Qualified Immunity in Fourth Amendment Arrest/Force Cases: General Excessive-Force Principles and Unpublished Decisions Do Not “Clearly Establish” Illegality Without Factually Similar, Controlling Authority

A. Precedents Cited

1. Summary judgment burdens in qualified-immunity cases

• Ramirez v. Granado, 163 F.4th 204 (5th Cir. 2025): Cited for the de novo standard of review of summary judgment based on qualified immunity. This frames the appellate court’s role as independently assessing whether the record and law entitle the officer to immunity.
• Valderas v. City of Lubbock, 937 F.3d 384 (5th Cir. 2019): Emphasizes that qualified immunity alters the typical summary-judgment posture by shifting the functional burden to the plaintiff to negate the immunity defense with competent evidence and law.
• Baker v. Coburn, 68 F.4th 240 (5th Cir. 2023): Provides the governing formulation: the plaintiff must establish a genuine fact issue as to whether the conduct violated clearly established law.
• Ontiveros v. City of Rosenberg, 564 F.3d 379 (5th Cir. 2009), quoting Reese v. Anderson, 926 F.2d 494 (5th Cir. 1991): Reinforces that a plaintiff must offer more than “mere allegations.” This mattered here because Dilworth “responded without submitting any evidence.”

2. The two-prong qualified-immunity framework

• Tolan v. Cotton, 572 U.S. 650 (2014): Supplies the two-prong structure and the requirement to view facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. The court nevertheless chose to decide the appeal on prong two (clearly established law).
• Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194 (2001): Quoted (via Tolan) for the first prong—whether the facts show a constitutional violation.
• Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730 (2002): Cited for the “clearly established” requirement and later referenced in the “obvious case” discussion.
• Wetherbe v. Tex. Tech Univ. Sys., 138 F.4th 296 (5th Cir. 2025), cert. denied sub nom., Wetherbe v. TX Tech Univ. Sys., No. 25-530, 2026 WL 79851 (U.S. Jan. 12, 2026): Cited for two key propositions: courts may address prongs in any order, and defendants win if plaintiff fails either prong. This is the doctrinal hook for affirming solely on clearly established law.

3. What counts as “clearly established” law

• Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731 (2011): Provides the controlling standard—constitutional unlawfulness must be “beyond debate.”
• Joseph ex rel. Est. of Joseph v. Bartlett, 981 F.3d 319 (5th Cir. 2020), quoting District of Columbia v. Wesby, 583 U.S. 48 (2018): Used to articulate the need for controlling authority with similar circumstances and to stress the plaintiff’s obligation to explain why precedent “clearly proscribed” the conduct.
• Wilson v. Layne, 526 U.S. 603 (1999): Cited (through Ashcroft) for the alternative of a “robust consensus of cases of persuasive authority.”
• Batyukova v. Doege, 994 F.3d 717 (5th Cir. 2021), quoting Wesby, 583 U.S. 48 (2018): Cited for the “rare ‘obvious case’” route where unlawfulness is clear even without factually similar precedent.
• Salazar v. Molina, 37 F.4th 278 (5th Cir. 2022), quoting Hope, 536 U.S. 730 (2002), and citing Taylor v. Riojas, 592 U.S. 7 (2020): Reinforces that obvious cases exist, but are rare; the court noted Dilworth did not argue obviousness.
• Kisela v. Hughes, 584 U.S. 100 (2018): Cited (via Salazar) for the requirement that precedent must “squarely govern” the facts.
• Mullenix v. Luna, 577 U.S. 7 (2015): Supplies the caution that the dispositive question is whether the “violative nature of particular conduct” is clearly established—i.e., specificity matters.

4. False arrest and “arguable probable cause”

• Perniciaro v. Lea, 901 F.3d 241 (5th Cir. 2018), quoting Brown v. Callahan, 623 F.3d 249 (5th Cir. 2010): States the operational test: the plaintiff must show “no reasonable officer could have believed his actions were proper.”
• Brown v. Lyford, 243 F.3d 185 (5th Cir. 2001), quoting Hart v. O'Brien, 127 F.3d 424 (5th Cir. 1997), abrogated on other grounds by Kalina v. Fletcher, 522 U.S. 118 (1997): Provides the “not even ‘arguably’” probable cause formulation for losing immunity. The court used this to highlight the high bar Dilworth had to clear and did not.

5. Excessive force: generalities vs. fact-specific authority

• Coon v. Ledbetter, 780 F.2d 1158 (5th Cir. 1986): Dilworth invoked it for the general proposition that excessive force violates clearly established rights. The court treated this as too abstract to clearly establish illegality in the concrete context at issue.
• Vincent v. City of Sulphur, 805 F.3d 543 (5th Cir. 2015): The key rebuttal to Dilworth’s reliance on Coon—abstract statements untethered to analogous facts do not clearly establish a right in a given context.
• Marks v. Hudson, 933 F.3d 481 (5th Cir. 2019): Cited for the rule that unpublished opinions (and certainly district court decisions) cannot clearly establish law.
• Unpublished/out-of-circuit/district authorities Dilworth cited—Doss v. Helpenstell, 626 F. App'x 453 (5th Cir. 2015); Harper v. Rose, No. 1:09-CV-153-TC, 2012 WL 1150463 (D. Utah Apr. 5, 2012); Pinedo v. City of Dallas, No. 3:14-CV-0958-D, 2016 WL 147893 (N.D. Tex. Jan. 13, 2016); LaFleur v. Sheriff's Dep't of Calcasieu Par., No. 2:10-1537, 2011 WL 5280798 (W.D. La. Nov. 2, 2011): The court both discounted their precedential force and distinguished them factually (vehicle stop/passive resistance/repeated tasing/post-handcuffing tasing after a shooting/multi-officer attack scenario).
• Published authorities Dilworth cited but the court found distinguishable: Ducksworth v. Landrum, 62 F.4th 209 (5th Cir. 2023) (jurisdictional dismissal in an interlocutory posture); Bush v. Strain, 513 F.3d 492 (5th Cir. 2008) (clearly established violation where officer slammed a restrained, subdued suspect’s face into a vehicle); Goodson v. City of Corpus Christi, 202 F.3d 730 (5th Cir. 2000) (reversal where plaintiff submitted evidence creating genuine disputes on lawfulness of stop/arrest and attempted flight).

6. Additional authorities shaping the appeal’s scope

• Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994): Raised below as a bar, but the district court did not analyze it and the Fifth Circuit did not resolve the case on that basis.
• Roe v. Cypress-Fairbanks Indep. Sch. Dist., 53 F.4th 334 (5th Cir. 2022): Cited for forfeiture/abandonment principles; municipal-liability issues were not maintained on appeal.
• Lewis v. Delgado, 163 F.4th 926 (5th Cir. 2026): Referenced to acknowledge Fifth Circuit discussion of a “robust consensus” approach, while the panel here “distill[ed]” caselaw to account for three methods of showing clearly established law.

B. Legal Reasoning

1. The court chose prong two (clearly established law) and required specificity. Following Wetherbe v. Tex. Tech Univ. Sys. and Tolan v. Cotton, the panel exercised discretion to bypass the constitutional-violation question and instead asked whether Dilworth identified precedent that “squarely governs” the facts (Kisela v. Hughes), such that unlawfulness would be “beyond debate” (Ashcroft v. al-Kidd).
2. Dilworth did not meet his plaintiff-side burden in a qualified-immunity summary-judgment posture. The opinion underscores (via Valderas v. City of Lubbock, Baker v. Coburn, and Ontiveros v. City of Rosenberg) that a plaintiff must come forward with evidence and tailored legal authority; allegations and generalities do not create a triable issue.
3. False arrest failed for lack of developed clearly-established analysis. Dilworth did not identify a case showing the absence of even arguable probable cause under these circumstances (Brown v. Lyford), nor did he argue that no reasonable officer could believe the arrest was proper (Perniciaro v. Lea).
4. Excessive force failed because Dilworth relied on (i) abstract principles and (ii) non-controlling or distinguishable cases. The panel treated Dilworth’s reliance on Coon v. Ledbetter as precisely what Vincent v. City of Sulphur rejects: general propositions cannot clearly establish illegality for a particular use of force in a particular factual setting. Unpublished and district court cases were insufficient to clearly establish the law (Marks v. Hudson), and in any event were not analogous. The remaining published cases were distinguishable, meaning they did not clearly proscribe Tucker’s “particular conduct” (Mullenix v. Luna).
5. The court implicitly reinforced a litigation lesson: “clearly established” is a matching exercise. By repeatedly returning to “similar circumstances,” “squarely governs,” and “particular conduct,” the panel emphasized that qualified immunity is often decided by the degree of factual congruence between the plaintiff’s case and binding precedent—not by high-level Fourth Amendment reasonableness standards.

C. Impact

• Reinforcement of strict specificity in Fourth Amendment qualified-immunity cases. The opinion continues the Fifth Circuit’s adherence to Supreme Court directives (Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, Kisela v. Hughes, Mullenix v. Luna) that plaintiffs must identify factually similar, controlling authority—especially in use-of-force claims where outcomes depend heavily on context.
• Practical narrowing of “excessive force” arguments built on general statements. Citing a broad rule (e.g., “excessive force is unconstitutional”) will not carry the clearly-established burden unless paired with precedent addressing comparable resistance, flight, threats, and the timing/manner of intermediate force (like a taser deployment).
• Limited utility of unpublished and trial-court decisions for overcoming qualified immunity. The panel’s reliance on Marks v. Hudson signals that litigants should treat unpublished opinions and district court cases as, at best, supplemental—never as the foundation for “clearly established” law.
• Procedural discipline at summary judgment. The court’s emphasis on the absence of plaintiff evidence, together with citations to Ontiveros v. City of Rosenberg and Reese v. Anderson, underscores that plaintiffs must build an evidentiary record early; otherwise, qualified immunity can be resolved without reaching disputed factual narratives.
• Property-ownership misunderstandings and “arguable probable cause.” Although the trespass charge was dismissed once ownership was confirmed, the opinion illustrates that dismissal of charges does not itself establish the absence of arguable probable cause at the time of arrest. Future litigants in mistaken-identity or mistaken-ownership encounters must still supply closely analogous precedent and record facts negating arguable probable cause.