Paulette Smith, Individually and as Successor in Interest to Albert Dorsey, Deceased v. Edward Agdeppa

In the context of Fourth Amendment claims alleging excessive force, the determination of a police officer's entitlement to qualified immunity in summary judgment proceedings requires a court to determine whether (1) the officer's conduct violated a constitutional right, and (2) whether that right was clearly established at the time of the incident. Tolan v. Cotton, 572 U.S. 650, 656 (2014). In this § 1983 action arising out of a fatal police shooting, the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of qualified immunity, holding that, notwithstanding the factual disputes identified by the district court, the shooting officer was granted immunity solely upon the Ninth Circuit's determination that the law was not sufficiently "clearly established" as to the unlawfulness of the shooting officer's conduct. In so holding, the Ninth Circuit failed to determine whether the facts of the shooting incident relied upon by the district court at summary judgment, when viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, raised genuine factual disputes concerning whether the shooting officer's conduct was unlawful. This case starkly places into focus important questions over which the Ninth Circuit remains sharply divided from the majority of circuit courts, as follows: 1. In a § 1983 action arising out of fatal police shooting involving disputed allegations of Fourth Amendment violations, did the Ninth Circuit’s err in granting qualified immunity