear violation of the law, and they
acted reasonably in their belief that they could enter Ray’s home
for the purpose of checking on his daughter. Accordingly, we
agree with the District Court that Appellees are entitled to
qualified immunity.

III. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the District Court’s
order granting Appellees’ motion for summary judgment as to
qualified immunity.

21