Background
Tamala Jones filed a Section nineteen eighty-three action and state law claims against police officers Logan Kulesa and Shawn Jones following the death of her son, Tramon Savage, during a police encounter. The officers moved for summary judgment based on qualified immunity, which the district court denied due to genuine disputes of fact regarding the reasonableness of the force used. The officers filed an interlocutory appeal challenging that denial.
The court’s reasoning
The court explained that jurisdiction in qualified immunity appeals is limited to purely legal questions. The officers’ arguments required the court to resolve whether Savage posed an immediate threat after his vehicle struck a wall and stopped, which the court identified as a factual dispute. The court found that the video evidence did not blatantly contradict the district court’s factual findings, and therefore the appeal could not proceed.
Because this interlocutory appeal of qualified immunity advances factual arguments beyond the scope of our jurisdiction, we must dismiss this appeal.
Opinion at page six
What it means going forward
The dismissal leaves the district court’s denial of qualified immunity in place, allowing the excessive force claims to proceed to trial where a jury will resolve the factual disputes.