Garcia v. Orta

Summary

The Fifth Circuit held that San Antonio police officers were entitled to qualified immunity in a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleging that Garcia was detained without probable cause based on false statements. The court concluded that video and audio evidence established that Garcia operated a motor vehicle and that the vehicle was in a public place under Texas law. The court reversed the district court and rendered judgment for the defendants.

Holdings

1. Arguments not raised and pressed in the district court are forfeited on appeal, even when the plaintiff bears the burden of rebutting qualified immunity.
2. On an interlocutory appeal from denial of qualified immunity, the court may consider whether objective record evidence blatantly contradicts or utterly discredits the nonmoving party’s version of events, but it may not ordinarily decide whether a genuine factual dispute exists.
3. The officers were entitled to qualified immunity because the record, viewed under the Scott standard, established facts supporting a reasonable belief that Garcia operated a motor vehicle while intoxicated.
4. Under the totality of the circumstances, Garcia operated a motor vehicle because he was in the driver’s seat, the vehicle moved while he was there, and he applied the brakes, regardless of whether his personal effort caused substantial movement.
5. The driveway to the construction site was a public place under Texas law because it was publicly accessible and immediately adjacent to a public roadway.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the defendants forfeited qualified-immunity arguments not presented to the district court.
2. Whether the Fifth Circuit had interlocutory jurisdiction to consider whether video and photographic evidence blatantly contradicted Garcia’s version of the facts.
3. Whether the officers were entitled to qualified immunity because the evidence established that Garcia operated a motor vehicle under Texas law.
4. Whether the vehicle was located in a public place under Texas law, thereby supplying probable cause for a driving-while-intoxicated charge.

Disposition

reversed