Sharrar v. Felsing

Status

532 later cases cite Sharrar v. Felsing; 78 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Treatments

Limited

• The Third Circuit confined Sharrar's allowance for juries to assess objective reasonableness when facts are disputed: a judge decides whether an officer's mistake of law warrants qualified immunity.

  Curley v. Klem · Third Circuit · filed August 24, 2007

  Our precedents too have evolved. Our recent precedents say that the court, not a jury, should decide whether there is immunity in any given case. E.g., Harvey v. Plains Twp. Police Dept., 421 F.3d 185, 194 n. 12 (3d Cir.2005); Carswell v. Borough of Homestead, 381 F.3d 235, 242 (3d Cir.2004); Doe v. Groody, 361 F.3d 232, 238 (3d Cir.2004). But that was not always our counsel. We had previously permitted the jury to answer the key immunity question of whether the challenged behavior of a government official was objectively reasonable. In Sharrar v. Felsing, 128 F.3d 810, 830-31 (3d Cir.1997), we referred with approval to our earlier decision in Karnes v. Skrutski, 62 F.3d 485 (3d Cir.1995), characterizing it as holding that, “a factual dispute relating to qualified immunity must be sent to the jury, and suggesting] that, at the same time, the jury would decide the issue of objective reasonableness.” Sharrar, 128 F.3d at 830-31. Later, in Curley I, we cited Sharrar for the proposition “that a jury can evaluate objective reasonableness when relevant factual issues are in dispute.” 298 F.3d at 279. We also went on to say, however, that it would not be inappropriate “for a judge to decide the objective reasonableness issue once all the historical facts are no longer in dispute[,]” and we suggested the use of special interrogatories as a means to that end. Id. Finally, in a line of cases beginning with Doe v. Groody, we began highlighting that “qualified immunity is an objective question to be decided by the court as a matter of law.” Carswell, 381 F.3d at 242 (citing Doe, 361 F.3d at 238). In Carswell, we elaborated on that point. We explained that the jury “determines disputed historical facts material to the qualified immunity question[,]” and we again suggested that “District Courts may use special interrogatories to allow juries to perform this function,” id. (citing Curley I, 298 F.3d at 279). We emphasized that “[t]he court must make the ultimate determination on the availability of qualified immunity as a matter of law.” Id. That emphasis reemerged in Harvey, when we cited Carswell and Doe for the proposition that qualified immunity is purely a question of law to be answered by the court. 421 F.3d at 194 n. 12. There is some irony in this, since Carswell relied on Curley I and Sharrar, correctly citing them as support for the proposition that objective reasonableness is a question of law. But neither Curley I nor Sharrar stand for the related proposition that the question of objective reasonableness cannot be presented to a jury. Indeed they both teach “that a jury can evaluate objective reasonableness when relevant factual issues are in dispute.” Curley I, 298 F.3d at 279; see also Sharrar, 128 F.3d at 830-31. Nevertheless, the Carswell approach, despite its limitations, see infra at section III. C., appears to have taken root and to represent the pattern and practice both in our Circuit and much of the rest of the country. We therefore take the opportunity to reiterate and clarify a central message from that case: whether an officer made a reasonable mistake of law and is thus entitled to qualified immunity is a question of law that is properly answered by the court, not a jury.

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