Gloria Bustillos v. El Paso County Hospital Dist
891 F.3d 214 (2018)
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Rule of Law:
Medical professionals acting as state actors are entitled to qualified immunity for conducting searches at the behest of law enforcement if the specific constitutional duty to independently verify suspicion for each escalating search was not clearly established at the time of the conduct.
Facts:
- On September 19, 2013, Gloria Bustillos, a U.S. citizen, was crossing the border from Mexico to El Paso, Texas, when she was taken into custody by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents.
- Bustillos informed the agents she was not in possession of any narcotics.
- CBP agents conducted a pat down and a K-9 search, neither of which revealed the presence of drugs.
- Two female agents then conducted a visual strip search of Bustillos's vaginal and anal area in a restroom, which also revealed no drugs.
- Despite finding no evidence of contraband, CBP agents handcuffed Bustillos and transported her to the University Medical Center.
- At the hospital, Doctors Michael Parsa and Daniel Solomin, along with nurses, performed a series of non-consensual searches on Bustillos, including x-rays, a pelvic exam, and a rectal exam.
- No illegal drugs or contraband were ever found on or in Bustillos.
- After the extensive searches yielded no results, Bustillos was released by CBP agents the next morning.
Procedural Posture:
- Gloria Bustillos filed a complaint in a Texas state court against various state and federal actors, including the Doctors, Nurses, and the El Paso County Hospital District.
- The Hospital removed the case to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.
- The defendants filed motions to dismiss under FRCP 12(b)(6), asserting qualified and other forms of immunity.
- The district court granted the motions to dismiss, finding the individual defendants were entitled to qualified immunity and that the claims against the hospital district failed.
- Bustillos, the appellant, timely appealed the district court's dismissal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
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Issue:
Does qualified immunity shield state-employed medical staff from a § 1983 suit for conducting a series of non-consensual, increasingly intrusive bodily searches at the request of law enforcement when the specific Fourth Amendment obligations for medical personnel in such circumstances were not clearly established?
Opinions:
Majority - Graves
Yes. Medical staff are entitled to qualified immunity because the specific Fourth Amendment right at issue was not clearly established at the time of the searches. Qualified immunity protects state officials from liability unless they violate a statutory or constitutional right that was 'clearly established' at the time. While medical professionals acting as state actors must have reasonable suspicion for non-routine searches, they generally do not have a constitutional duty to independently evaluate law enforcement's determination of suspicion and may rely on it. However, for a series of escalating searches, suspicion is required for each increasingly intrusive step. In this case, even if a constitutional violation occurred, the court could not find existing precedent that would have placed the constitutional question 'beyond debate' for a reasonable medical professional in 2013. A single, fifty-year-old case from a different circuit was deemed insufficient to clearly establish the law. Therefore, the doctors and nurses are shielded from the suit by qualified immunity.
Analysis:
This case clarifies the Fourth Amendment obligations of medical professionals in the Fifth Circuit when they act as state agents assisting law enforcement with bodily searches. The court establishes that while medical staff can rely on law enforcement's assertion of suspicion, this reliance is not a blank check for a series of increasingly invasive procedures; suspicion must justify each escalating search. By granting qualified immunity because the law was not 'clearly established,' the court effectively puts medical personnel on notice for the future. This decision itself helps to 'clearly establish' the law, meaning that similar conduct in the future may not be protected by qualified immunity.
