Tolan v. Cotton

Tolan v. Cotton
Supreme Court of the United States
Decided May 5, 2014
Full case name	Tolan v. Cotton
Citations	572 U.S. 650 ( more )
Holding
When resolving questions of qualified immunity at summary judgment, a court must take all facts in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, including whether a constitutional right was clearly established.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Antonin Scalia  · Anthony Kennedy Clarence Thomas  · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer  · Samuel Alito Sonia Sotomayor  · Elena Kagan
Case opinions
Per curiam
Concurrence	Alito (in judgment), joined by Scalia

Tolan v. Cotton, 572 U.S. 650(2014), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that, when resolving questions of qualified immunity at summary judgment, a court must take all facts in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, including whether a constitutional right was clearly established. ^{[1] [2]}

Background

Police sergeant Jeffrey Cotton fired three bullets at Robert Tolan; one of those bullets punctured Tolan's right lung. At the time of the shooting, Tolan was unarmed on his parents' front porch about 15 to 20 feet away from Cotton. Tolan sued, alleging that Cotton had exercised excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The district court granted summary judgment to Cotton, and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, reasoning that regardless of whether Cotton used excessive force, he was entitled to qualified immunity because he did not violate any clearly established right. ^[1]

References

1. Tolan v. Cotton, 572 U.S. 650 (2014).
2. Howard M. Wasserman, Mixed Signals on Summary Judgment, 2014 Mich. St. L. Rev. 1331 (2014).

External links

• Text of Tolan v. Cotton, 572 U.S. 650(2014) is available from: Cornell Findlaw Justia

This article incorporates written opinion of a United States federal court. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the text is in the public domain .