Camreta v. Greene
The Supreme Court held that government officials who win a lawsuit on qualified immunity grounds may generally ask the Court to review an appeals court's separate ruling that their conduct was unconstitutional. But it found this particular case moot, because the girl whose in-school interview was at issue had since moved out of state and was nearly an adult.
Because the case was moot, the Court vacated only the part of the Ninth Circuit's opinion addressing whether the warrantless school interview violated the Fourth Amendment, leaving that constitutional question unresolved for future disputes.
“So long as it continues in effect, he must either change the way he performs his duties or risk a meritorious damages action.”
Explains why an official still has a stake in challenging an adverse constitutional ruling even though he cannot be personally sued for past conduct.
How it got here: A federal trial court ruled for the officials; the Ninth Circuit agreed they had immunity but also ruled their conduct unconstitutional, prompting the officials to seek Supreme Court review of that constitutional ruling.
The Case in Depth
What happened
A county sheriff's deputy and a state child-protection caseworker interviewed a nine-year-old girl at her Oregon elementary school without a warrant or parental consent, after her father was suspected of sexually abusing her. The girl's mother later sued the two officials for money damages, arguing the school interview violated the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.
The question before the Court
Could officials who already won on qualified immunity still ask the Supreme Court to review a ruling that they had violated the Constitution — and did that question even matter once the child involved had grown up and moved away?
Why it matters
The ruling means government workers who beat a lawsuit through immunity — police officers, caseworkers, and others — can still ask the Supreme Court to erase an unfavorable constitutional ruling against them, shaping how quickly courts can settle rules for official conduct. Because the actual Fourth Amendment question here went unanswered, child-welfare workers and schools still lack clear guidance on questioning children at school without a warrant.
What changes now
The Ninth Circuit's ruling that the school interview violated the Fourth Amendment is vacated and no longer binding law in that circuit, while its separate ruling granting the officials immunity remains untouched. The broader question of whether warrantless in-school interviews of suspected child-abuse victims are constitutional remains unresolved and will need to be litigated again in a case that has not become moot.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether the officials' warrantless school interview actually violated the Fourth Amendment, nor whether courts of appeals — as opposed to the Supreme Court itself — may hear appeals from officials who already won on immunity grounds. Both questions remain open for future cases.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Scalia
Justice Scalia joined the majority opinion but wrote separately to suggest a different fix for the qualified-immunity dilemma: courts could simply stop ruling on constitutional questions unnecessarily whenever officials already have immunity. He noted the parties had not asked the Court to adopt that approach but said he would consider it in a future case.
Concurrence — Justice Sotomayor
Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justice Breyer, agreed the case was moot and that vacating part of the lower ruling was correct, but argued the Court should not have gone on to decide whether officials who win on immunity can generally seek review of adverse constitutional rulings. She reasoned the Court should resolve the easier mootness issue and stop there once it disposes of the case.
Dissent — Justice Kennedy
“The result is an erroneous and unbounded exception to an essential principle of judicial restraint.”Kennedy's core objection to letting officials who already won on immunity seek Supreme Court review of the constitutional ruling against them.
Justice Kennedy, joined by Justice Thomas, argued the longstanding rule against letting a prevailing party appeal a favorable judgment reflects Article III's ban on advisory opinions, not mere policy, and that the two precedents the majority relied on do not support a qualified-immunity exception. He would have dismissed the case rather than let officials seek review of constitutional reasoning that is not attached to any judgment against them.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court first asked whether Article III's requirement of a real, ongoing dispute barred officials who had already won on immunity from seeking review of an unfavorable constitutional ruling. It found that officials who regularly engage in the challenged conduct as part of their job suffer an ongoing injury from a ruling that the conduct is unconstitutional, satisfying Article III.
- The Court then addressed its own longstanding policy of generally refusing to hear issues that a party already won below, explaining that this rule comes from judicial practice rather than the Constitution itself. It found the qualified-immunity setting different because appellate rulings on the constitutional merits are made specifically to guide future official conduct, even though the same officials cannot be personally sued for past damages.
- Because such merits rulings are deliberately designed to settle constitutional standards, and appellate courts make them with the Supreme Court's own permission under a two-step immunity process, the Court held it may generally review these rulings at the request of officials who otherwise prevailed.
- Turning to this specific dispute, the Court applied its mootness doctrine, which requires a live controversy at every stage of a case, and found that the child who had been interviewed had since moved out of state and neared adulthood, making it clear the challenged interview practice could never again affect her.
- Because mootness — through no fault of the officials seeking review — prevented the constitutional question from being reviewed, the Court applied its established practice of vacating a lower court ruling when unforeseen circumstances frustrate a party's appeal rights, rather than leaving the ruling in place unreviewed.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms United States v. Munsingwear, Inc. (340 U.S. 36)
The Court relied on this case's rule of vacating a lower ruling when mootness cuts off a party's appeal.