Frederick v. LeBlanc ( 2023 )

Case: 21-30660 Document: 00516630641 Page: 1 Date Filed: 02/01/2023
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
FILED
February 1, 2023
No. 21-30660 Lyle W. Cayce
Clerk
Austin Frederick,
Plaintiff—Appellee,
versus
James M. LeBlanc, Secretary, Department of Public
Safety and Corrections; Angela Griffin; State of
Louisiana, Through the Department of Public Safety
and Corrections; Teresa Cooley; M. Lewis; D'Anna
Lawton,
Defendants—Appellants,
______________________________
Austin Frederick,
Plaintiff—Appellee,
versus
State of Louisiana, Through the Department of Public
Safety and Corrections; James M. LeBlanc, Secretary,
Department of Public Safety and Corrections; Angela
Griffin,
Defendants—Appellants.
Case: 21-30660 Document: 00516630641 Page: 2 Date Filed: 02/01/2023
No. 21-30660
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Louisiana
USDC Nos. 3:18-CV-682, 3:18-CV-780
Before Graves, Ho, and Duncan, Circuit Judges.
Per Curiam:*
Austin Frederick sued various officials of the Louisiana Department
of Public Safety and Corrections under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Louisiana state
law, claiming that he was overdetained. After some litigation, the district
court denied Defendants’ motion for summary judgment. Defendants
appealed.
Upon our review, it appears the district court misapplied the summary
judgment standard in qualified immunity cases. Because the district court
relied on the absence of evidence to find genuine disputes of material fact, we
now conclude that we cannot adequately review the district court’s ruling.
Accordingly, we vacate and remand to permit the district court an
opportunity to identify which facts in the summary judgment record
Frederick may be able to prove at trial.
I.
Frederick was sentenced on September 16, 2016, to one year in prison
in the custody of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections
(the “Department”) following his conviction for possession of cocaine. On
December 3, 2016, Frederick was released on good time parole supervision.
On December 26, 2016, Frederick was arrested and he was sentenced to 90
days in jail for a parole violation. On March 21, 2017, the Department
*
This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
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amended Frederick’s full term date to July 16, 2017. Frederick was released
to good time parole supervision on March 22, 2017.
Four days later, he was arrested on new drug charges and booked into
the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center. On June 20, 2017, while still there,
Frederick self-revoked his parole in the September 2016 drug case. On
September 15, 2017, Frederick pleaded guilty to the new drug charges and
was sentenced to time served for those offenses. That same day, he was
transferred to the Winn Correctional Center (“Winn”) to serve the
remainder of his 2016 one-year sentence. His full-term release date was
amended by the Department to October 26, 2017.
On September 25, 2017, Frederick filed a request for administrative
remedy at Winn, complaining his release date had been miscalculated and he
was entitled to immediate release. Winn advised Frederick that his
administrative remedy grievance was forwarded to the Department, but the
Department was unable to locate Frederick’s grievance. Frederick was
released from Winn on October 26, 2017.
On July 11, 2018, Frederick filed a § 1983 complaint against Secretary
of the Department James LeBlanc; Administrative Program Director for
Adult Services Angela Griffin, who was responsible for the computation of
felony sentences and for the timely release of prisoners; and unknown
Department employees he alleged were responsible for the calculation of
prisoners’ release dates. 1 Frederick alleged that he was legally entitled to be
released from custody on July 16, 2017, but Defendants kept him in custody
until October 26, 2017. He alleged, inter alia, that Defendants failed to
1
Frederick also filed a civil rights complaint in the 19th Judicial District on the
same date, which was subsequently removed to federal court and consolidated with the
instant § 1983 case.
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establish policies to prevent the overdetention of prisoners and that
Defendants’ conduct violated his due process rights under the federal and
state constitutions. He subsequently filed an amended complaint, naming as
additional defendants the Department and Department employees Teresa
Cooley, Mario Lewis, and D’Anna Lawton. He alleged that Lewis and
Lawton miscalculated his release dates on several occasions and that Griffin,
LeBlanc, and Cooley were responsible for ensuring that the calculations were
accurate.
Defendants filed a motion to dismiss arguing that Frederick’s claims
were barred under Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), and should be
dismissed with prejudice until the Heck requirements were met. The
individual Defendants also asserted that they were entitled to qualified
immunity because Frederick failed to allege that a clearly established
constitutional right was violated. The district court denied the motion.
Defendants later filed a motion for summary judgment. They again
argued that Frederick’s claims were barred by Heck and that Defendants
were entitled to qualified immunity.
Frederick responded that his claims weren’t Heck-barred because they
didn’t implicate the validity of his conviction or sentence and that
Defendants weren’t entitled to qualified immunity because he had a clearly
established constitutional right to timely release, and the conduct of
Defendants was objectively unreasonable.
The district court agreed that the Department wasn’t a person capable
of being sued under § 1983 and that there was no evidence supporting the
individual capacity claims against LeBlanc, Griffin, and Cooley, but
otherwise denied summary judgment. The district court rejected
Defendants’ argument that Frederick’s claims were barred by Heck because
Frederick wasn’t seeking to invalidate his sentence. The district court also
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determined that Defendants weren’t entitled to qualified immunity because
Frederick had a clearly established right to timely release from prison, and
Frederick demonstrated a violation of that right.
Defendants appealed, arguing both that Frederick’s claims are Heck-
barred and that they are entitled to qualified immunity.
II.
This appeal presents three issues: (1) whether we have jurisdiction to
hear Defendants’ qualified immunity and Heck arguments on interlocutory
appeal; (2) whether the Defendants were entitled to qualified immunity; and
(3) whether Frederick’s claims are Heck-barred. We consider each in turn.
A.
We start with jurisdiction. Frederick contends this court lacks
jurisdiction to hear Defendants’ qualified immunity and Heck challenges to
the district court order on interlocutory appeal. We disagree.
“Ordinarily, we do not have jurisdiction to review a denial of a
summary judgment motion because such a decision is not final within the
meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1291.” Williams v. City of Yazoo, 41 F.4th 416, 421
(5th Cir. 2022) (quotation omitted). “But under the collateral order
exception to the final judgment rule, we may hear interlocutory appeals of the
small category of decisions that, although they do not end the litigation, must
nonetheless be considered final because they would be effectively
unreviewable on appeal from final judgment.” Id. (quotation omitted). Here
both the qualified immunity and Heck challenges fall within the exception.
We have jurisdiction to review the qualified immunity challenges,
though the scope of our review is limited. “District court orders denying
summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity are immediately
appealable and reviewed de novo only if they are predicated on conclusions of
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law and not genuine issues of material fact.” Solis v. Serrett, 31 F.4th 975,
980 (5th Cir. 2022) (quotation omitted). We only have jurisdiction to review
“whether the factual disputes identified by the district court are material to
the denial of qualified immunity—that is, whether the factual disputes
viewed in favor of the plaintiff make out a violation of clearly established
law.” Poole v. City of Schreveport, 13 F.4th 420, 423 (5th Cir. 2021). And so,
our jurisdiction is limited to determining whether, viewing factual disputes
in the light most favorable to Frederick, the appellants violated clearly
established law. See Williams, 41 F.4th at 422; Poole, 13 F.4th at 423.
We also have jurisdiction to hear the Heck challenge. Admittedly, our
caselaw has been “inconsistent” regarding whether we have jurisdiction to
address Heck issues on interlocutory appeal. Poole, 13 F.4th at 426. But
we’ve reaffirmed that, under our circuit’s rule of orderliness, precedent
establishing “that a district court’s ‘denial of summary judgment is
reviewable . . . if the claim is barred by Heck’” controls. Id. (quoting
Sappington v. Bartee, 195 F.3d 234, 236 (5th Cir. 1999) (per curiam)).
Accordingly, we can review the district court’s decision not to apply the Heck
bar notwithstanding the interlocutory posture.
Because we have jurisdiction, we proceed to the merits.
B.
“The doctrine of qualified immunity protects 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, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009) (quotation omitted).
“A public official is entitled to qualified immunity unless the plaintiff
demonstrates that (1) the defendant violated the plaintiff’s constitutional
rights and (2) the defendant’s actions were objectively unreasonable in light
of clearly established law at the time of the violation.” Porter v. Epps, 659
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F.3d 440, 445 (5th Cir. 2011). We are free to decide which prong of the
qualified immunity analysis to address first. See Pearson, 555 U.S. at 242.
We proceed to review the district court’s analysis on the second
prong. For the purposes of this appeal, we assume the broad right of inmates
to be timely released from prison is clearly established. See Porter, 69 F.3d at
445 (“Our precedent establishes that a jailer has a duty to ensure that inmates
are timely released from prison.”). The objectively unreasonable in light of
clearly established law standard is not “that an official action is protected by
qualified immunity unless the very action in question has previously been
held unlawful; but it is . . . that in light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness
must be apparent.” Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 739 (2002) (citation
omitted). The critical consideration is fair warning. See id. at 739–41.
At summary judgment the burden is normally on the movants to show
“there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and [they are] entitled to
judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). But when, as here,
“public official[s] make[] a good-faith assertion of qualified immunity, that
alters the usual summary-judgment burden of proof, shifting it to the plaintiff
to show that the defense is not available.” Joseph ex rel. Estate of Joseph v.
Bartlett, 981 F.3d 319, 329–30 (5th Cir. 2020) (quotations omitted). Once
the burden is on the plaintiff, “[t]he plaintiff must show that there is a
genuine dispute of material fact and that a jury could return a verdict entitling
the plaintiff to relief for a constitutional injury.” Id. at 330.
Because both steps of the qualified immunity analysis are questions of
law, “[w]hen the district court identifies a factual dispute . . . we consider
only whether the district court correctly assessed the legal significance of the
facts it deemed sufficiently supported for purposes of summary judgment.”
Id. at 331 (cleaned up). We do not evaluate “whether the evidence in the
record would permit a jury to conclude that certain facts are true.” Id.7
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(cleaned up). “The plaintiff bears the burden of negating qualified immunity,
but all inferences are drawn in his favor.” Brown v. Callahan, 623 F.3d 249,
253 (5th Cir. 2010) (citation omitted).
In this case the district court appears to have misplaced the burden
onto Defendants. In considering whether Defendants’ conduct was
objectively unreasonable, the district court relied on the absence of evidence
to find there were genuine disputes of material fact.
As to Defendants Lewis and Lawton—who Frederick claims were
responsible for calculating and changing his release date—the district court
found “there [was] scarce, if any, evidence that demonstrates what Lewis
and Lawton did or did not do when it comes to calculating Frederick’s release
date.” Frederick v. LeBlanc, 563 F. Supp. 3d 527, 537–38 (M.D. La. Sept. 28,
2021). The district court denied Lewis and Lawton summary judgment
because it found they did “not br[ing] forth competent summary judgment
evidence establishing that there is no dispute as to [their] conduct, let alone
whether the conduct [was] shielded by qualified immunity.” Id. at 538. It
did so despite noting it could “scarcely conclude that a Defendant’s conduct
was objectively unreasonable without knowing what the conduct was.” Id.As to Defendants LeBlanc, Griffin, and Cooley—against whom
Frederick brought claims of supervisory liability—the district court likewise
relied on an absence of evidence to find genuine disputes of material fact.
The district court opinion notes a “a dearth of evidence regarding the
specific conduct of [Department] employees in this case that lead to
Frederick’s overdetention.” Id. at 539. The district court found that “[i]t
ha[d] not been established whether Mr. Frederick’s detention resulted from
a simple error in computation, from misapplication of state statutes, from
deficient [Department] policies, from absent [Department] policies, from
purposeful and retaliatory conduct, or some other series of events.” Id. And
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so, it “conclude[d] that the question of LeBlanc, Cooley, and Griffin’s
entitlement to qualified immunity cannot be resolved on the record before
it.” Id. at 539–40.
While the district court’s analysis may accord with the usual standard
at summary judgment, it doesn’t accord with the standard as it applies when
rebutting a qualified immunity defense. Recall that here it’s Plaintiff that
“must show that there is a genuine dispute of material fact and that a jury
could return a verdict entitling [him] to relief.” Joseph, 981 F.3d at 330. See
also Michalik v. Hermann, 422 F.3d 252, 262 (5th Cir. 2005) (“The plaintiff
bears the burden of negating the [qualified immunity] defense and cannot rest
on conclusory allegations and assertions but must demonstrate genuine
issues of material fact regarding the reasonableness of the officer’s
conduct.”). But the district court’s analysis doesn’t address whether
Frederick proffered evidence supporting a genuine dispute as to whether any
of the Defendants’ actions were objectively unreasonable. See generally
Frederick, 563 F. Supp. 3d at 537–40. Though the district court is correct that
it needn’t independently search the record to identify factual disputes, see id.
at 538, “[i]n the absence of an identification of summary judgment evidence
relied upon, we cannot affirm the denial of qualified immunity.” Dean v.
Phatak, 911 F.3d 286, 290 (5th Cir. 2018) (vacating and remanding where the
district court’s order cited allegations without reference to record evidence).
“Ideally, the district court’s order denying summary judgment based
on qualified immunity explains what facts the plaintiff may be able to prove
at trial.” Thompson v. Upshurt Cnty., 245 F.3d 447, 456 (5th Cir. 2001).
When the district court fails to do this and denies the motion because fact
issues remain, “[w]e can either scour the record and determine what facts
the plaintiff may be able to prove at trial and proceed to resolve the legal
issues, or remand so that the district court can clarify the order.” Id. Here
we think that both deference to the district court and our limited jurisdiction
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counsel that we decline to search the record further. See Dean, 911 F.3d at
290. See also Poole, 13 F.4th at 423 (noting limits on our jurisdiction).
Given the lack of findings drawn from the summary judgment record
to support the district court’s denial of qualified immunity, we decline to
embark on our own analysis of the record. Cf. Dean, 911 F.3d at 290 (vacating
and remanding to the district court to reconsider the motion for summary
judgment and noting that “[i]f the record fails of facts upon which a
reasonable jury could conclude that [defendant intentionally carried out the
challenged conduct], the district court should grant” summary judgment for
defendant); White v Balderama, 153 F.3d 237, 242 (5th Cir. 1998) (remanding
where that was “more efficient” than scouring the record to discern material
fact disputes).
Finally, because the qualified immunity defense available to state
officials under § 1983 applies with equal force to Frederick’s federal and state
constitutional claims, this analysis applies to the state constitutional claims
as well. See Burge v. Par. of St. Tammy, 187 F.3d 452, 482 (5th Cir. 1999)
(“[O]rders premised on the denial of qualified immunity in actions based on
Louisiana constitutional violation are appealable in a federal court action to
the same extent as district court orders premised on the denial of federal
qualified immunity.”). See also Moresi v. State ex rel. Dep’t of Wildlife &
Fisheries, 567 So. 2d 1081, 1093 (La. 1990) (“The same factors that compelled
the United States Supreme Court to recognize a qualified good faith
immunity for state officers under § 1983 require us to recognize a similar
immunity for them under any action arising from the state constitution.”).
C.
Defendants also argue the district court erred because Frederick’s
claims are Heck-barred. Because we remand on the qualified immunity issue,
we don’t reach the Heck issue. Cf. Colvin v. Leblanc, 2 F.4th 494, 498–99
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(5th Cir. 2021) (reaffirming that the Heck-bar is not jurisdictional). See also
Crittindon v. LeBlanc, 37 F.4th 177, 190 (5th Cir. 2022) (noting that Heck isn’t
a jurisdictional bar).
***
We vacate and remand the district court’s order denying Defendants
Lewis and Lawton qualified immunity and denying Defendants LeBlanc,
Griffin, and Cooley qualified immunity on the supervisory liability claims.
11