Fact-Only Challenges to Federal and Florida Immunity Denials Fall Outside Interlocutory Appellate Jurisdiction

1. Introduction

This case concerns the limits of immediate appellate review when police officers are denied immunity before trial. Officers Gabriela Llanes and Johane Taylor appealed the district court’s refusal to grant summary judgment on Yolanda Lopez’s federal civil-rights and Florida tort claims. Although the officers presented their arguments as challenges to the denial of immunity, the Eleventh Circuit concluded that their objections actually concerned disputed facts and the sufficiency of the evidence.

The distinction was decisive. An appellate court may immediately review certain legal questions arising from an immunity denial. It ordinarily cannot use that appeal to decide whose account of an encounter is more credible or whether the district court correctly identified factual disputes requiring trial.

The opinion’s central lesson is therefore procedural: an officer cannot obtain interlocutory review merely by describing a factual disagreement as an immunity question. That limitation applies both to federal qualified immunity and to the Florida statutory immunity asserted here.

2. Background and Procedural History

The encounter and competing accounts

The litigation arose from an October 1, 2022 encounter outside the Opa-Locka Flea Market. After the business operated by Lopez and her husband was evicted, Lopez distributed flyers announcing its new location. The encounter occurred near the sidewalk and roadway outside the closed market.

According to Lopez’s account, Llanes harassed her, prompting her to call 911. Llanes began handcuffing her while she was on the call, and Taylor arrived to assist. Lopez alleged that the officers assaulted her, including slamming her against a car and tasing her twice. She maintained that she committed no crime, posed no threat, followed instructions, and did not resist. She also stated that she warned the officers about a heart condition. The charges arising from her arrest were ultimately dismissed.

The officers disputed material parts of that account. Their position depended on assertions that Lopez interfered with traffic, engaged in disorderly conduct, disobeyed commands, or resisted their efforts to restrain her. Those disagreements mattered directly to both the justification for the arrest and the reasonableness of the force used.

These were competing litigation accounts, not facts conclusively established by the appellate decision. The dismissal of the criminal charges likewise did not itself resolve whether the arrest or force was unconstitutional.

The claims and summary-judgment ruling

Lopez sued the City of Opa-Locka, the officers, and two private entities. The claims against the officers relevant to this appeal were:

• False arrest under 42 U.S.C. § 1983;
• Excessive force under 42 U.S.C. § 1983;
• Assault and battery under Florida law; and
• False imprisonment under Florida law.

After discovery, the district court denied the officers’ motion for summary judgment. It emphasized that the circumstances surrounding the arrest were “hotly dispute[d].” A bystander’s video did not resolve those disputes because it offered “only a short and obstructed glimpse into the incident” and did not contradict Lopez’s account.

The district court also denied the City’s separate summary-judgment motion, but the City did not appeal. The appellate decision therefore addressed only the officers’ attempted immediate appeal.

3. Summary of the Opinion

The Eleventh Circuit dismissed the appeal in its entirety. It held that the officers challenged the district court’s treatment of the evidentiary record rather than presenting an independently reviewable legal issue.

The underlying federal claims

On false arrest, the district court had considered three asserted grounds: obstructing traffic, disorderly conduct, and resisting an officer. Viewing the record favorably to Lopez, it found no basis for granting immunity at summary judgment:

• Obstructing traffic: Lopez denied entering the street, flagging down vehicles, or impeding traffic. On her account, even possible slowing of nearby traffic did not establish the required substantial chance of a violation.
• Disorderly conduct: Lopez denied screaming and the other conduct attributed to her. The district court also concluded that the isolated shouted phrase alleged by the officers would not, by itself, constitute disorderly conduct under Florida law.
• Resisting an officer: Lopez’s account included that she had not obstructed traffic, had not been told she was under arrest, assured the officers that she was not resisting, and pleaded not to be tased because of her heart condition. The district court found no actual probable cause under that account and concluded that clearly established law made the arrest unconstitutional on those facts.

On excessive force, the district court concluded that a jury could find the officers’ conduct unconstitutional if Lopez had complied with commands, made no threatening gestures, and offered no resistance. It also found that clearly established law supplied the necessary notice under that version of events.

The underlying Florida claims

The same factual disputes prevented summary judgment on the state tort claims. The district court further concluded that Lopez’s account could support a finding of bad faith or other misconduct sufficient to defeat the officers’ statutory immunity.

The appellate disposition

The Eleventh Circuit did not independently resolve those substantive determinations. Instead, it held that the officers’ appellate arguments depended on rejecting the district court’s view of what the evidence could establish at trial. Because that kind of factual challenge was outside the permissible scope of this interlocutory appeal, the court dismissed rather than affirmed on the merits.

4. Precedents Cited and Their Influence

The cited authorities establish two connected propositions: immunity denials can sometimes receive immediate review, but that review does not extend to a stand-alone challenge to evidentiary sufficiency.

English v. City of Gainesville, 75 F.4th 1151 (11th Cir. 2023)

This was the opinion’s principal authority. It supplied the de novo standard for reviewing jurisdiction and qualified-immunity summary-judgment questions, as well as the distinction between legal and factual appeals.

Under English v. City of Gainesville, an appeal directed only at whether the evidence creates a triable factual issue is not immediately reviewable. The opinion also relied on that case for the treatment of appeals presenting both legal and factual questions and for the parallel jurisdictional restriction governing state-law immunity. Its repeated use shows that the outcome followed an established framework rather than a newly created exception.

CSX Transp., Inc. v. City of Garden City, 235 F.3d 1325 (11th Cir. 2000)

This decision supplied the starting rule: appellate review ordinarily requires either a final order or an interlocutory order falling within a recognized statutory or judicial exception. Together with 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 1292, it framed immediate review as exceptional rather than automatic.

Plaintiff A v. Schair, 744 F.3d 1247 (11th Cir. 2014)

This case provided the three requirements of the collateral order doctrine. An immediately appealable collateral order must conclusively determine the disputed question, resolve an important issue separate from the merits, and be effectively unreviewable after final judgment.

These requirements explain why some immunity rulings qualify for immediate review: a right not to face suit can be lost through the litigation itself. They do not, however, authorize appellate reconsideration of every factual disagreement accompanying an immunity defense.

Cottrell v. Caldwell, 85 F.3d 1480 (11th Cir. 1996)

The court cited this decision for the proposition that interlocutory jurisdiction over a qualified-immunity denial depends on the type of issue presented. The presence of an immunity defense is therefore insufficient; the appellate court must examine what the appellant actually asks it to decide.

Skop v. City of Atlanta, 485 F.3d 1130 (11th Cir. 2007)

This decision supplied the qualified-immunity burden framework. An official must first establish that the challenged conduct occurred within the official’s discretionary authority. The plaintiff must then show both a statutory or constitutional violation and that the violated right was clearly established when the conduct occurred.

The framework identified the substantive issues that might have supported a proper legal appeal. It did not permit the officers to replace the district court’s factual assumptions with their own account.

Jackson v. City of Atlanta, 97 F.4th 1343 (11th Cir. 2024)

The court relied on this authority to identify a reviewable legal question: whether the legal norms allegedly violated were clearly established at the relevant time. That example sharpened the contrast between challenging the legal consequences of accepted facts and challenging the facts themselves.

Coleman v. Hillsborough Cnty., 41 F.4th 1319 (11th Cir. 2022)

This case explained when state-law immunity can support immediate appellate review. The relevant state law must provide immunity from suit, rather than merely a defense against eventual liability. It established the potential jurisdictional basis for reviewing the Florida immunity ruling, subject to the separate restriction on fact-only appeals.

Fla. Hwy. Patrol v. Jackson, 288 So. 3d 1179 (Fla. 2020)

Quoted through Coleman v. Hillsborough Cnty., this Florida Supreme Court decision characterized Florida sovereign immunity as protection from both liability and suit. That characterization explained why an immediate appeal could ordinarily be available. It did not eliminate federal limits on interlocutory review of evidentiary disputes.

Davis v. Williams, 451 F.3d 759 (11th Cir. 2006)

This decision supplied the Florida rule that officers receive a presumption of good faith concerning force used during a lawful arrest and may be liable where the force is clearly excessive. Its relevance was conditional: both the lawfulness of the arrest and the circumstances of the force remained contested.

City of Miami v. Sanders, 672 So. 2d 46 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1996)

This was the underlying state authority quoted in Davis v. Williams for the good-faith presumption and clearly-excessive-force standard. The opinion did not treat that presumption as conclusive or as a substitute for resolving material factual disputes.

Hall v. Flournoy, 975 F.3d 1269 (11th Cir. 2020)

This decision supplied the opinion’s concluding rationale. An appellate court may disagree with the factual inferences drawn below, but reconsidering those inferences can amount to weighing the evidence supporting the summary-judgment ruling. That is not the function of this limited interlocutory review.

5. Legal Reasoning

A. Jurisdiction came before the merits

The court first had to determine whether it possessed authority to hear the appeal. A denial of summary judgment ordinarily leaves the litigation unresolved and is not a final judgment. Although immunity can justify an exception, the exception depends on the issue presented.

Consequently, the possibility that an officer has a substantial immunity defense does not itself confer jurisdiction. A court must distinguish between a legal dispute about immunity and a factual dispute about what happened.

B. Legal labels did not change factual arguments

The officers asserted that they had probable cause even accepting Lopez’s version of events. But their reasoning relied on an asserted admission that she handed flyers to cars in the roadway—conduct the district court treated as disputed.

Similarly, the officers attacked the district court’s clearly-established-law analysis while asserting that it had misstated a critical fact concerning whether Lopez waved vehicles down. Despite the legal terminology, the argument required the appellate court to adopt a different factual premise.

The proper inquiry was therefore functional: could the claimed legal error be resolved without rejecting the district court’s account of the factual disputes? Here, the court concluded that the answer was no.

C. Summary judgment did not authorize credibility determinations

At summary judgment, genuine disputes over material facts generally must be viewed in the nonmoving party’s favor. That does not mean the plaintiff’s account has been proven. It means the court cannot select the officers’ account merely because the officers consider it more convincing.

The video did not change the analysis because the district court found it too brief and obstructed to contradict Lopez’s account. The appellate opinion did not announce a general rule about video evidence; it treated the officers’ objections as an effort to revisit the district court’s evidentiary assessment in this case.

D. Florida immunity presented the same jurisdictional obstacle

Florida Statutes § 768.28(9)(a) generally protects officers from personal tort liability for acts within the scope of employment unless they act in bad faith, with malicious purpose, or with wanton and willful disregard of human rights, safety, or property.

The officers argued that the district court accepted an unsupported narrative and failed to identify evidence of malicious or willful conduct. The appellate court observed that the district court had identified evidence: Lopez’s account that she committed no crime, posed no threat, did not resist, and nevertheless was slammed against a car and tased twice.

Whether a jury would accept that account remained unresolved. The officers’ disagreement concerned whether the evidence supported the necessary inference, not an independent legal question about the statute’s meaning. The state-law portion of the appeal therefore failed for the same jurisdictional reason.

E. The decision’s limits are important

The court did not hold that:

• The officers definitively lacked probable cause;
• The force was conclusively excessive;
• Bad faith or malicious purpose had been proven;
• Every appeal involving factual disputes is jurisdictionally barred; or
• Every denial of Florida immunity is immediately appealable.

A genuine legal question may support interlocutory jurisdiction even when the broader litigation contains factual disputes. Here, however, the officers’ actual arguments required reassessing evidentiary sufficiency.

6. Potential Impact

Appellate advocacy

The decision underscores the need for officers seeking immediate review to identify a genuinely legal issue and address it on the factual assumptions governing the summary-judgment ruling. Merely stating that the plaintiff’s account is accepted does not suffice if the argument then relies on facts the plaintiff disputes.

District-court decision-making

Clear identification of disputed facts helps define the permissible scope of an immunity appeal. Here, the district court’s explanations concerning traffic obstruction, resistance, threatening conduct, and the limited video allowed the appellate court to identify the officers’ objections as factual.

Federal and Florida claims litigated together

The opinion illustrates that invoking Florida immunity alongside federal qualified immunity does not create an alternative route to immediate review of the same factual disagreements. Both theories remained subject to the evidentiary-sufficiency limitation.

Limited precedential reach

Because the opinion is unpublished, its significance is principally explanatory and persuasive. It reinforces existing jurisdictional doctrine without creating a new rule about flyer distribution, disorderly conduct, taser use, or the ultimate availability of immunity on a resolved factual record.

7. Complex Concepts Simplified

Interlocutory appeal

An appeal taken before the trial court has finally resolved the case. Such appeals require a recognized exception to the usual final-judgment rule.

Collateral order doctrine

A narrow route to immediate review of certain important, conclusive decisions that are separate from the merits and cannot effectively be reviewed after final judgment.

Qualified immunity

A protection generally shielding officials performing discretionary duties from damages unless their conduct violates a clearly established statutory or constitutional right.

Clearly established law

Law sufficiently clear at the time of the conduct to give a reasonable official fair notice that the conduct is unlawful in the relevant circumstances.

Arguable probable cause

A qualified-immunity concept asking whether a reasonable officer could have believed probable cause existed, even if actual probable cause was absent. The assessment still depends on the relevant factual circumstances.

Evidentiary sufficiency

Whether the record contains enough evidence to support a finding or require a trial. Asking an appellate court to reject the district court’s assessment on this basis differs from asking it to resolve a legal rule.

Immunity from suit versus immunity from liability

The former protects against undergoing litigation itself; the latter protects against ultimate legal responsibility. That distinction helps explain why some immunity decisions qualify for immediate review.

De novo review

Independent appellate consideration of a legal question without deference to the lower court’s legal conclusion. It does not expand appellate jurisdiction or authorize prohibited evidence-weighing.

8. Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit dismissed the officers’ appeal because it sought reconsideration of disputed facts rather than resolution of an immediately reviewable legal question. The result left the district court’s denial of summary judgment in place without deciding the officers’ ultimate liability.

The broader principle is straightforward: immunity can support early appellate review of legal questions, but it does not turn a disagreement over the evidence into an appealable issue.