Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 1982

Harlow v. Fitzgerald

457 U.S. 800 | 102 S. Ct. 2727 | 73 L. Ed. 2d 396 | 1982 U.S. LEXIS 139

Full access

Unlock the video and quiz

The written brief is free to read below. Subscribe to watch the video explainer and take the quiz.

Create an account Log in

Takeaway

In short, this case made qualified immunity largely objective: officials are generally protected unless they violate clearly established law a reasonable official would have known, while senior Presidential aides receive absolute immunity only for narrowly justified special functions.

Background

A. Ernest Fitzgerald, an Air Force management analyst, alleged that senior Nixon White House aides Bryce Harlow and Alexander Butterfield participated in a conspiracy to retaliate against him for disclosing information to Congress about cost overruns and procurement practices. Fitzgerald claimed that Harlow discussed his prospective dismissal with Air Force Secretary Robert Seamans and that Butterfield helped block his reemployment after his termination. Harlow and Butterfield denied participating in any unlawful scheme and maintained that their actions were taken in good faith.

After extensive discovery, Harlow, Butterfield, and former President Nixon moved for summary judgment. The District Court held that Fitzgerald had stated viable First Amendment and implied statutory claims, found disputed factual issues, and denied the aides' claims of absolute immunity. Harlow and Butterfield appealed under the collateral-order doctrine, but the D.C. Circuit dismissed the appeal without opinion. The Supreme Court granted review to determine the immunity available to senior Presidential aides in damages suits arising from official acts.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether the Court could review the District Court's denial of the aides' immunity defense before final judgment.

Holding

Yes. The denial of an immunity defense was immediately reviewable under the collateral-order doctrine.

Reasoning

The Court treated its jurisdiction as controlled by its companion decision in Nixon v. Fitzgerald. A denial of immunity may be reviewed before final judgment because immunity is meant to protect officials not merely from ultimate liability, but from the burdens of litigation itself.

Issue #2

Whether senior White House aides receive blanket absolute immunity from civil damages suits merely because they serve the President.

Holding

No. Presidential aides generally receive qualified immunity, not absolute immunity, for their official acts.

Reasoning

The Court began with the principle that qualified immunity is the ordinary rule for executive officials. Although absolute immunity protects certain functions, such as legislative acts, judicial acts, prosecutorial acts, and the President's official acts, a high executive rank alone does not justify total immunity from damages liability.

Butz v. Economou controlled the general question. That case denied absolute immunity to Cabinet officials despite their substantial authority and close accountability to the President. The Court reasoned that it would be untenable to grant every White House subordinate greater protection than Cabinet members, who often bear responsibilities at least as substantial.

The Court rejected the aides' argument that they should inherit the President's absolute immunity as his functional alter egos. Gravel v. United States extended legislative immunity to congressional aides because of the Speech and Debate Clause and only for legislative acts. The Court's immunity doctrine is functional, so immunity extends no further than the particular function that justifies it.

The Court did not rule out absolute immunity for a Presidential aide who performs an exceptionally sensitive function, such as one involving national security or foreign policy. But the aide bears the burden of showing both that public policy requires a complete shield for that specific function and that the challenged conduct occurred while performing it. On the existing record, Harlow and Butterfield had not made that showing.

Issue #3

What standard governs qualified immunity for government officials performing discretionary functions in civil damages actions.

Holding

Officials are shielded from damages liability unless their conduct violated clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.

Reasoning

The Court concluded that the prior good-faith formulation, which included an inquiry into the official's subjective intent or malice, imposed excessive litigation costs. Questions about an official's state of mind commonly require broad discovery and are difficult to resolve on summary judgment, especially where discretionary policy judgments are involved.

Those costs are particularly serious for high officials. Litigation can divert official energy, deter capable people from public service, discourage decisive action, and intrude into sensitive governmental deliberations. An immunity doctrine that permits broad discovery into subjective motives would fail to provide the early protection that qualified immunity is supposed to offer.

The Court therefore made the doctrine predominantly objective. A court should determine what law governed at the time of the challenged conduct and whether that law was clearly established. If it was not, the official ordinarily cannot fairly be expected to have anticipated that the conduct was unlawful.

The threshold immunity issue should be resolved before discovery proceeds. If clearly established law made the conduct unlawful, qualified immunity ordinarily fails because a reasonably competent official is expected to know the law. The Court preserved a narrow exception for an official who proves extraordinary circumstances showing that the official neither knew nor should have known the relevant legal standard.

Issue #4

Whether Harlow and Butterfield were entitled to summary judgment on the existing record under the newly articulated qualified-immunity standard.

Holding

The Court did not decide that question and remanded for the District Court to reconsider it under the new objective standard.

Reasoning

The District Court was more familiar with the developed factual record and better positioned to determine whether Fitzgerald's claims survived summary judgment under the revised qualified-immunity rule. The Supreme Court therefore vacated the judgment and remanded rather than applying the new standard itself.

The Court also declined to decide whether Fitzgerald had valid implied causes of action under the cited statutes or a viable Bivens claim under the First Amendment. The Court had taken the case to resolve the immunity question, leaving those underlying claims for fuller consideration below.

Concurrences

Justice Brennan

Reasoning

Justice Brennan agreed with the Court's substantive standard but stressed that an official who actually knew that an action violated the Constitution cannot avoid liability simply because a reasonable official might not have been expected to know the law. In his view, the standard preserves liability for a knowing and unusually well-informed constitutional violator.

He also cautioned that some discovery concerning what an official actually knew may sometimes be necessary. Still, a trial court may defer that discovery while first deciding whether the plaintiff can establish a constitutional violation and whether the law was sufficiently clear to defeat summary judgment.

Justice Brennan

Reasoning

Justice Brennan, joined in this statement by Justices White, Marshall, and Blackmun, joined the Court's opinion but disavowed any implication that Nixon v. Fitzgerald had been correctly decided. They had dissented from the companion case granting the President absolute immunity for official acts.

Justice Rehnquist

Reasoning

Justice Rehnquist stated that he would readily reconsider Butz v. Economou if a majority of the Court were willing to do so. But because Butz remained controlling precedent, he agreed that the Court's opinion correctly resolved the case.

Dissents

Chief Justice Burger

Reasoning

Chief Justice Burger argued that senior Presidential aides who function as the President's closest alter egos should receive derivative absolute immunity for acts performed in carrying out Presidential functions. In his view, this follows from the same functional reasoning that Gravel used to extend Speech and Debate Clause immunity to congressional aides.

He distinguished Butz on the ground that Cabinet officers are department heads rather than the President's intimate, day-to-day personal assistants. A President's senior aides, he reasoned, directly implement Presidential decisions and are indispensable to the President's ability to perform the constitutional duties of the office.

Without absolute immunity, Burger warned, Presidential aides would face litigation, discovery, and judicial inquiry into the inner workings of the Presidency. Those burdens would chill their advice and decisionmaking, discourage qualified people from public service, and diminish the effective functioning of the Executive Branch.