Plumhoff v. Rickard

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Syllabus

Donald Rickard led police officers on a high-speed car chase that came to a temporary halt when Rickard spun out into a parking lot. Rickard resumed maneuvering his car, and as he continued to use the accelerator even though his bumper was flush against a patrol car, an officer fired three shots into Rickard’s car. Rickard managed to drive away, almost hitting an officer in the process. Officers fired 12 more shots as Rickard sped away, striking him and his passenger, both of whom died from some combination of gunshot wounds and injuries suffered when the car eventually crashed.

 

Respondent, Rickard’s minor daughter, filed a 42 U. S. C. §1983 action, alleging that the officers used excessive force in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. The District Court denied the officers’ motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity, holding that their conduct violated the Fourth Amendment and was contrary to clearly established law at the time in question. After finding that it had appellate jurisdiction, the Sixth Circuit held that the officers’ conduct violated the Fourth Amendment. It af- firmed the District Court’s order, suggesting that it agreed that the officers violated clearly established law.

 

Held:

1. The  Sixth  Circuit  properly  exercised  jurisdiction  under  28 U. S. C. §1291, which gives courts of appeals jurisdiction to hear appeals from “final decisions” of the district courts.  The general rule that an order denying a summary judgment motion is not a “final decision[n],” and thus not immediately appealable, does not apply when it is based on a qualified immunity claim.   Johnson v. Jones, 515 U. S. 304, 311. Respondent argues that Johnson forecloses appellate jurisdiction here, but the order in Johnson was not immediately appealable because it merely decided “a question of ‘evidence sufficiency,’ ” id., at 313, while here, petitioners’ qualified immunity claims raise legal issues quite different from any purely factual issues that might be confronted at trial. Deciding such legal issues is a core responsibility of appellate courts and does not create an undue burden for them. See, e.g., Scott v. Harris, 550 U. S. 372. Pp. 5–7.

 

2. The officers’ conduct did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Pp. 7–15.

 

1. Addressing this question first will be “beneficial” in “develop[ing] constitutional precedent” in an area that courts typically consider in cases in which the defendant asserts a qualified immunity defense, Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U. S. 223, 236. Pp. 7–8.

 

2. Respondent’s excessive-force argument requires analyzing the totality of the circumstances from the perspective “of a reasonable officer on the scene.” Graham v. Connor, 490 U. S. 386, 396. Respondent contends that the Fourth Amendment did not allow the officers to use deadly force to terminate the chase, and that, even if they were permitted to fire their weapons, they went too far when they fired as many rounds as they did. Pp. 8–12.

 

 

1. The officers acted reasonably in using deadly force. A “police officer’s attempt to terminate a dangerous high-speed car chase that threatens the lives of innocent bystanders does not violate the Fourth Amendment, even when it places the fleeing motorist at risk of serious injury or death.” Scott, supra, at 385. Rickard’s outrageously reckless driving—which lasted more than five minutes, exceeded 100 miles per hour, and included the passing of more than two dozen other motorists—posed a grave public safety risk, and the record conclusively disproves that the chase was over when Rickard’s car came to a temporary standstill and officers began shooting. Under the circumstances when the shots were fired, all that a reasonable officer could have concluded from Rickard’s conduct was that he was intent on resuming his flight, which would again pose a threat to others on the road. Pp. 9–11.

 

2. Petitioners did not fire more shots than necessary to end the public safety risk. It makes sense that, if officers are justified in firing at a suspect in order to end a severe threat to public safety, they need not stop shooting until the threat has ended. Here, during the 10-second span when all the shots were fired, Rickard never abandoned his attempt to flee and eventually managed to drive away.

The  officers  moved  for  summary  judgment  based  on qualified immunity, but the District Court denied that motion,  holding  that  the  officers’  conduct  violated  the Fourth Amendment and was contrary to law that was clearly established at the time in question.   The officers appealed, but a Sixth Circuit motions panel initially dis­ missed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction based on this Court’s decision in Johnson v. Jones, 515 U. S. 304, 309 (1995).     Later, however, that  panel granted rehearing, vacated  its  dismissal  order,  and  left  the  jurisdictional issue to be decided by a merits panel.

 

The  merits  panel  then  affirmed  the  District  Court’s decision on the merits.  Estate of Allen v. West Memphis, 509 Fed. Appx. 388 (CA6 2012).  On the issue of appellate jurisdiction,  the  merits  panel  began  by  stating  that  a “motion for qualified immunity denied on the basis of a district court’s determination that there exists a triable issue of fact generally cannot be appealed on an interlocutory basis.”  Id., at 391.  But the panel then noted that the Sixth Circuit had previously interpreted our decision in Scott v. Harris, 550 U. S. 372 (2007), as creating an “exception to this rule” under which an immediate appeal may be taken to challenge “ ‘blatantly and demonstrably false’ ” factual determinations. 509 Fed. Appx., at 391 (quoting Moldowan v. Warren, 578 F. 3d 351, 370 (CA6 2009)).  Concluding that none of the District Court’s factual determinations ran afoul of that high standard, and distinguishing the facts of this case from those in Scott, the  panel  held  that  the  officers’  conduct  violated  the Fourth Amendment.        

 

509 Fed. Appx., at 392, and n. 3. The panel said nothing about whether the officers violated clearly established law, but since the panel affirmed the order denying the officers’ summary judgment motion,[2] the panel must have decided that issue in respondent’s favor.

 

 

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2. After expressing some confusion about whether it should dismiss or affirm, the panel wrote that “it would seem that what we are doing is affirming [the District Court’s] judgment.” 509 Fed. Appx., at 393.

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We granted certiorari. 571 U. S.       (2013).

II

We start with the question whether the Court of Appeals  properly  exercised  jurisdiction  under  28  U. S. C. §1291, which gives the courts of appeals jurisdiction to hear appeals from “final decisions” of the district courts.

An order denying a motion for summary judgment is generally not a final decision within the meaning of §1291 and is thus generally not immediately appealable. Johnson, 515 U. S., at 309. But that general rule does not apply when the summary judgment motion is based on a claim of qualified immunity. Id., at 311; Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U. S. 511, 528 (1985). “[Q]ualified immunity is ‘an immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability.’ ” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U. S. 223, 231 (2009) (quoting Mitchell, supra,at 526). As a result, pretrial orders denying qualified immunity generally fall within the collateral order doctrine.   See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U. S. 662, 671–672 (2009).  This is so because such orders conclusively determine whether the defendant is entitled to immunity from suit; this immunity issue is both important and completely separate from the merits of the action, and this question could not be effectively reviewed on appeal from a final judgment because by that time the immunity from standing trial will have been irretrievably lost. See ibid; Johnson, supra, at 311–312 (citing Mitchell, supra, at 525–527).

 

Respondent argues that our decision in Johnson, forecloses appellate jurisdiction under the circumstances here, but the order from which the appeal was taken in Johnson was quite different from the order in the present case.  In Johnson, the plaintiff brought suit against certain police officers who, he alleged, had beaten him. 515 U. S., at 307.  These officers moved for summary judgment, asserting that they were not present at the time of the alleged beating and had nothing to do with it.    Id., at 307–308. The District Court determined, however, that the evidence in the summary judgment record was sufficient to support a  contrary  finding,  and  the  court  therefore  denied  the officers’ motion for summary judgment.  Id., at 308.  The officers then appealed, arguing that the District Court had not correctly analyzed the relevant evidence. Ibid.

 

This Court held that the Johnson order was not immediately appealable because it merely decided “a question of ‘evidence sufficiency,’ i.e., which facts a party may, or may not, be able to prove at trial.” Id., at 313. The Court noted that  an  order  denying  summary  judgment  based  on  a determination of “evidence sufficiency” does not present a legal question in the sense in which the term was used in Mitchell, the decision that first held that a pretrial order rejecting a  claim of qualified immunity is immediately appealable.  Johnson, 515 U. S., at 314.  In addition, the Court observed that a determination of evidence sufficiency is closely related to other determinations that the trial court may be required to make at later stages of the case. Id., at 317.       The Court also noted that appellate courts have “no comparative expertise” over trial courts in making such determinations and that forcing appellate courts to entertain appeals from such orders would impose an undue burden. Id., at 309–310, 316.

 

The District Court order in this case is nothing like the order in Johnson. Petitioners do not claim that other officers were responsible for shooting Rickard; rather, they contend that their conduct did not violate the Fourth Amendment and, in any event, did not violate clearly established law. Thus, they raise legal issues; these issues are quite different from any purely factual issues that the trial court might confront if the case were tried; deciding legal issues of this sort is a core responsibility of appellate courts, and requiring appellate courts to decide such  is­ sues is not an undue burden.

 

The District Court order here is not materially distinguishable from the District Court order in Scott v. Harris, and in that case we expressed no doubts about the  jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals under §1291.  Accordingly, here, as in Scott, we hold that the Court of Appeals properly exercised jurisdiction, and we therefore turn to the merits.

III A

Petitioners contend that the decision of the Court of Appeals is wrong for two separate reasons. They maintain that they did not violate Rickard’s Fourth Amendment rights and that, in any event, their conduct did not violate any Fourth Amendment rule that was clearly established at the time of the events in question. When confronted with such arguments, we held in Saucier v. Katz, 533 U. S. 194, 200 (2001), that “the first inquiry must be whether a constitutional right would have been violated on the facts alleged.” Only after deciding that question, we concluded, may an appellate court turn to the question whether the right at issue was clearly established at the relevant time. Ibid.

 

We subsequently altered this rigid framework in Pearson, declaring that “Saucier’s procedure should not be regarded as an inflexible requirement.” 555 U. S., at 227. At the same time, however, we noted that the Saucier procedure “is often beneficial” because it “promotes the development of constitutional precedent and is especially valuable with respect to questions that do not frequently arise in cases in which a qualified immunity defense is unavailable.” 555 U. S., at 236. Pearson concluded that courts “have the discretion to decide whether that [Saucier] procedure is worthwhile in particular cases.”  Id., at 242.

 

Heeding our guidance in Pearson, we begin in this case with the question whether the officers’ conduct violated the Fourth Amendment. This approach, we believe, will be “beneficial” in “develop[ing] constitutional precedent” in an area that courts typically consider in cases in which the defendant asserts a qualified immunity defense. See Pearson, supra, at 236.

B

A claim that law-enforcement officers used excessive force to effect a seizure is governed by the Fourth Amendment’s “reasonableness” standard. See Grahamv. Connor, 490 U. S. 386 (1989); Tennesseev. Garner, 471 U. S. 1 (1985).  In Graham,we held that determining the objective reasonableness of a particular seizure under the Fourth Amendment “requires a careful balancing of the nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests against the countervailing governmental interests at stake.”  490 U. S., at 396 (internal quotation marks omitted).  The inquiry requires analyzing the totality of the circumstances. See ibid.

 

We analyze this question from the perspective “of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.”  Ibid.  We thus “allo[w] for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments—in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving—about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation.” Id., at 396–397.

 

In this case, respondent advances two main Fourth Amendment arguments. First, she contends that the Fourth Amendment did not allow petitioners to use deadly force to terminate the chase. See Brief for Respondent 24–35.  Second, she argues that the “degree of force was excessive,” that is, that even if the officers were permitted to fire their weapons, they went too far when they fired as many rounds as they did.  See id., at 36–38.  We address each issue in turn.

1

In Scott,we considered a claim that a police officer violated the Fourth Amendment when he terminated a high-speed car chase by using a technique that placed a “fleeing motorist at risk of serious injury or death.”  550 U. S., at 386.   The record in that case contained a videotape of the chase, and we found that the events recorded on the tape justified the officer’s conduct.

 

We wrote as follows: “Although there is no obvious way to quantify the risks on either side, it is clear from the videotape that respondent posed an actual and imminent threat to the lives of any pedestrians who might have been present, to other civilian motorists, and to the officers involved in the chase.” Id., at 383–384. We also wrote:

“[R]espondent’s vehicle rac[ed] down narrow, two-lane roads in the dead of night at speeds that are shockingly fast.  We see it swerve around more than a dozen other cars, cross the double-yellow line, and force cars traveling in both directions to their respective shoulders to avoid being hit.  We see it run multiple red lights and travel for considerable periods of time in the occasional center left-turn-only lane, chased by numerous police cars forced to engage in the same hazardous  maneuvers just to keep up.”  Id., at 379– 380 (footnote omitted).

In light of those facts, “we [thought] it [was] quite clear that [the police officer] did not violate the Fourth Amendment.” Id., at 381. We held that a “police officer’s attempt to  terminate  a  dangerous  high-speed  car  chase  that threatens the lives of innocent bystanders does not violate the Fourth Amendment, even when it places the fleeing motorist at risk of serious injury or death.”[3]  Id., at 386.

 

We see no basis for reaching a different conclusion here. As we have explained supra,at    _, the chase in this case exceeded 100 miles per hour and lasted over five minutes. During that chase, Rickard passed more than two dozen other vehicles, several of which were forced to alter course. Rickard’s  outrageously  reckless  driving  posed  a  grave public safety risk.  And while it is true that Rickard’s car eventually collided with a police car and came temporarily to a near standstill, that did not end the chase.  Less than three  seconds  later,  Rickard  resumed  maneuvering  his car.   Just  before  the shots were fired, when the  front bumper of his car was flush with that of one of the police cruisers,  Rickard  was  obviously  pushing  down  on  the accelerator because the car’s wheels were spinning, and then Rickard threw the car into reverse “in an attempt to escape.”  Thus, the record conclusively disproves respondent’s claim that the chase in the present case was already over when petitioners began shooting.  Under the circumstances at the moment when the shots were fired, all that a reasonable police officer could have concluded was that Rickard was intent on resuming his flight and that, if he was allowed to do so, he would once again pose a deadly threat for others on the road. Rickard’s conduct even after the shots were fired—as noted, he managed to drive away despite  the  efforts  of  the  police  to  block  his  path— underscores the point.

 

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3. In holding that petitioners’  conduct violated the Fourth Amendment, the District Court relied on reasoning that is irreconcilable with our decision in Scott.  The District Court held that the danger presented by a high-speed chase cannot justify the use of deadly force because that danger was caused by the officers’ decision to continue the chase. Estate of Allen v. West Memphis, 2011 WL 197426, *8 (WD Tenn., Jan. 20, 2011).  In Scott, however, we declined to “lay down a rule requiring the police to allow fleeing suspects to get away whenever they drive so recklessly that they put other people’s lives in danger,” concluding that the Constitution “assuredly does not impose this invitation to impunity­ earned-by-recklessness.” 550 U. S., at 385–386.

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In light of the circumstances we have discussed, it is beyond serious dispute that Rickard’s flight posed a grave public safety risk, and here, as in Scott, the police acted reasonably in using deadly force to end that risk.

2

We now consider respondent’s contention that, even if the use of deadly force was permissible, petitioners acted unreasonably in firing a total of 15 shots. We reject that argument. It stands to reason that, if police officers are justified in firing at a suspect in order to end a severe threat to public safety, the officers need not stop shooting until the threat has ended. As petitioners noted below, “if lethal force is justified, officers are taught to keep shooting until the threat is over.” 509 Fed. Appx., at 392.

 

Here, during the 10-second span when all the shots were fired, Rickard never abandoned his attempt to flee. Indeed, even after all the shots had been fired, he managed to drive away and to continue driving until he crashed. This would be a different case if petitioners had initiated a second round of shots after an initial round had clearly incapacitated Rickard and had ended any threat of continued flight, or if Rickard had clearly given himself up. But that is not what happened.

 

In arguing that too many shots were fired, respondent relies in part on the presence of Kelly Allen in the front seat of the car, but we do not think that this factor changes the calculus. Our cases make it clear that “Fourth Amendment rights are personal rights which . . . may not be vicariously asserted.”  Alderman v. United States, 394 U. S. 165, 174 (1969); see also Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U. S. 128, 138–143 (1978). Thus, the question before us is whether petitioners violated Rickard’s Fourth Amendment rights, not Allen’s. If a suit were brought on behalf of Allen under either §1983 or state tort law, the risk to Allen would be of central concern.[4] But Allen’s presence in the car cannot enhance Rickard’s Fourth Amendment rights. After all, it was Rickard who put Allen in danger by fleeing and refusing to end the chase, and it would be perverse if his disregard for Allen’s safety worked to his benefit.

C

We have held that petitioners’ conduct did not violate the Fourth Amendment, but even if that were not the case, petitioners would still be entitled to summary judgment based on qualified immunity.

 

An  official  sued  under  §1983  is  entitled  to  qualified immunity unless it is shown that the official violated a statutory or constitutional right that was “ ‘clearly established’ ” at the time of the challenged conduct.  Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U. S.       ,       (2011) (slip op., at 3).  And a defendant cannot be said to have violated a clearly established right unless the right’s contours were sufficiently definite  that  any  reasonable  official  in  the  defendant’s shoes would have understood that he was violating it.  Id., at  (slip op., at 9).  In other words, “existing precedent must have placed the statutory or constitutional question” confronted by the official “beyond debate.”  Ibid.  In addition, “[w]e have repeatedly told courts . . . not to define clearly established law at a high level of generality,” id., at       (slip op., at 10), since doing so avoids the crucial question whether the official acted reasonably in the particular circumstances that he or she faced.

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4. There seems to be some disagreement among lower courts as to whether a passenger in Allen’s situation can recover under a Fourth Amendment theory.  Compare Vaughan v. Cox, 343 F. 3d 1323 (CA11 2003) (suggesting yes), and Fisher v. Memphis, 234 F. 3d 312 (CA6 2000) (same), with Milstead v. Kibler, 243 F. 3d 157 (CA4 2001) (suggesting no), and Landol-Rivera v. Cruz Cosme, 906 F. 2d 791 (CA1 1990) (same).  We express no view on this question.  We also note that in County of Sacramento v.  Lewis, 523 U. S. 833, 836 (1998), the Court held that a passenger killed as a result of a police chase could recover under a substantive due process theory only if the officer had “a purpose to cause harm unrelated to the legitimate object of arrest.”

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      We  think  our  decision in  Brosseau v.  Haugen,  543  U. S.  194  (2004) (per curiam) squarely demonstrates that no clearly established law precluded petitioners’ conduct at the time in question. In Brosseau, we held that a police officer did not violate clearly established law when she fired at a fleeing vehicle to prevent possible harm to “other officers on foot who [she] believed were in the immediate area, . . . occupied vehicles in [the driver’s] path[,] and . . . any other citizens who might be in the area.”  Id., at 197 (quoting 339 F. 3d 857, 865 (CA9 2003); internal quotation marks omitted). After surveying lower court decisions regarding the reasonableness  of  lethal  force  as  a  response  to  vehicular flight, we observed that this is an area “in which the result depends very much on the facts of each case” and that the cases  “by  no  means  ‘clearly  establish[ed]’  that  [the  officer’s]  conduct  violated  the  Fourth  Amendment.” 543 U. S., at 201. In reaching that conclusion, we held that Garnerand Graham, which are “cast at a high level of generality,” did not clearly establish that the officer’s decision was unreasonable. 543 U. S., at 199.

 

Brosseau makes plain that as of February 21, 1999—the date of the events at issue in that case—it was not clearly established that it was unconstitutional to shoot a fleeing driver to protect those whom his flight might endanger. We  did  not  consider  later  decided  cases  because  they “could not have given fair notice to [the officer].”  Id., at 200,  n. 4.      To  defeat  immunity  here,  then,  respondent must show at a minimum either (1) that the officers’ con­ duct in this case was materially different from the conduct in Brosseauor (2) that between February 21, 1999, and July 18, 2004, there emerged either “ ‘controlling authority’ ” or a “robust ‘consensus of cases of persuasive authority,’ ”

al-Kidd,  supra,  at      (slip  op.,  at  10)  (quoting  Wilson v. Layne, 526 U. S. 603, 617 (1999); some internal quotation marks omitted), that would alter our analysis of the qualified immunity question.  Respondent has made neither showing.

 

To begin, certain facts here are more favorable to the officers.  In Brosseau, an officer on foot fired at a driver who had just begun to flee and who had not yet driven his car in a dangerous manner.  In contrast, the officers here shot at Rickard to put an end to what had already been a lengthy,  high-speed  pursuit  that  indisputably  posed  a danger both to the officers involved and to any civilians who happened to be nearby.  Indeed, the lone dissenting Justice in Brosseau emphasized that in that case, “there was no ongoing or prior high-speed car chase to inform the [constitutional] analysis.”  543 U. S., at 206, n. 4 (opinion of Stevens, J.).  Attempting to distinguish Brosseau, respondent focuses on the fact that the officer there fired only 1 shot, whereas here three officers collectively fired 15 shots.  But it was certainly not clearly established at the time of the shooting in this case that the number of shots fired, under the circumstances present here, rendered the use of force excessive.

 

Since respondent cannot meaningfully distinguish Brosseau, her only option is to show that its analysis was out of date by 2004.  Yet respondent has not pointed us to any case—let alone a controlling case or a robust consensus of cases—decided between 1999 and 2004 that could be said to have clearly established the unconstitutionality of using lethal force to end a high-speed car chase.  And respondent receives no help on this front from the opinions below.  The District Court cited only a single case decided between 1999 and 2004 that identified a possible constitutional violation by an officer who shot a fleeing driver, and the facts of that case—where a reasonable jury could have concluded that the suspect merely “accelerated to eighty to eighty-five  miles  per  hour  in  a  seventy-miles-per-hour zone” and did not “engag[e] in any evasive maneuvers,”Vaughan  v.  Cox,  343  F. 3d  1323,  1330–1331  (CA11 2003)—bear little resemblance to those here.

*        *       *

Under the circumstances present in this case, we hold that the Fourth Amendment did not prohibit petitioners from using the deadly force that they employed to terminate the dangerous car chase that Rickard precipitated. In the alternative, we note that petitioners are entitled to qualified immunity for the conduct at issue because they violated no clearly established law.

 

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.