Chafin v. Stasi et al

Filing 85

ORDER granting 59 Motion to Stay Discovery, by Magistrate Judge Michael E. Hegarty on 6/25/2014. (cpear)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
Civil Action No. 13-cv-02661-WYD-MEH
DANIELE CHAFIN,
Plaintiff,
v.
NICHOLAS STASI,
KELLI JAYCOX,
MICHAEL, a Durango Community Recreation Center Employee Whose Last Name is
Unknown, and
THE CITY OF DURANGO,
Defendants.

ORDER ON MOTION TO STAY

Before the Court is Defendants’ Motion to Stay Discovery [filed May 29, 2014; docket #59].
Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(A) and D.C. Colo. LCivR 72.1C, the motion was referred to this
Court for disposition. (Docket #60.) The matter is fully briefed, and the Court held oral argument
on June 18, 2014. For the reasons that follow, the Court grants the motion.
I.

Background
Plaintiff initiated this lawsuit on October 1, 2013. Defendants first raised the defense of

qualified immunity in a Motion to Dismiss filed on December 13, 2013. The Motion to Dismiss was
denied as moot when Plaintiff filed an Amended Complaint on January 15, 2014. It was not re-filed
at that time. Since then, the parties have engaged in written discovery. The discovery deadline is
August 1, 2014. On May 29, 2014, Defendants again raised a qualified immunity defense in a
Motion for Summary Judgment.

(Docket #57.)
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The Motion for Summary Judgment was

accompanied by the present Motion to Stay Discovery. Plaintiff opposes the Motion to Stay on
grounds that he needs to engage in eight depositions to adequately respond to the Motion for
Summary Judgment. (Docket #74.)
II.

Discussion
Qualified immunity is not only a defense to liability but also entitlement to immunity from

suit and other demands of litigation. Siegert v. Gilley, 500 U.S. 226 (1991). Discovery should not
be allowed until the court resolves the threshold question whether the law was clearly established
at the time the allegedly unlawful action occurred. Id. The question is purely legal, and a court
cannot avoid answering the question by framing it as factual. Pueblo Neighborhood Health Ctrs.,
Inc. v. Losavio, 847 F.2d 642, 646 (10th Cir. 1988). The court must first determine whether the
actions defendants allegedly took are “actions that a reasonable [person] could have believed
lawful.” Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 646 n. 6 (1987). If the actions are those that a
reasonable person could have believed were lawful, defendants are entitled to summary judgment
before discovery. If the actions are not those that a reasonable person could have believed were
lawful, then discovery may be necessary before a motion for summary judgment on qualified
immunity grounds can be resolved. However, any such discovery must be tailored specifically to
the immunity question. Id. at 646–47 n. 6.
In the present case, the parties have already engaged in extensive written discovery. Plaintiff
contends that he needs more information to support his argument that the Defendants did not
reasonably believe their actions to be lawful. However, it remains unclear what specific facts
Plaintiff would obtain through depositions that are not already in his possession. In his oral
argument, Plaintiff went through one-by-one each of the thirty-nine “Unopposed Material Facts”

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proposed by the Defendants in their Motion for Summary Judgment, and Plaintiff described with
regard to each “Material Fact” what additional facts he intends to inquire about at the depositions.
To the extent Plaintiff disputes the material facts, he may state his description of the events by
affidavit with his response to the Motion for Summary Judgment. See Holt v. United States, 46 F.3d
1000, 1003 (10th Cir. 1995). To the extent Plaintiff raises a number of areas about which he intends
to inquire at the depositions, most of those involve counsel’s speculation concerning what witnesses
might say that would contradict their existing statements and discovery responses; a stay of
discovery pending the resolution of a qualified immunity defense is designed to prevent precisely
this kind of general fishing expedition. In any event, it is my firm belief that virtually all of the
allegations of undisputed material fact can be effectively disputed by Plaintiff’s own version of the
events and, thus, the Defendants’ entitlement to a stay of discovery outweighs Plaintiff’s need for
additional discovery related to the Motion for Summary Judgment. See String Cheese Incident, LLC
v. Stylus Shows, Inc., 2006 WL 894955 *3 (D. Colo. March 30, 2006) (unpublished) (citing FDIC
v. Renda, 1987 WL 348635, *2 (D. Kan. Aug. 6, 1987)) (outlining the factors courts weigh in
deciding whether to grant a stay).
Although Plaintiff argues that a number of inquiries would assist in responding to the Motion
for Summary Judgment, Plaintiff’s reasons for proceeding with the depositions are mostly founded
on grounds that the undisputed facts do not support the legal conclusions drawn by Defendants in
their Motion for Summary Judgment. Such challenges to legal conclusions, along with any
disagreement with their underlying factual basis, can be appropriately (and, if well founded,
effectively) raised in a response to the Motion for Summary Judgment.
Although “the Supreme Court has repeatedly ‘stressed the importance of resolving immunity

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questions at the earliest possible stage in litigation,’” Albright v. Rodriguez, 51 F.3d 1531, 1534
(10th Cir. 1995)(citation omitted), the Defendants in this case have not waited an unusual or
unreasonable amount of time to raise a qualified immunity defense. Indeed, they first raised the
defense in January 2014 in a Motion to Dismiss [docket #28], but that motion was denied as moot
when the Plaintiff filed an amended complaint. A qualified immunity defense is not always
appropriate before the initiation of discovery, and government employees do not waive the
protection of a discovery stay by engaging in some discovery. See Herrera v. Santa Fe Public
Schools, No. Civ. 11-0422, 2012 WL 6846393 (D.N.M. Dec. 20, 2012) (granting a motion to stay
discovery eighteen months after plaintiffs filed their action and a year after discovery began). The
policy behind qualified immunity – to protect government employees from suit where they were
acting within the constitutional bounds of their official authority – would not be served if courts
imposed limits as to when the protections from suit may be sought. See Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457
U.S. 800, 807 (1982) (noting that qualified immunity reflects “the need to protect officials who are
required to exercise their discretion and the related public interest in encouraging the vigorous
exercise of official authority”).
III.

Conclusion
Accordingly, for the reasons stated above, it is hereby ORDERED that Defendants’ Motion

to Stay Discovery [filed May 29, 2014; docket #59] is granted.
Dated at Denver, Colorado, this 24th day of June, 2014.
BY THE COURT:

Michael E. Hegarty
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United States Magistrate Judge

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