RIDGEWAY SUPERIOR COURT
REMOVELUNGS,
Plaintiff,
v.
ETHHAQN,
Defendant.
Case No. RSC-CV-494
STATE RESPONDENT’S MOTION TO
DISMISS
MOTION TO DISMISS
The Defendant in the above-entitled matter hereby files this motion to dismiss for failure
to state a claim as a response to the Plaintiff’s civil complaint. Rid R. Civ. P. 12(a)(5). This court
can also construe this as a motion for summary judgement in favor of the Defendant on the basis
of qualified immunity.
INTRODUCTION
Officer Ethhaqn made a good-faith decision to arrest an individual whose conduct he
thought offended the law. He cannot face liability for that decision on the tort alleged because
both sovereign and qualified immunity shield the defendant from liability, and because
regardless, on the facts alleged, the allegations fail to muster a cause of action.
ARGUMENT
I. STANDARD OF REVIEW
When faced with a motion to dismiss, this court must “assume the veracity” of
well-pleaded allegations. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 US 662 (2009). Allegations are “well-pleaded”
when the “factual allegations … raise a right to relief above the speculative level on the
assumption that all of the complaint's allegations are true.” Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550
US 544 (2007). If these factual allegations, assumed as true, do not support a claim for relief, the
suit must be dismissed.
II. THE CLAIM IS FORECLOSED BY SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY.
A. The Tort Invoked Does Not Explicitly Create Liability On The Government’s
Behalf.
Plaintiff is suing the Defendant in his official capacity for his actions conducted in the
course of his duties as a law enforcement officer in this State. Where a Plaintiff is silent on the
capacity of the Defendant, and the Defendant is being sued for actions taken in their official
capacity, this court should “interpret the complaint as including only official-capacity claims.”
Egerdahl v. Hibbing Community College, 72 F. 3d 6151 (1995).
As a cause of action, Plaintiff cites 1 R. Stat. §204 False Imprisonment. This cause of
action is unavailable for Plaintiffs suing a Defendant in their official capacity.
Section 2(b) of the Civil Claims Act outlines as follows: “[t]he government shall be
immune from all claims except those provided in this section, and later laws in which liability is
explicitly created against the government,” (emphasis added). Additionally, “[c]ases against an
individual in their official capacity as an agent of the government shall be construed as cases
against the government.” Civil Claims Act §2(d). In order for the government to be liable for a
tort action, the government’s liability has to be explicitly created against it. This means that the
Senate must speak clearly when it seeks to make the government liable for claims. When the
Senate wrote 1 R. Stat. § 204, they did not explicitly create liability for the government. Because
the statute does not cogently create liability for the government, “the government shall be
immune.” Civil Claims Act § 2(b).
B. Plaintiff Cannot Seek Monetary Damages Against the Government.
Plaintiff seeks $153 dollars in compensatory damages for lost property and $2,000 in
punitive damages. See Plaintiff’s Complaint, at 2. But “no monetary damage shall be awarded in
cases against the government, cases where the government is a party or cases where the
government has intervened.” Civil Claims Act §2(c). The only relief that Plaintiff seeks from the
Government cannot be awarded. And when relief cannot be granted, the case cannot proceed.
See Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555 (1992)(Holding that a Plaintiff must show that
the injury is “likely to be redressed by the requested relief” in order to have standing.)
III. IF THE COURT CONSTRUES THIS CASE AS A SUIT AGAINST THE
DEFENDANT'S INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY, THE CLAIM STILL CANNOT
MOVE FORWARD.
A. Defendant Has “Legal Authority” For Purposes of 1 R. Stat. § 204.
In order to make a claim of false imprisonment, the Plaintiff must be able to prove the
following elements: 1) The Defendant restrains or restricts a person's movement in an area; and,
2) is without legal authority or justification to do so. On the facts alleged, the Plaintiff’s claim
fails.
The Defendant is an “agent of the government through civil servitude within the Palmer
Police Department.” Plaintiff’s Complaint, at 1. He was acting in that capacity when he
performed the arrest of the Plaintiff for brandishing.
Palmer Police Officers retain the legal authority to perform arrests of citizens. See
generally, Incorporation of Ridgeway County §3. We recognize that this court has already found
that the Officer lacked probable cause to perform the arrest at issue in this case. But notably, the
cause of action stated creates a distinction between legal authority and justification. The Officer
may not have been justified in performing the arrest because he lacked probable cause, but he
did, nevertheless have the legal authority under the law to perform it. The use of the disjunctive
within the statute provides that even in the absence of justification, so long as an individual has
legal authority, they are not liable for false imprisonment. If the statute read that any individual
who, without legal authority and justification, imprisoned another shall be liable of false
imprisonment, then Plaintiff’s claim could survive. As it stands now, however, it doesn’t.
If this court accepts all of the facts alleged in the civil complaint as true, the Plaintiff has
still failed to state a claim of which entitles him to relief under the law.
B. Defendant Is Entitled To Qualified Immunity.
1. Common-Law Should Govern.
In determining whether or not to apply common-law doctrines from outside this
jurisdiction, the Ridgeway State Courts should engage in a two-part analysis: 1) to determine
whether or not the application of the doctrine would be practical or “palatable,” State of
Ridgeway v. InfinityTurtleXD, 1 Rid. ___ (2022); and 2) whether the Senate sought to impose
common-law considerations upon the courts through its language.
On the first question, common-law doctrine is practical if it tends to comport with our
system of Government. In order to determine this question as it relates specifically to qualified
immunity, we must first survey the basis for qualified immunity at the federal level.
In Pierson v. Ray, 386 US 547 (1967) the Supreme Court handed down its first case
which expressly recognized a qualified or good faith immunity to tort claims on the basis that 42
U.S.C § 1983 should "should be read against the background of tort liability that makes a man
responsible for the natural consequences of his actions,” and that, “[p]art of the background of
tort liability, in the case of police officers making an arrest, is the defense of good faith and
probable cause.” Id. (quoting Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167 (1961)). And on this basis, one of
common-law, they found that police officers retain some form of immunity when charged in their
individual capacity with a tort claim. The doctrine has since been developed and characterized as
a means to “balance[] two important interests—the need to hold public officials accountable
when they exercise power irresponsibly and the need to shield officials from harassment,
distraction, and liability when they perform their duties reasonably.” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 US
223 (2009). The rationale is that citizens should not go without redress when their constitutional
rights are violated, but also that public officials required to use their discretion should not be
inundated with lawsuits when they use it, or else that may deter them from making necessary
split-second decisions. The availability of qualified immunity as a defense to claims maintains
the indispensable values of law and order by preventing “distraction of officials from their
governmental duties, inhibition of discretionary action, and deterrence of able people from public
service.” Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 US 800 (1982). On this basis, it is fair to conclude that
qualified immunity is practical in our jurisdiction and comports with our general structure of
government. There are a series of constitutional guarantees provided to our citizens, and law
enforcement officers and other public officials alike are asked daily to make discretionary
decisions in the execution of their duties. The necessity to find harmony between the two
interests persists in this State as it does in our Country. More than that, the tort law handed down
from our legislature is similarly informed by the common-law tort schemes established and
affirmed for centuries. The application of qualified immunity in our jurisdiction is practical.
The second question is whether the Senate sought to impose these common-law
considerations. To make this determination, this court should turn first to the plain language of
the statutes available to it. Indeed, "[o]ur first task is to presume that a legislature says in a
statute what it means and means in a statute what it says there." Ridgeway Parks Service, et al. v.
SteKing2008, 1 Rid. ___ (2022)(cleaned up).
The phrase “qualified immunity” makes a single appearance in our laws. Section 2(i) of
the Civil Claims Act reads: “[q]qualified immunity shall not be a valid affirmative defense if the
Solicitor General refuses to defend an agent of the government.” From this language, it's clear
that the Senate sought to allow for considerations of qualified immunity. If the Senate said that
qualified immunity shall not be an available defense in one case, the language also expresses that
in all other cases, it shall be. The presumption implicit in this provision is that qualified
immunity is available except for where the provision provides. This conclusion, as well,
comports with well-established canons of statutory interpretation, notably, the
negative-implication cannon which provides that “[t]he expression of one thing implies the
exclusion of others.” A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts,
99-102 (2012). Conversely, the exclusion of one thing implies the expression of others.
The doctrine of qualified immunity is practical within our State, and the Senate made
expressly clear that it has a place here. Consideration of its doctrinal application to this case is
justified.
2. The Defendant Is Entitled To Qualified Immunity.
“Government officials performing discretionary functions, generally are shielded 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.” Fitzgerald, supra., at 818.
To decide this question, the relevant test is two-parts: 1) whether the facts that a plaintiff has
alleged make out a violation of a constitutional right; and 2) if the plaintiff has satisfied this first
step, the court must decide whether the right at issue was "clearly established" at the time of
defendant's alleged misconduct. See Saucier v. Katz, 533 US 194, 533 U.S., at 201, 121 S.Ct.
2151 (2001).
As to the first inquiry, Plaintiff has failed to allege the violation of a constitutional right.
Throughout their entire pleading, they do not name a right that has been violated. Nor, taken
together, do their allegations provide for the violation of a constitutional right.
If the court were to take on the job of pleading the Plaintiff’s case for them, and assume
generally that the Defendant's conduct had violated a right to be free from search and seizure
without “sufficient foundation,” Rid. Rid. Const. Art. I, § VIII, this court would find that the
constitutional right is not “clearly established.” Katz, supra., at 199. To decide whether a right is
clearly established, this court must decide “whether it would be clear to a reasonable officer that
his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted.” Katz, supra., at 202. By this court’s
own admission, the standard of probable cause is “fluid,” Memorandum of Law and Order, at 1,
and therefore, “we are ultimately left without a hard set of rules to govern whether something is
or, or is not probable cause.” Id. The question is whether a reasonable officer would have found
that the conduct at issue in this case was wrong. The Defendant in this case used his fair
judgment, based upon the totality of the circumstances, to come to a conclusion that he had
probable cause to enforce an arrest. See Affidavit of Ethhaqn. A reasonable officer, met with
those same considerations, would not have known that his conduct was unlawful. These types of
decisions are common-place. And with a fluid and ever-flexible standard as probable cause, it is
perpetually difficult to make that judgement. No reasonable officer standing in Ethhaqn’s shoes
would have known that the conduct was wrong.
The Officer made a good-faith judgement based upon the information available to him at
the time of the arrest. No reasonable officer would have known that the common-place actions
and decision making engaged in by the Defendant was wrong. On this basis, the Officer is
entitled to qualified immunity.
CONCLUSION
This court should dismiss the case for failure to state a claim, or grant summary
judgement in favor of the Defendant on the basis of qualified immunity.
Date: July 18, 2022 CLIFFORD
Deputy Solicitor General
Department of Justice
Counsel of Record
