Opinion
Case No. 3:05-cv-873-J-33MCR.
February 28, 2008
ORDER
This cause comes before the Court pursuant to Defendants' Motion to Stay Discovery and Other Proceedings Pending Appeal (Doc. # 114), filed on January 9, 2008. In this motion, defense counsel represent that they conferred with the plaintiffs' counsel and learned that the plaintiffs oppose the relief sought. (Doc. # 114, at 2.) Nevertheless, the plaintiffs have not filed a memorandum in opposition, and the time to do so has expired. The Court now grants the defendants' motion to stay discovery pending resolution of their interlocutory appeal.
In August 2007, the defendants filed motions to dismiss, arguing inter alia that qualified immunity protects them from this lawsuit. The Court denied these motions, and the defendants filed an interlocutory appeal on the qualified immunity issue. In their current motion, the defendants point out that qualified immunity insulates public officials not only from liability but also from the burdens of defending unwarranted lawsuits, including the burden of discovery. (See Doc. # 114, at 3.) To protect that feature of qualified immunity, discovery should be stayed until the qualified immunity issue is resolved. (Doc. # 114, at 3.)
The Court agrees. Qualified immunity protects certain government officials who do in fact violate the law so long as the relevant law was not clearly established at the time. To protect such officials from the burdens of litigation in cases where the law was not clearly established, courts should not allow discovery until that threshold question is resolved. Harlow v. Fitzgelald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). The Court for its part resolved that threshold question in its Order denying the motions to dismiss, concluding that the relevant law was clearly established. (Doc. # 110, at 20 (explaining that Taylor v. Ledbetter, 818 F.2d 791 (11th Cir. 1987), clearly established rule that deliberate indifference to a serious risk of harm to a foster child in the foster home will open a DCFS employee to liability).) The defendants, however, took an interlocutory appeal challenging the Court's resolution of that legal question.See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 528 (1985) (explaining that such an appeal requires appellate court only to determine question of law: "whether the legal norms allegedly violated by the defendant were clearly established at the time of the challenged actions"). Thus, this threshold question is now before the Eleventh Circuit and has not yet been resolved by that court. Until the Eleventh Circuit determines whether or not the relevant law was clearly established, the defendants should not be subjected to the burdens of discovery.
Accordingly, it is
ORDERED, ADJUDGED, and DECREED:
1. Defendants' Motion to Stay Discovery and Other Proceedings Pending Appeal (Doc. # 114) is hereby GRANTED.
2. Discovery is hereby stayed pending further order of this Court.
3. The parties shall promptly inform this Court of any ruling in this matter from the Eleventh Circuit.
DONE and ORDERED in Chambers in Jacksonville, Florida.