10th Circuit SpotlightAgainst the backdrop of nationwide protests over police misconduct and a national debate over the scope of qualified immunity from constitutional claims, the Tenth Circuit addressed correction officers' qualified and sovereign immunity defenses in Sawyers v. Norton, — F.3d –, 2020 WL 3424927 (10th Cir. June 23, 2020). The circuit court affirmed the district court's rulings rejecting the officers' qualified immunity defense to Section 1983 claims and rejecting a sovereign immunity defense to tort claims brought under state law.

Factual and Procedural Background

Plaintiff George Sawyers set fire to an art gallery, believing that God had told him to do so.  While he was a pretrial detainee in the Rio Grande County Jail, he was so delusional that, among other troubling acts of self-harm, he removed his right eyeball from its socket to prevent it from being "harvested by witches." He then sued: (1) the county sheriff and three on-duty corrections officers in their individual capacities for deliberate indifference to his medical needs under 42 U.S.C §1983; (2) the sheriff in his official capacity under Section 1983 for failure to train and supervise the three officers; and (3) all four defendants in their individual and official capacities for negligence under Colorado law. The court observed that the official capacity claims were really claims against the county.

The district court granted defendants' summary judgment motions in most respects, but it denied qualified immunity to the three officers on the Section 1983 deliberate-indifference claim and denied sovereign immunity to the county on the state-law negligence claim. Defendants took an interlocutory appeal from these denials, which is permitted in some respects when a district court denies a either a qualified or sovereign immunity defense, but the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court's rulings on the immunity defenses.

Deliberate Indifference and Qualified Immunity Under Section 1983

The circuit court noted that it had appellate jurisdiction to review the qualified immunity ruling under the collateral order doctrine to the extent it involved "abstract issues of law." Id. at *6 (citation omitted). It did not, however, have jurisdiction to review the district court's factual conclusions.

To overcome a qualified immunity defense, "a plaintiff must show (1) facts demonstrating the officials violated a federal constitutional or statutory right, which (2) was clearly established at the time of the defendant's conduct." Id. at *7. A qualified immunity defense succeeds if a plaintiff fails to establish either element. Kerns v. Bader, 663 F.3d 1173, 1180 (10th Cir. 2011) ("In fact, the Supreme Court has recently instructed that courts should proceed directly to, 'should address only,' and should deny relief exclusively based on the second element, in seven particular circumstances outlined in Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 236–42, 129 S.Ct. 808, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009)[.]") (citations omitted).