Editor’s Note: Law Week Colorado edits court opinion summaries for style and, when necessary, length.
Officers in and around Mesa County, Colorado, were on the hunt for a stolen Sno-Cat. They suspected Patricia Cuervo’s son had parked the Sno-Cat in her garage, so the officers rang her doorbell. Nobody answered, but at least one officer believed he observed someone inside the residence.
Cuervo’s property included both the garage and the attached residence,but only the garage could have housed the Sno-Cat, according to the opinion.
Two hours later, officers obtained a search warrant authorizing the search of the property for the Sno-Cat. Officers made no further attempt to establish contact with anyone who might have been inside the residence when they returned with the warrant. Instead, they fired or helped fire chemical munitions into the residence. The search of the home turned up no humans—only a dog.
The claims at issue in this case relate to damage caused by the officers’ unlawful forced entry into the residence, use of hazardous chemicals and failure to close the windows and secure the doors when they left, according to the opinion.
Cuervo sued more than two dozen officers from multiple departments, asserting Fourth and Fifth Amendment violations. The defendants claimed qualified immunity and moved to dismiss. The district court granted the motion.
In reaching its decision, the district court considered documents outside the pleadings, despite Cuervo’s objection that the district court couldn’t consider outside documents without converting the motion to dismiss to a motion for summary judgment and allowing the parties to conduct discovery.
Cuervo then filed a more detailed first amended complaint. The defendants moved to dismiss, asserting qualified immunity, and the district court granted the motion and dismissed Cuervo’s claims.
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the district court erred by relying on outside documents. The 10th Circuit concluded that because the first amended complaint doesn’t reference the outside document, and because that outside document isn’t central to any claim in the first amended complaint, the district court couldn’t properly consider it when ruling on a motion to dismiss the first amended complaint.
The 10th Circuit held that if the district court wished to consider the outside document, it was required to convert the motion to dismiss into a motion for a summary judgment and allow any appropriate discovery.
The court concluded that Cuervo sufficiently alleged that the defendants violated her Fourth Amendment rights based on their entry into her residence, apart from her garage, and their use of excessive force.
The court also concluded that the defendants violated Cuervo’s clearly established Fourth Amendment rights by failing to knock and announce their presence, and that Cuervo satisfied the two prongs necessary to overcome the defendants’ qualified immunity defense at the pleading stage.
The 10th Circuit reversed and remanded the case.
Interstate Medical Licensure Compact Commission v. Bowling
This appeal arose from the aftermath of Wanda Bowling’s contract with the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact Commission. When the contract ended, Bowling allegedly withheld IMLCC’s login information for three online accounts, according to the opinion.
IMLCC sued for breach of contract, and Bowling counterclaimed for libel and misclassification of her employment status.
The district court dismissed the counterclaim for misclassification of employment status and granted summary judgment to IMLCC on all other claims.
Bowling appealed, raising six issues: subject-matter jurisdiction on IMLCC’s claims, liability for breach of contract, damages for breach of contract, leave to amend, sua sponte award of summary judgment and substantial truth.
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s finding of diversity jurisdiction, found IMLCC adequately alleged the amount in controversy and upheld the district court’s finding of subject-matter jurisdiction.
But the 10th Circuit found that the contract in dispute was ambiguous on the matter of the login information, and that this ambiguity required the district court to deny summary judgment, leaving interpretation to the factfinder.
The 10th Circuit also found that a genuine dispute of material fact existed on whether Bowling caused IMLCC damages, as IMLCC didn’t establish as a matter of law that the extra costs had resulted from Bowling’s purported breaches of contract.
The 10th Circuit concluded that the district court didn’t abuse its discretion when it denied Bowling’s motion for leave to amend and that it didn’t commit reversible error in granting summary judgment to IMLCC on Bowling’s counterclaim for libel.
According to the opinion, the district court did err in its sua sponte judgment because it relied on a qualified privilege without giving notice to Bowling, but despite the error, all the statements at issue were substantially true.
The 10th Circuit affirmed the district court’s finding of subject-matter jurisdiction, affirmed the grant of summary judgment on the counterclaim for libel and reversed the grant of summary judgment to IMLCC on its contract claim.
Judge Timothy Tymkovich concurred in part and dissented in part. He disagreed with the majority that “deliverable” was ambiguous and thinks login information is plainly a “deliverable” under the contract. He would affirm that Bowling breached the contract by withholding access to the accounts she was hired to manage.