From Zorn v. Linton, decided today in an unsigned per curiam opinion:
On the Governor's inauguration day in Vermont, protesters staged a sit-in at the state capitol. When the capitol closed for the day, police officers told them that they would be arrested for trespassing. They refused to leave. As officers removed the protesters one by one, Sergeant Jacob Zorn asked Shela Linton to stand up and warned her that he would eventually have to use force to remove her. She refused to stand.
Zorn took Linton's arm, put it behind her back, placed pressure on her wrist, and lifted her to her feet. Linton sued Zorn for using excessive force, claiming that the arrest left her with arm injuries and psychological disorders. The Second Circuit held that Zorn was not entitled to qualified immunity. We reverse….
Government officials enjoy qualified immunity from suit under § 1983 unless their conduct violates clearly established law. "A right is clearly established when it is 'sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would have understood that what he is doing violates that right.'" A right is not clearly established if existing precedent does not place the constitutional question "'beyond debate.'"
To find that a right is clearly established, courts generally "need to identify a case where an officer acting under similar circumstances … was held to have violated" the Constitution. The relevant precedent must define the right with a "high degree of specificity," so that "every reasonable official would interpret it to establish the particular rule the plaintiff seeks to apply." Principles stated generally, such as that "an officer may not use unreasonable and excessive force," do not suffice. In short, officers receive qualified immunity unless they could have "read" the relevant precedent beforehand and "know[n]" that it proscribed their specific conduct.
