Qualified Immunity

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Victoria Weiland, et al. v. Shawn Loomis

Case No.: 18-2054

Officials: EASTERBROOK, KANNE, and BRENNAN, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Qualified Immunity

Tywon Salters, a pretrial detainee in Kane County, Illinois, swallowed some cleaning fluid, apparently in an effort to commit suicide. He was taken to Delnor Community Hospital for treatment. Guards were instructed to keep him shackled. Shawn Loomis, one of those guards, disobeyed that order when Salters claimed that he needed to use the bathroom. Salters grabbed Loomis’s gun and escaped. While Salters terrorized the Hospital’s staff, patients, and visitors, Loomis ran away and hid. Salters took nurses hostage at gunpoint and assaulted two of them. After three hours a SWAT team cornered Salters and killed him. This appeal arises from claims under 42 U.S.C. §1983 by two persons at the Hospital who were frightened but not physically injured. (Other claims have been settled.)

The defendants in the suit include Loomis, Kane County (which employed Loomis as a correctional officer), Delnor Hospital, and Apex3 Security, LLC, which the Hospital hired to provide security for its premises. The appeal, however, concerns only Loomis, who moved to dismiss the complaint on the ground of qualified immunity. A public employee is entitled to immunity in §1983 litigation unless, at the time of the events in question, “clearly established” law would have made apparent to any public employee that his or her acts violated the Constitution. See, e.g., Escondido v. Emmons, 139 S. Ct. 500 (2019). Loomis argued that it had not been (and still is not) clearly established that permitting a prisoner to escape violates the Constitution. He relied principally on DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189 (1989), which holds that the Constitution, as a charter of negative liberties, does not require the government to protect the public from private predators—and it was Salters, not Loomis, who inflicted plaintiffs’ injuries.

It is enough to say that even if Loomis is civilly and criminally liable as a matter of Illinois law, he is entitled to qualified immunity from a claim based on the federal Constitution, so the district court’s decision is reversed.

Reversed

Derek A Hawkins is trademark corporate counsel for Harley-Davidson. Hawkins oversees the prosecution and maintenance of the Harley-Davidson’s international trademark portfolio in emerging markets.