Hattery and Shive-Hat-tery Engineers, Inc., violated any clearly established constitutional rights of the Third-Party Plaintiffs.

Hattery, however, argues that he is shielded from liability by qualified immunity. The Supreme Court, in Harlow v.

The test for qualified immunity at the summary judgment stage of a proceeding is an objective one: “to be clearly established, ‘[t]he contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that

Polk County also invoked Iowa’s qualified-immunity statute, codified at section 670.4A(1)(a), to argue dismissal of the policy claims was required as they did not rest on clearly established law.

Boese resisted, arguing Polk County was the lawful custodian of records on McCoy’s personal devices, that a violation of the county’s policy was a violation of the statute, and that the law on these issues was clearly established

and thus defeated the qualified-immunity claims.

In June 2021—between the date of Brinkman’s crash and the filing of her petition—a qualified-immunity amendment to the Iowa Municipal Tort Claims Act (IMTCA) took effect. 2021 Iowa Acts ch. 183, § 14 (codified at Iowa Code § 670

Instead, it is the existence or nonexistence of a historical social fact—whether the law was “clearly established at the time of the alleged violation.” The “clearly established” standard is thus inherently backward-looking.

Further, whether the law was clearly established is inextricably intertwined with the new qualified immunity defense and only relevant to this case to the 3 The court applied only the particularity and plausibility aspects of section

Qualified immunity operates to immunize police officers from liability where “their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known,” and in doing so

Qualified immunity protects officers from suit unless their conduct violates a clearly established constitutional right. See Saucier, 533 U.S. at 206.

As a result, the district court correctly applied the qualified immunity doctrine to shield the officers from liability. C.

Despite qualified immunity not being applicable to the case, the court analyzed the heightened pleading standards. Id.

established at the time of the alleged violation.”

This delineation implied that claims not subject to the qualified immunity defense could still be held to the heightened pleading standard. See id.; Doe, 20 N.W.3d at 806; see also Blanchard v.

“[T]he doctrine of qualified immunity protects government officials ‘from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would

In addressing a defendant’s claim of qualified immunity, “we consider, in any order, whether the facts alleged by the plaintiff ‘make out a violation of a constitutional right’ and whether that right was ‘clearly established’ at

The defendants contend the issue of qualified immunity is a legal question for the court to decide and this court wrongly found a jury question precluded the granting of qualified immunity.

Also, “[u]nder federal law, qualified immunity is not a defense to common law claims.” Id.

Doe explicitly used negligence hypotheticals as examples of claims which lack a “right, privilege, or immunity secured by law” that “was clearly established at the time of the alleged violation.”

So if a claim is one of common law, such as negligence, qualified immunity does not apply, and “neither does the heightened pleading standard.” Kahn, 22 N.W.3d at 258; see Iowa Code § 669 .14A.

Those questions are to be resolved early because qualified immunity not only serves as protection from liability—it protects government defendants from the risks and distractions of trial as well. See Harlow v.

But alleging that the law was clearly established is not the legislature’s imposition of a magic-words requirement.