CA1: Where no clearly established law on entry into open door on 911 call, officers get QI

Officers get qualified immunity in a § 1983 case for entering a house where the neighbors called 911 to report the door was left open. Macdonald v. Town of Eastham, 745 F.3d 8 (1st Cir. 2014):

This appeal poses the question of whether police officers, responding to a call from a citizen concerned that the door to her absent neighbor’s home is standing wide open, have a right to enter the home in pursuance of their community caretaking function. While the answer to this question is freighted with uncertainty, that uncertainty points the way to the proper disposition of the case: because there is no clearly established law that would deter reasonable police officers from effecting such an entry, the individual defendants are entitled to qualified immunity. Consequently, we affirm the district court’s dismissal of the action.

. . .

The same sort of disarray is evident in the manner in which courts have attempted to define the interface between the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement and the community caretaking exception.3 For example, some courts “apply what appears to be a modified exigent circumstances test, with perhaps a lower threshold for exigency if the officer is acting in a community caretaking role.” Twp. of Warren, 626 F.3d at 176. Other courts steadfastly maintain that the exceptions are not congruent and must be analyzed and applied distinctly. See, e.g., Hunsberger v. Wood, 570 F.3d 546, 554 (4th Cir. 2009).

Given the profusion of cases pointing in different directions, it is apparent that the scope and boundaries of the community caretaking exception are nebulous. The plaintiff appears to concede that this rampant uncertainty exists. Nevertheless, he strives to convince us that, whatever the parameters of the exception, the circumstances here fall outside of it. We are not persuaded.

There is no real dispute about what the defendant officers did: they responded to a call from a concerned neighbor, saw the door to the plaintiff’s house standing wide open, announced their presence without receiving a reply, and proceeded to enter the home to ensure that nothing was amiss. They conducted their ensuing search in an unremarkable manner. These actions were at least arguably within the scope of the officers’ community caretaking responsibilities — and, given the parade of horribles that could easily be imagined had the officers simply turned tail, a plausible argument can be made that the officers’ actions were reasonable under the circumstances. The plaintiff disagrees. He contends that the officers’ actions were well outside what the law allows and that any reasonable officer should have known as much.

To evaluate the plaintiff’s contention, we must examine whether, at the time of the incident, there were either controlling cases or a consensus of persuasive authorities such that reasonable police officers could not have thought that their actions were lawful. See Barton v. Clancy, 632 F.3d 9, 22 (1st Cir. 2011). Manifestly, there is no directly controlling authority. The question thus reduces to whether a consensus of persuasive judicial decisions exists. We think not.