The Obvious Violation Exception to Qualified Immunity: An Empirical Study

Qualified immunity shields government officials from civil suits for discretionary actions, as long as the violated right is not clearly established. A right is deemed established when every reasonable official would understand it based on precedent, placing it beyond debate, such that only the plainly incompetent may be held liable. Consequently, even when an act infringes on one's civil rights, a court may deny relief owing to a lack of factually comparable precedent. However, in 2020, the Supreme Court indicated its distrust for overreliance on precedent in certain contexts. In Taylor v. Riojas, the Court held that prison officials violated an incarcerated individual's clearly established rights, regardless of case law, where the allegations presented "extreme circumstances" and "egregious facts." Thus, Taylor articulated an exception to the usual requirement for overcoming qualified immunity - showing a factually comparable precedent - in cases that raise extreme circumstances and egregious facts. This Article offers the first empirical study encompassing all published lower court opinions referencing Taylor within the three years following its release. This inquiry includes a quantitative analysis of the cases applying Taylor to grant or deny immunity, as well as a qualitative examination of the factual situations where the exception is most likely to succeed. Accordingly, this study suggests that the obvious violation exception is viable, albeit underused. Inferior courts are applying it in situations beyond the Eighth Amendment, and it is subject to a workable test. Therefore, Courts and litigants should employ it more frequently. Finally, the exception is consistent with Taylor and furthers the purpose of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, by preventing blatant civil rights abusers from evading consequences.