PUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
FREDERICK P. HENRY,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v. No. 06-1523
ROBERT PURNELL,
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore.
J. Frederick Motz, District Judge.
(1:04-cv-00979-JFM)
Argued: May 24, 2007
Decided: September 20, 2007
Before WILLIAMS, Chief Judge, SHEDD, Circuit Judge,
and WIDENER, Senior Circuit Judge.1
Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded by published opinion.
Judge Shedd wrote the opinion, in which Chief Judge Williams
joined.
COUNSEL
John Francis Breads, Jr., LOCAL GOVERNMENT INSURANCE
1
Judge Widener heard oral argument in this case but did not participate
in the decision. The opinion is filed by a quorum of the panel pursuant
to 28 U.S.C. § 46(d).
2 HENRY v. PURNELL
TRUST, Columbia, Maryland, for Appellant. Eric M. May, Washing-
ton, D.C., for Appellee.
OPINION
SHEDD, Circuit Judge:
While attempting to use a Taser to stop Frederick P. Henry from
fleeing arrest, Somerset County (Maryland) Deputy Sheriff Robert
Purnell mistakenly drew his firearm, rather than his Taser, from his
holster. Not realizing the mistake, Purnell then shot and wounded
Henry. Consequently, Henry filed this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983,
and Articles 24 and 26 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, claim-
ing that Purnell violated his right to be free from the use of excessive
force during arrest. Purnell moved for summary judgment, arguing
that he did not violate Henry’s rights and, in any event, that he is enti-
tled to qualified immunity on the § 1983 claim and Maryland statu-
tory immunity on the state-law claim. The district court denied the
motion, Henry v. Purnell, 428 F. Supp. 2d 393 (D. Md. 2006), and
Purnell now appeals. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the dis-
trict court’s order in part, vacate it in part, and remand this case for
further proceedings.
I
We have jurisdiction to review "final decisions" of district courts,
28 U.S.C. § 1291, and "a district court’s denial of a claim of qualified
immunity, to the extent that it turns on an issue of law, is an appeal-
able ‘final decision’ within the meaning of . . . § 1291 notwithstand-
ing the absence of a final judgment." Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S.
511, 530 (1985). Our jurisdiction over an interlocutory appeal of the
denial of qualified immunity also provides a basis for consideration
of other district court rulings that are "inextricably intertwined with
the decision of the lower court to deny qualified immunity" or when
"consideration of the additional issue is necessary to ensure meaning-
ful review of the qualified immunity question." Taylor v. Waters, 81
F.3d 429, 437 (4th Cir. 1996). Claims are "inextricably intertwined"
when the resolution of one claim necessarily resolves the other claim.
Altman v. City of High Point, 330 F.3d 194, 207 n.10 (4th Cir. 2003).
HENRY v. PURNELL 3
Qualified immunity shields government officials performing dis-
cretionary functions "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). "The concern of the immunity
inquiry is to acknowledge that reasonable mistakes can be made as to
the legal constraints on particular [government] conduct." Saucier v.
Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 205 (2001). Thus, qualified immunity protects
"all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the
law." Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341 (1986).
When a government official properly asserts qualified immunity,
the threshold question that a court must answer is whether the facts,
when viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, show that the
official’s conduct violated a constitutional right. Saucier, 533 U.S. at
201.2 "If no constitutional right would have been violated were the
allegations established, there is no necessity for further inquiries con-
cerning qualified immunity." Id. However, "if a violation could be
made out on a favorable view of the parties’ submissions, the next,
sequential step is to ask whether the right was clearly established" —
that is, "whether it would be clear to a reasonable officer that his con-
duct was unlawful in the situation he confronted." Id. at 201, 202.
The "answer to both Saucier questions must be in the affirmative
in order for a plaintiff to defeat a . . . motion for summary judgment
on qualified immunity grounds." Batten v. Gomez, 324 F.3d 288, 293-
94 (4th Cir. 2003).3 The plaintiff bears the burden of proof on the first
2
Qualified immunity "is an affirmative defense that must be pleaded by
a defendant official." Harlow, 457 U.S. at 815. Because an official "who
performs an act clearly established to be beyond the scope of his discre-
tionary authority is not entitled to claim qualified immunity," the defen-
dant bears the initial burden "of demonstrating that the conduct of which
the plaintiff complains falls within the scope of the defendant’s duties."
In re Allen, 106 F.3d 582, 593, 594 (4th Cir. 1997) (internal punctuation
omitted). Henry does not challenge Purnell’s assertion of the qualified
immunity defense.
3
When resolving cases on the first Saucier question, courts sometimes
state that the absence of a constitutional violation entitles the defendant
to qualified immunity. At least one circuit court has specifically rejected
4 HENRY v. PURNELL
question — i.e., whether a constitutional violation occurred. Bryant
v. Muth, 994 F.2d 1082, 1086 (4th Cir. 1993) ("Once the defendant
raises a qualified immunity defense, the plaintiff carries the burden of
showing that the defendant’s alleged conduct violated the law"); see
also Crawford-El v. Britton, 523 U.S. 574, 589 (1998) (noting that the
Court’s qualified immunity holding in Harlow "related only to the
scope of an affirmative defense" and did not change "the plaintiff’s
burden of proving a constitutional violation"); Carr v. Deeds, 453
F.3d 593, 608 (4th Cir. 2006) (affirming summary judgment in quali-
fied immunity appeal "because the plaintiff failed to bring forth
admissible evidence from which the jury could conclude" that the
officer used excessive force); Figg v. Schroeder, 312 F.3d 625, 642
(4th Cir. 2002) (noting that a § 1983 plaintiff "must prove the illegal-
ity of the seizure"). The defendant bears the burden of proof on the
second question — i.e., entitlement to qualified immunity. Wilson v.
Kittoe, 337 F.3d 392, 397 (4th Cir. 2003) ("The burden of proof and
persuasion with respect to a claim of qualified immunity is on the
defendant official."); see also Bailey v. Kennedy, 349 F.3d 731, 739
(4th Cir. 2003) (same); Tanner v. Hardy, 764 F.2d 1024, 1027 (4th
Cir. 1985) ("It is a well established principle that qualified immunity
this approach, noting that a defendant in that instance prevails not
because of qualified immunity but, instead, because the plaintiff "did not
prove an essential element of the § 1983 claim." Ambrose v. Young, 474
F.3d 1070, 1077 n.3 (8th Cir. 2007). In several recent opinions, the
Supreme Court appears to have segregated the initial Saucier inquiry of
whether a constitutional violation occurred from the second inquiry of
whether the defendant is entitled to qualified immunity. See, e.g., Morse
v. Frederick, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S. Ct. 2618, 2624 & n.1 (2007)
(expressly declining to decide the case on qualified immunity grounds
based on the conclusion that no constitutional violation occurred); Groh
v. Ramirez, 540 U.S. 551, 563 (2004) ("Having concluded that a consti-
tutional violation occurred, we turn to the question whether petitioner is
entitled to qualified immunity despite that violation."); Brosseau v. Hau-
gen, 543 U.S. 194, 198 (2004) (expressing "no view as to the correctness
of the Court of Appeals’ decision on the constitutional question"
because, in any event, "the Court of Appeals was wrong on the issue of
qualified immunity"); see also id. at 601 (Breyer, J., concurring) (noting
that Saucier "requires lower courts to decide (1) the constitutional ques-
tion prior to deciding (2) the qualified immunity question").
HENRY v. PURNELL 5
. . . is a matter on which the burden of proof is allocated to the defen-
dants."); Logan v. Shealy, 660 F.2d 1007, 1014 (4th Cir. 1981) ("the
good faith immunity of individual police officers is an affirmative
defense to be proved by the defendant");4 cf. Dennis v. Sparks, 449
U.S. 24, 29 (1980) (noting that in a § 1983 action "the burden is on
the official claiming immunity to demonstrate his entitlement"); but
cf. Harlow, 457 U.S. at 815 n.24 (explaining that the Court had not
decided which party bears the burden of proof).5
4
But see Bryant, 994 F.2d at 1086 ("Once the defendant raises a quali-
fied immunity defense, the plaintiff carries the burden of showing that
the defendant’s alleged conduct violated the law and that such law was
clearly established when the alleged violation occurred."); Mitchell v.
Rice, 954 F.2d 187, 190 (4th Cir. 1992) ("We have previously held that
the individual bringing suit against a public official bears the burden of
clearly establishing the law allegedly violated."); Clark v. Link, 855 F.2d
156, 160-61 (4th Cir. 1988) (noting that "the burden of establishing that
. . . the right violated was clearly established . . . appears to rest on the
plaintiff"). Given the conflict in our caselaw on this point, we must fol-
low the earliest of the conflicting opinions. McMellon v. United States,
387 F.3d 329, 333 (4th Cir. 2004) (en banc) ("When published panel
opinions are in direct conflict on a given issue, the earliest opinion con-
trols, unless the prior opinion has been overruled by an intervening opin-
ion from this court sitting en banc or the Supreme Court."). Regarding
the burden of proof on qualified immunity, the earliest case appears to
be Logan.
5
Several circuit courts place the entire burden of proof in qualified
immunity cases on the plaintiff. See, e.g., Breen v. Texas A&M Univ.,
485 F.3d 325, 331 (5th Cir. 2007) ("When a defendant invokes qualified
immunity . . . the burden shifts to the plaintiff to rebut the applicability
of the defense."); Humphrey v. Mabry, 482 F.3d 840, 846 (6th Cir. 2007)
("Once defendants satisfy their initial burden of demonstrating that they
were acting within the scope of their authority, a plaintiff bears the bur-
den of proving that defendants are not entitled to qualified immunity.");
Mannoia v. Farrow, 476 F.3d 453, 457 (7th Cir. 2007) ("Although the
privilege of qualified immunity is a defense, the plaintiff carries the bur-
den of defeating it."); Reeves v. Churchich, 484 F.3d 1244, 1250 (10th
Cir. 2007) ("Once a defendant has raised qualified immunity as an affir-
mative defense, the plaintiff bears the heavy two-part burden of demon-
strating that (1) the defendant violated a constitutional right and (2) the
constitutional right was clearly established at the time of the alleged con-
duct."); Andujar v. Rodriguez, 486 F.3d 1199, 1203 n.2 (11th Cir. 2007)
("When it is undisputed . . . that government officials were acting within
their discretionary authority, the burden is on the plaintiff to establish
that qualified immunity is not appropriate.").
6 HENRY v. PURNELL
II
With these principles in mind, we begin our Saucier analysis by
considering the initial question of whether the facts, when viewed in
Henry’s favor, show that Purnell used excessive force in arresting him
and, therefore, violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from
an unreasonable seizure. See Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 395
(1989) (holding that "all claims that law enforcement officers have
used excessive force - deadly or not - in the course of an arrest, inves-
tigatory stop, or other ‘seizure’ of a free citizen should be analyzed
under the Fourth Amendment and its ‘reasonableness’ standard").
Purnell primarily argues that he is entitled to summary judgment
because he did not "seize" Henry within the meaning of the Fourth
Amendment. See County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 843
(1998) (noting that the "Fourth Amendment covers only ‘searches and
seizures’").
A.
The first step in assessing whether Purnell violated Henry’s Fourth
Amendment right is to determine the relevant facts. Scott v. Harris,
___ U.S. ___, 127 S. Ct. 1769, 1774 (2007). Because the parties do
not challenge the district court’s basic statement of the underlying
facts, which appear to be presented favorably for Henry, we adopt and
set forth that statement:
"On October 9, 2003, an arrest warrant was issued for Henry for
failing to obey a court order to either pay his child support arrearage
or report to a detention center to serve a jail sentence for failure to
pay. On October 20, Purnell went to Henry’s last known address in
Eden, Maryland, in an attempt to arrest him. The officer discovered
Henry at that address but Henry avoided arrest by lying about his
identity. Soon thereafter, Purnell learned that the man he had talked
to was in fact Henry. Three days later, Purnell noticed Henry in a
passing truck, followed him, and pulled into a driveway alongside the
truck. Purnell ordered Henry out of the truck. Henry complied but
fled before he could be handcuffed. Purnell claims Henry pushed him
in the course of escaping; Henry denies that occurred. In any event,
Purnell pulled out a Glock .40 caliber handgun and shot the fleeing
Henry in the elbow. Henry stopped running and was arrested.
HENRY v. PURNELL 7
"The parties have stipulated that Purnell did not intend to shoot
Henry with his handgun. Rather, he intended to unholster and dis-
charge his Taser, a non-lethal device that immobilizes a suspect via
an electro-muscular disruption. The Taser was holstered on Purnell’s
right side, just below his holstered handgun. Purnell has testified on
deposition that he reached for the Taser because he felt endangered
by Henry’s actions. He asserts that he thought Henry might be run-
ning to get a weapon.
"Purnell did not realize he had fired the handgun until after the
weapon discharged. He immediately told Henry and another witness
at the scene that he had not meant to shoot Henry and that he had
grabbed the wrong weapon." Henry, 428 F. Supp. 2d at 394-95.6
B.
Having identified the relevant facts, we now turn to the question
of whether these facts establish that Purnell seized Henry within the
meaning of the Fourth Amendment. "A person is seized by the police
and thus entitled to challenge the government’s action under the
Fourth Amendment when the officer, by means of physical force or
show of authority, terminates or restrains his freedom of movement,
through means intentionally applied." Brendlin v. California, ___
U.S. ___, 127 S. Ct. 2400, 2405 (2007) (citations and internal punctu-
ation omitted) (emphasis in original). Purnell unquestionably termi-
nated Henry’s freedom of movement by means of physical force
when he shot him; however, he contends that because he intended to
shoot Henry with the Taser, rather than the Glock, he did not termi-
nate Henry’s freedom of movement "through means intentionally
applied."7 The district court rejected this argument, as do we.
6
At oral argument, Henry’s counsel agreed that no more than 3-5 sec-
onds elapsed between the time Purnell drew the Glock and fired it, and
that the entire flight and chase lasted no more than 10 seconds.
7
Although not included in the district court’s order, the record estab-
lishes that before Henry fled, Purnell informed him that he was under
arrest and grabbed his arm while attempting to handcuff him. See J.A.
150-57. Notwithstanding this fact, the parties and the district court con-
sidered the seizure to have occurred, if at all, only when Purnell shot
8 HENRY v. PURNELL
1.
In Brower v. County of Inyo, 489 U.S. 593 (1989), the Court con-
sidered whether a complaint stated a Fourth Amendment claim based
on allegations that police, by creating a roadblock to stop a vehicle
involved in a high-speed chase, seized the driver of the vehicle when
it crashed into the roadblock. The Court noted that "[v]iolation of the
Fourth Amendment requires an intentional acquisition of physical
control," and although a "seizure occurs even when an unintended
person or thing is the object of the detention or taking, . . . the deten-
tion or taking itself must be willful." 489 U.S. at 596. The Court
explained:
[I]f a parked and unoccupied police car slips its brake and
pins a passerby against a wall, it is likely that a tort has
occurred, but not a violation of the Fourth Amendment. And
the situation would not change if the passerby happened, by
lucky chance, to be a serial murderer for whom there was
an outstanding arrest warrant - even if, at the time he was
thus pinned, he was in the process of running away from
two pursuing constables. It is clear, in other words, that a
Fourth Amendment seizure does not occur whenever there
is a governmentally caused termination of an individual’s
freedom of movement (the innocent passerby), nor even
whenever there is a governmentally caused and governmen-
tally desired termination of an individual’s freedom of
movement (the fleeing felon), but only when there is a gov-
ernmental termination of freedom of movement through
means intentionally applied.
Id. at 596-97 (emphasis in original).
The Court then observed that a roadblock "is designed to produce
a stop by physical impact if voluntary compliance does not occur,"
Henry. On this limited review, we will do likewise, and we will not con-
sider the unexplored question of whether Purnell seized Henry by grab-
bing his arm. See, e.g., Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 67 (1968)
(holding that "[w]hen the policeman grabbed Peters by the collar, he
abruptly ‘seized’ him and curtailed his freedom of movement").
HENRY v. PURNELL 9
and it rejected any inquiry into whether the police subjectively
intended for the roadblock to cause the driver to stop on his own
before crashing or whether the roadblock was designed to produce a
collision. Id. at 598. In doing so, the Court cautioned against drawing
too fine a line "[i]n determining whether the means that terminates the
freedom of movement is the very means that the government
intended," or else courts "will be driven to saying that one is not
seized who has been stopped by the accidental discharge of a gun
with which he was meant only to be bludgeoned, or by a bullet in the
heart that was meant only for the leg." Id. at 598-99. Applying these
principles, the Court held:
We think it enough for a seizure that a person be stopped by
the very instrumentality set in motion or put in place in
order to achieve that result. It was enough here, therefore,
that, according to the allegations of the complaint, Brower
was meant to be stopped by the physical obstacle of the
roadblock — and that he was so stopped.
Id. at 599.8
8
Finding that no seizure occurred, the court of appeals in Brower had
analogized the case to a hypothetical situation in which a driver loses
control of a vehicle and crashes while fleeing from police. 489 U.S. at
595. The Court disagreed with this analogy, explaining that no seizure
would occur there because the "pursuing police car sought to stop the
suspect only by the show of authority represented by flashing lights and
continuing pursuit; and though he was in fact stopped, he was stopped
by a different means - his loss of control of his vehicle and the subse-
quent crash." Id. at 597. However, the Court observed that if "the police
cruiser had pulled alongside the fleeing car and sideswiped it, producing
the crash, then the termination of the suspect’s freedom of movement
would have been a seizure." Id. The Court has since been presented with
both scenarios. See Scott, 127 S. Ct. at 1776 (indicating that the police
seized a fleeing suspect by ramming the suspect’s bumper and causing
him to crash); Lewis, 523 U.S. at 844 (holding that the police did not
seize a fleeing suspect who accidentally crashed during a chase).
10 HENRY v. PURNELL
2.
We are not presented with a case where police stopped someone by
mere happenstance, such as the passerby who is pinned when a police
car slips its brake, or by the unintended consequences of an attempted
seizure, such as the fleeing suspect who crashes his vehicle. Instead,
the undisputed evidence in the record establishes that Purnell’s spe-
cific intent was to stop Henry from fleeing by means of firing a
weapon, and Henry was in fact stopped by the very instrumentality
(i.e., the Glock) that Purnell set in motion. We recognize that Purnell
did not intend to use the Glock, but we are also mindful of the Brower
Court’s admonition that we should not draw too fine a line in deter-
mining whether the means that terminate a person’s freedom of move-
ment is the very means that an officer intended. If, as the Court noted,
a seizure would occur when a person is stopped by the accidental dis-
charge of a gun that an officer meant to use only as a club, then we
believe that a seizure surely occurred here where Purnell intended to
stop Henry by firing a weapon at him and succeeded in doing so.9
Accordingly, we affirm the portion of the district court’s order finding
that Purnell seized Henry. See 428 F. Supp. 2d at 395-96.10
9
Although we have not considered a case involving facts similar to
those now before us, we have found Fourth Amendment seizures to have
occurred in other factual situations where officers have made mistakes.
See, e.g., Miller v. Prince George’s County, 475 F.3d 621, 629-30 (4th
Cir. 2007) (seizure occurred where officers mistakenly detained the
wrong person); Mazuz v. Maryland, 442 F.3d 217, 230 (4th Cir. 2006)
(seizure occurred where officers executing a warrant mistakenly entered
the wrong room and detained the occupants); Milstead v. Kibler, 243
F.3d 157, 164 (4th Cir. 2001) (seizure occurred where the officer deliber-
ately shot an innocent victim, mistakenly believing him to be the sus-
pect); Vathekan v. Prince George’s County, 154 F.3d 173, 177-79 (4th
Cir. 1998) (seizure occurred where the officer who was looking for a sus-
pect released a police dog into a building and the dog attacked an inno-
cent person).
10
Because the "standards for analyzing claims of excessive force are
the same under Articles 24 and 26 of the Maryland Constitution as that
under the Fourth Amendment," Hines v. French, 852 A.2d 1047, 1069
(Md. App. 2004), Henry’s state constitutional claim is "inextricably
intertwined" with the district court’s denial of qualified immunity on the
§ 1983 claim, see Mazuz, 442 F.3d at 231 n.9 (holding that Article 26
excessive force claim was inextricably intertwined with identical § 1983
claim). Therefore, we have jurisdiction to review the district court’s
order as it pertains to the state claim, and our holding that a Fourth
Amendment seizure occurred leads to the conclusion that a seizure also
occurred under state law.
HENRY v. PURNELL 11
C.
Our determination that Purnell seized Henry does not end the
inquiry as to whether a Fourth Amendment violation occurred.
Rather, we must next decide whether Purnell acted unreasonably
because the "Fourth Amendment does not proscribe all state-initiated
. . . seizures; it merely proscribes those which are unreasonable."
Florida v. Jimeno, 500 U.S. 248, 250 (1991). As noted, Henry con-
tends that Purnell used excessive force while attempting to arrest him,
thereby rendering the seizure unreasonable.
Typically, the level of force that a plaintiff claims to be excessive
is the level of force that a law enforcement officer intentionally used
(regardless, of course, of whether the officer intended the ultimate
consequences). However, this case is atypical because Henry’s claim
is based on the fact that Purnell shot him with the Glock, which is not
the level of force that Purnell intended; indeed, Henry has stipulated
that Purnell intended to use the Taser and used the Glock only as the
result of a mistake.11 Although we have rejected Purnell’s argument
that the fact of his mistake establishes that he did not seize Henry, the
fact of the mistake does bear on the question of whether the seizure
was nonetheless reasonable because "a mistaken understanding of the
facts that is reasonable in the circumstances can render a seizure
based on that understanding reasonable under the Fourth Amend-
ment." Milstead, 243 F.3d at 165; see also Maryland v. Garrison, 480
U.S. 79, 87 (1987) (recognizing "the need to allow some latitude for
honest mistakes that are made by officers in the dangerous and diffi-
cult process of making arrests and executing search warrants");
McLenagan v. Karnes, 27 F.3d 1002, 1008 (4th Cir. 1994) (noting
that § 1983 "does not purport to redress injuries resulting from rea-
sonable mistakes"). In accord with this principle, mistakes made by
officers during the course of their duties have been held to be reason-
able for Fourth Amendment purposes in a variety of circumstances.
11
Purnell does not argue that an intentional use of the Glock would
have been reasonable; likewise, Henry does not argue that Purnell’s deci-
sion to use the Taser was unreasonable. Thus, to the extent that it may
be relevant in the qualified immunity analysis, the parties appear to agree
that Purnell understood the constitutional restraints on his use of force in
this circumstance.
12 HENRY v. PURNELL
See, e.g., Garrison, (mistaken search of the wrong premises); Hill v.
California, 401 U.S. 797 (1971) (mistaken arrest of the wrong per-
son); Mazuz (mistaken search of the wrong premises); Milstead (mis-
taken fatal shooting of an innocent person).
1.
The district court concluded that Purnell was not entitled to sum-
mary judgment because of "the existence of disputed facts concerning
the objective reasonableness of his belief that he was firing a Taser
when he shot Henry with a handgun." 428 F. Supp. 2d at 398. Com-
bining its Fourth Amendment and qualified immunity discussions, the
district court explained:
Purnell violated Henry’s Fourth Amendment rights if . . . his
belief he was using a Taser was objectively unreasonable
under the circumstances he was confronting, as he then rea-
sonably perceived them to be. Likewise, these rights were
clearly established because under Graham it would have
been clear to a reasonable officer that it was unlawful to use
deadly force on the basis of an objectively unreasonable
belief about the nature of the weapon being discharged.
Id. Although the district court noted that a jury ultimately might agree
that Purnell’s conduct was objectively reasonable,12 it then identified
various facts purportedly in dispute that it deemed relevant to the rea-
sonableness of Purnell’s actions:
(1) the nature of the training Purnell had received to prevent
incidents like this from happening, (2) whether he acted in
accordance with that training, (3) whether he would have
discovered that he was holding a handgun rather than a
Taser if, as he apparently had been trained to do, he had
attempted to flip the thumb safety device on what he thought
12
We note that in Scott, the Court stated that at the summary judgment
stage, once a court has determined the relevant set of facts and drawn all
inferences in favor of the nonmoving party to the extent supportable by
the record, the reasonableness of an officer’s actions "is a pure question
of law." 127 S. Ct. at 1776 n.8.
HENRY v. PURNELL 13
was the Taser, (4) whether Henry’s trickery in eluding him
three days before heightened Purnell’s sense of danger, war-
ranting the need for hurried action, or (5) whether Henry’s
earlier trickery angered Purnell, causing him to act with
undue haste and inconsistently with his training.
Id. The district court noted in conclusion that "[r]esolution of any dis-
putes about these facts and the effect of the reasonable inferences to
be drawn from them must await trial." Id.
2.
Before Purnell moved for summary judgment, Henry had filed a
discovery motion seeking to compel Purnell to produce certain docu-
ments that were used by the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office,
including training materials relating to the Glock and Taser. Purnell
objected to producing these documents on relevance grounds. On the
day that Purnell filed his summary judgment motion, Henry requested
that the district court rule promptly on the discovery motion, asserting
that the discovery documents "may prove to be vital" to his summary
judgment opposition. Although there was some additional activity
involving the discovery motion — including Henry’s request for
relief under Rule 56(f) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which
permits a court to deny summary judgment or order a continuance
where the party opposing the motion sets forth by affidavit the rea-
sons why that party is unable to present facts essential to justify its
opposition — the district court did not rule on the motion until the
same day that it denied the summary judgment motion. By separate
order, the district court granted the discovery motion, noting: "As
reflected in my opinion on defendant’s summary judgment motion, I
believe that training materials relating to the Taser are relevant to this
litigation." J.A. 209. Purnell appealed the order granting this discov-
ery motion, but we dismissed that portion of the appeal on Henry’s
motion.
3.
We have recounted this discovery matter because we believe that
its outcome, combined with the district court’s analysis, necessitates
a remand of this case for further proceedings. As we have explained,
14 HENRY v. PURNELL
when a defendant properly asserts qualified immunity as a defense,
the plaintiff bears the initial burden of establishing that the defendant
violated his constitutional rights. Thus, in this summary judgment
proceeding, Henry bore the initial burden of showing that the seizure
was unreasonable. Without noting that Henry bore this burden of
proof, the district court concluded that several disputed facts bear on
the question of objective reasonableness, and it stated that the resolu-
tion of these disputed facts "must await trial." 428 F. Supp. 2d at 398.
Most of these purported factual disputes appear to involve the training
Purnell received concerning use of the Glock and Taser, which is the
issue that was the subject of Henry’s discovery request.
We believe that the upshot of all of this is that the district court
must reassess the issue of whether a constitutional violation occurred
in light of the proper burden of proof and the discovery materials that
it ordered Purnell to produce, and it must do so before moving this
case forward. See Scott, 127 S. Ct. at 1773 n.2 (noting that qualified
immunity "‘is effectively lost if a case is erroneously permitted to go
to trial’" (quoting Mitchell, 472 U.S. at 526)). This course will ensure
that Henry is afforded the opportunity to present all potentially rele-
vant evidence, while also allowing Purnell the opportunity to have his
qualified immunity defense decided before it is effectively lost.
III
Based on the foregoing, we affirm the district court’s determination
that a seizure occurred, and we remand this case to the district court
for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. On remand, the
district court should first determine whether Henry has met his burden
of establishing that the seizure in this case was unreasonable (i.e., that
Purnell’s mistake in using the Glock rather than the Taser was unrea-
sonable). If the district court finds that Henry has met this burden,
then Purnell will have the opportunity to demonstrate his entitlement
to qualified immunity. Apart from our determination that a seizure
occurred, we express no opinion on the ultimate merits of the case.
AFFIRMED IN PART,
VACATED IN PART,
AND REMANDED