Qualified Immunity

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WI Court of Appeals – District IV

Case Name: Jeremy Ryan, et al v. Charles Tubbs, et al

Case No. 2015AP1601

Officials: Kloppenburg, P.J., Lundsten, and Blanchard, JJ.

Focus: Qualified Immunity

The defendants in this civil rights action, who were at pertinent times employed by the State Capitol Police Department, appeal the circuit court’s denial of the defendants’ motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. The circuit court rejected the defendants’ qualified immunity defense, concluding that they violated the plaintiffs’ “clearly established” constitutional rights when the defendants enforced then-applicable administrative regulations requiring that anyone seeking to display a sign in the Wisconsin State Capitol must first obtain a permit. More specifically, the defendants issued citations to the sign-displaying plaintiffs who had not obtained permits and who refused to display the signs in areas of the Capitol building where the permit requirement had been temporarily suspended. We conclude that the defendants are entitled to qualified immunity because the plaintiffs have not met their burden of proving, “beyond debate,” that the defendants’ conduct violated “clearly established” rights of the plaintiffs under prior case law. Accordingly, we reverse, without needing to reach the questions of whether the then-applicable regulations were facially unconstitutional or unconstitutional as applied.

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.