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Qualified Immunity: Round Two, Andrew Coan, Delorean Forbes

Washington and Lee Law Review

For the first time in its fifty-year history, the future of qualified immunity is in serious doubt. The doctrine may yet survive for many years. But thanks largely to the recent mass movement for racial justice, major reform and abolition are now live possibilities. This development raises a host of questions that have been little explored in the voluminous literature on qualified immunity because its abolition has been so difficult to imagine before now. Perhaps the most pressing is how overworked federal courts will respond to a substantial influx of new cases fueled by qualified immunity’s curtailment or demise. Might …

Supervisors Without Supervision: Colon, Mckenna, And The Confusing State Of Supervisory Liability In The Second Circuit, Ryan E. Johnson

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Note received the 2019 Washington and Lee Law Council Law Review Award.

This Note analyzes two intra-Second Circuit splits that make it nearly impossible for prisoners to recover against supervisors under § 1983. First, district courts in the Second Circuit are divided as to whether the five categories of personal involvement defined in Colon v. Coughlin survive the Supreme Court’s decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal. Personal involvement by the supervisory defendant is a necessary element to impose supervisory liability. Some district courts hold that only the first and third Colon factors survive Iqbal, while others hold that all …