Tiffany Thomas, a Minor by Her Father Gregory Thomas, Carl G. Casey, a Minor by His Mother Virgil M. Casey v. R.G. Roberts, Individually and in Her Official Capacity as Assistant Principal, West Clayton Elementary School, Zannie Billingslea

Citations: 323 F.3d 950; 2003 U.S. App. LEXIS 4153Docket: 00-11361

Court: Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit; March 9, 2003; Federal Appellate Court

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The case involves thirteen elementary school students, represented by their parents, who filed a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action against several defendants, including their teacher Tracey Morgan, Assistant Principal R.G. Roberts, and school police officer Zannie Billingslea. The plaintiffs allege that the defendants conducted unconstitutional 'strip searches' that violated their Fourth Amendment rights following the disappearance of $26 from a teacher's desk. The district court initially found the searches unconstitutional but granted summary judgment to the defendants on all claims.

On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit Court affirmed the district court's determination that the mass searches, conducted without individualized suspicion, were unreasonable and violated the Fourth Amendment. However, it upheld the qualified immunity of the individual defendants and affirmed summary judgment for the school district and Clayton County. The Supreme Court later vacated this judgment and remanded the case for reconsideration in light of its ruling in Hope v. Pelzer.

Upon review, the Eleventh Circuit concluded that the Supreme Court's decision in Hope did not alter the outcome of the case, reinstating its original ruling in full, while providing additional commentary on qualified immunity. The case details the method of the searches, wherein boys were taken to the bathroom and asked to drop their pants, while girls were similarly instructed to lower their pants and lift their dresses under the supervision of their teacher.

Thirteen students sued Morgan, Billingslea, Vice Principal Roberts, the school district, and the county, claiming that a search requiring them to lift their bras and expose their breasts violated their Fourth Amendment rights, as well as Georgia constitutional and statutory rights. The district court ruled the searches unconstitutional but granted qualified immunity to Morgan, Roberts, and Billingslea, while also issuing summary judgment for the school district and county due to their lack of responsibility for the actions of the other defendants. The court dismissed the state law claims without prejudice. On appeal, the court affirmed the district court's decision. 

Plaintiffs argued that the Supreme Court's decision in New Jersey v. T.L.O. established that exceptions to individualized suspicion are only valid in contexts where privacy interests are minimal, citing that the only recognized suspicionless searches are minimally intrusive drug tests of voluntary student athletes. They contended that existing Eleventh Circuit case law required individualized suspicion for student searches and that the defendants had fair warning against strip searches without it.

Defendants countered that prior to October 1996, there was no clear legal precedent indicating that their actions constituted an unconstitutional mass strip search of elementary school students. They claimed that the prevailing reasonableness standard for school searches was too vague and not directly applicable to their case. Additionally, they asserted that their actions did not represent an obvious violation of law that would negate the need for clarifying case law. The court referenced the importance of whether the state of the law provided fair warning to the defendants regarding the constitutionality of their actions.

Notice to officials must be a "fair and clear" warning regarding their conduct, as emphasized by the qualified immunity standard, which protects government officials from civil liability unless they violate "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights." In this circuit, such rights are determined by decisions from the Supreme Court, the Eleventh Circuit, or the highest state court. 

Plaintiffs reference *New Jersey v. T.L.O.*, arguing it establishes that school officials cannot search students without particularized suspicion. However, the *T.L.O.* decision adopted a general "reasonableness" test that balances student interests with school officials' interests, rather than definitively requiring individualized suspicion for searches. The *T.L.O.* case provided limited guidance, as it only ruled that a search for cigarettes was reasonable under specific circumstances. 

Plaintiffs suggest that the *T.L.O.* balancing test should have indicated to the Defendants that a "strip search" for missing money was unconstitutional. However, the varying facts of *T.L.O.* provide no clear warning about the legality of such a search in an elementary school context. The court noted that general standards like "reasonableness" necessitate specific case law to inform officials adequately. 

Additionally, the Plaintiffs cited *Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton*, which allowed suspicionless drug testing for high school athletes, arguing it shows a limitation on permissible searches. However, the case establishes that under its specific circumstances, drug testing was constitutional, leaving little basis for officials to conclude that a strip search of elementary students would be unlawful.

Plaintiffs reference three Eleventh Circuit cases to argue that the strip search at issue violated constitutional rights. In *Jenkins by Hall v. Talladega City Board of Education*, the court found that the decision, made nearly a year after the relevant events, could not provide prior notice to defendants about the legality of their actions. In *Justice v. City of Peachtree City*, a case involving the strip search of students for drugs, the court noted that the applicable legal standards differ between police custody and a school environment, thus offering no relevant guidance for the current case. Plaintiffs claim that *C.B. v. Driscoll* supports the necessity of particularized suspicion for student searches; however, the court clarified that the case did not mandate such a requirement, as the search was justified by a tip received from another student.

Additionally, plaintiffs cite *Wilson v. Layne*, asserting that consensus from other circuits could establish clearly defined law. The court counters that only Supreme Court, Eleventh Circuit, and Georgia Supreme Court decisions can establish such law within this jurisdiction, as reaffirmed in *Marsh v. Butler County*. The court emphasizes that public officials cannot be expected to navigate legal standards across jurisdictions.

Finally, the court explains that while similar cases are not always necessary to demonstrate that an action was unlawful, an exception exists for egregious conduct that is so apparent that a government actor must know it is illegal. This narrow exception is rarely applied and was exemplified in *Priester v. City of Riviera Beach*, where police actions were deemed clearly unlawful, in contrast to the circumstances in *Mattox*, which barely met the threshold for the exception.

The court found that the 'strip search' of students was unconstitutional due to a lack of particularized suspicion. However, it concluded that the nature of the search was not so egregious that its unconstitutionality would be obvious to the Defendants without specific legal precedent. The ruling emphasized the importance of caselaw in determining whether public officials had fair warning about the legality of their actions. The court noted that the cases cited by the Plaintiffs were factually distinct and would not have provided clear warning to school officials in 1996 regarding the legality of the search conducted. Furthermore, the court maintained that the search did not reach a level of egregiousness that would alert officials to its unconstitutionality without existing legal precedents. The opinion reaffirmed the previous ruling on qualified immunity, clarifying that public officials are not expected to interpret laws from outside their jurisdiction, especially when precedent is lacking. The court also pointed out that establishing unlawful conduct does not always require factually similar cases, but rather, the conduct must be so obviously illegal that the official should be aware of its unlawfulness.

Qualified immunity was denied in an excessive force case involving a police officer who let his dog attack a plaintiff, threatened the plaintiff, and allowed the attack to continue for two minutes. Another case involving an officer breaking the arm of a fleeing arrestee was deemed to barely qualify for a narrow exception to qualified immunity. The court found a "strip search" of students unconstitutional due to lack of particularized suspicion but concluded that the unconstitutionality of the search was not sufficiently evident to provide fair warning to the school officials in 1996, as the cited cases involved different facts and did not clearly establish the law in this context. The search was not considered egregious enough to alert officials to its unconstitutionality without specific case law. The opinion supplemented previous discussions on qualified immunity and reinstated earlier findings. It noted that a limited search of one student was reasonable, and while the students referred to their experience as a "strip search," it was clarified that they were not required to remove all clothing. The court emphasized that public officials are not expected to creatively interpret legal concepts without binding authority. Of the six cases cited by the plaintiffs, four were decided after the relevant incidents, and the two earlier cases were from outside the circuit, thus not establishing clear precedent.