Date: Mar 15, 2025

Interlocutory Qualified-Immunity Appeals Fail When They Require Revisiting Disputed Facts (Hulon v. City of Lansing)

1. Introduction

Heather Hulon v. City of Lansing, Michigan arises from the April 2020 arrest, detention, and in-custody death of Anthony Hulon after Lansing police officers attempted to restrain him in a detention cell. Heather Hulon, as personal representative of Anthony Hulon’s estate, sued four officers—Edgar Guerra, Trevor Allman, Charles Wright, and Gary Worden—alleging (1) excessive force and (2) deliberate indifference to serious medical needs, along with related state-law claims.

The key procedural posture is decisive: the officers brought an interlocutory appeal after the district court denied summary judgment on qualified immunity and related state governmental immunity defenses, finding genuine disputes of material fact. The Sixth Circuit’s task was therefore constrained by the jurisdictional limits governing interlocutory review of qualified-immunity denials.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Sixth Circuit affirmed the denial of summary judgment. The court explained that the officers could prevail on interlocutory appeal only by persuading the court to accept their preferred version of disputed facts (e.g., the amount of force used, its reasonableness, and the timing and nature of any response to a known risk of asphyxiation). Because interlocutory jurisdiction does not permit the appellate court to resolve those factual disputes, the officers’ appeal largely fell outside the court’s review authority.

On excessive force, the court held that under the plaintiff-favorable view of the facts, Hopper v. Plummer clearly established that applying substantial pressure to a prone person under asphyxiating conditions while the person pleads that they cannot breathe can be excessive force.

On deliberate indifference, the court acknowledged confusion and apparent tension in Sixth Circuit precedent after Brawner v. Scott County—including subsequent decisions such as Trozzi v. Lake County, Helphenstine v. Lewis County, and Lawler v. Hardeman County. But it declined to reconcile that conflict “in the abstract,” concluding that qualified immunity would be denied either way because the outcome still depended on disputed facts; moreover, even under the pre-Brawner Farmer v. Brennan framework, the plaintiff-favorable facts could show deliberate indifference as clearly established by Hopper v. Plummer and Lanman v. Hinson.

3. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited

i. Interlocutory jurisdiction and the “facts vs. law” boundary

28 U.S.C. § 1291 (final-judgment rule): The court began with the baseline principle that appellate jurisdiction typically extends only to “final decisions.”
Quigley v. Tuong Vinh Thai: Used for the proposition that, on interlocutory appeal, a defendant cannot challenge the district court’s determination that the record contains a genuine dispute of material fact; the appellate court may review only “pure legal issue[s].”
Austin v. Redford Twp. Police Dep’t: Recognized the qualified-immunity interlocutory appeal exception and the “exceptional circumstances” doctrine allowing review of a fact-dispute finding only if it is “blatantly and demonstrably false.”
Gregory v. City of Louisville: Cited for limiting interlocutory jurisdiction to “pure legal issue[s].”
Harrison v. Ash: Reinforced that “factual dispute[s]” fall outside the narrow jurisdiction in this setting.
Bishop v. Hackel: Provided the “blatantly and demonstrably false” standard for the rare case where the appellate court may override the district court’s identification of a fact dispute.
Cockrun v. Berrien County: Quoted for the bright line that “[o]ur jurisdiction ends” when argument “drifts” from legal questions into “what really happened.”

These jurisdictional cases supplied the opinion’s operative rule: the officers’ appeal could succeed only if the Sixth Circuit reweighed contested evidence, which it could not do in this interlocutory posture.

ii. Excessive force “clearly established” law in prone-restraint/asphyxia scenarios

Hopper v. Plummer: The central “clearly established” authority. The court treated Hopper as establishing that using “substantial or significant pressure” creating “asphyxiating conditions” to restrain someone who poses no material danger can violate the Constitution.

The majority emphasized that whether Hopper controlled depended on which facts a jury ultimately accepts (how much pressure, for how long, what resistance remained, and how officers responded to pleas of “I can’t breathe”), which is precisely why interlocutory review could not resolve qualified immunity here.

iii. Deliberate indifference standards for pretrial detainees after Kingsley

Farmer v. Brennan: Provided the historical two-part objective/subjective deliberate-indifference framework, including the subjective requirement that an official must “kn[ew] of and disregard[ed] an excessive risk.”
Kingsley v. Hendrickson: Noted for removing the subjective component from the parallel excessive-force inquiry for pretrial detainees, triggering debate over whether that reasoning extends to medical-care/deliberate-indifference claims.
Brawner v. Scott County: The Sixth Circuit’s pivot point; it modified the subjective component for pretrial-detainee deliberate-indifference claims to require “more than negligence but less than subjective intent—something akin to reckless disregard.”
Castro v. County of Los Angeles: Quoted (via Brawner) to describe the “reckless disregard” concept adopted/borrowed in the Sixth Circuit’s post-Kingsley reformulation.
Trozzi v. Lake County: Cited as an attempt to clarify Brawner with a three-element formulation that still required considering “the jail official’s personal knowledge” and included an element that “the prison official knew” yet ignored the risk.
Helphenstine v. Lewis County: Cited for rejecting Trozzi’s three-part test as irreconcilable with Brawner and for adopting a formulation requiring proof of reckless conduct in the face of an obvious risk that “should be known.”
Beck v. Hamblen County: Used to underscore that, pre-Brawner, the circuit split undermined any claim that an objective-only inquiry was clearly established.
Lawler v. Hardeman County: Cited for holding that Brawner’s new standard does not apply to conduct predating Brawner when assessing clearly established law for qualified immunity.
Lanman v. Hinson and Hopper v. Plummer: Invoked to show that even under the pre-Brawner Farmer paradigm, the plaintiff-favorable facts could amount to deliberate indifference under clearly established law.

The majority’s key move was methodological: it acknowledged the doctrinal instability but avoided choosing among the competing post-Brawner formulations because the presence of disputed facts made the qualified-immunity outcome the same.

iv. State-law governmental immunity

Kindl v. City of Berkley, Shumate v. City of Adrian, and Oliver v. Smith: Cited to support the conclusion that the same disputed facts also prevented appellate resolution of governmental immunity on the state-law claims at this interlocutory stage.

B. Legal Reasoning

Identify the jurisdictional constraint. The court reaffirmed that interlocutory jurisdiction in qualified-immunity cases reaches only legal questions, not the sufficiency of the evidence on disputed facts.
Reject attempts to reframe factual disputes as legal issues. Although the officers styled their arguments as “clearly established law” and “wrong legal standard,” the court found their positions depended on adopting the officers’ version of contested events.
Apply plaintiff-favorable facts to the “clearly established” inquiry. On excessive force, assuming the plaintiff-favorable account (bodyweight-like pressure on a prone detainee for nearly five minutes despite repeated “can’t breathe” pleas), Hopper made the unlawfulness apparent.
Address deliberate-indifference doctrine only to the extent necessary. The court mapped the Farmer-to-Kingsley-to-Brawner line and flagged the Trozzi/Helphenstine/Lawler tension, but held that—on the plaintiff-favorable record—there was evidence of a multi-minute delay after subjective awareness of asphyxiation risk, which could satisfy deliberate indifference even under Farmer as “clearly established” by Hopper and Lanman.
Decline to harmonize conflicting post-Brawner cases. The majority characterized reconciliation as unnecessary “in this interlocutory appeal” because factual disputes drove the result.

The separate writings sharpen the stakes. Judge Readler’s concurrence argues that Trozzi v. Lake County remains the law of the circuit despite later inconsistent panels, relying on the Sixth Circuit’s “prior panel” principles (citing Stewart v. Trierweiler). Judge Stranch’s dissent contends the appeal should have been dismissed for lack of jurisdiction and criticizes the majority and concurrence for engaging (unnecessarily, in her view) with deliberate-indifference doctrine and for suggesting district courts revisit what she describes as “settled” post-Helphenstine law.

C. Impact

Practical rule for defendants: In the Sixth Circuit, an interlocutory qualified-immunity appeal is a poor vehicle when success requires the appellate court to choose among competing accounts of what happened. The opinion underscores that the court will not do so, absent the rare “blatantly and demonstrably false” scenario.
Prone-restraint cases: By reiterating Hopper’s applicability, the opinion reinforces litigation risk where officers apply substantial pressure to a prone person who is vocalizing breathing distress, especially for extended periods.
Deliberate-indifference uncertainty persists: Although the majority avoided resolving the Trozzi/Helphenstine/Lawler tensions, the majority, concurrence, and dissent collectively highlight ongoing doctrinal instability—creating continued uncertainty for district courts, litigants, and law-enforcement/jail officials assessing liability exposure.
Remand posture: The majority signals that the district court should consider the deliberate-indifference-standard question on remand, suggesting more explicit engagement with timing (pre-/post-Brawner) and the “clearly established” prong depending on the relevant standard.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

Qualified immunity: A defense shielding government officials from damages unless (1) they violated a constitutional right and (2) the unlawfulness was “clearly established” at the time. At summary judgment, if material facts are disputed, qualified immunity often cannot be decided.
Interlocutory appeal: An appeal taken before final judgment. In qualified-immunity denials, interlocutory appeal is permitted, but only for legal questions—not arguments that the district court wrongly found a factual dispute.
“Clearly established” law: The right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable officer would understand the conduct was unlawful in the situation confronted. Courts typically look to controlling precedent with closely analogous facts.
Deliberate indifference (medical needs): Traditionally (under Farmer), a plaintiff had to show an objectively serious medical need and that the official subjectively knew of and disregarded an excessive risk. After Kingsley and Brawner, the Sixth Circuit has wrestled with how much “subjective” awareness is required for pretrial detainees, with competing formulations in later cases.
Prone restraint and positional asphyxia: Holding a person face-down while applying downward pressure can restrict breathing. Courts evaluate the degree/duration of pressure, the person’s threat level, resistance, and officers’ response to warnings like “I can’t breathe.”

5. Conclusion

Hulon v. City of Lansing is foremost a jurisdiction-and-procedure decision: in an interlocutory qualified-immunity appeal, the Sixth Circuit will not re-litigate disputed facts disguised as legal argument. Applying the plaintiff-favorable view required at this stage, the court held that Hopper v. Plummer clearly established the unconstitutionality of substantial pressure creating asphyxiating conditions during prone restraint, and that the deliberate-indifference claim likewise could not be resolved on appeal because material fact disputes remained—regardless of uncertainty in post-Brawner v. Scott County doctrine. The opinion’s enduring significance lies in reinforcing the narrow scope of interlocutory review and in spotlighting (without resolving) continuing fractures in the Sixth Circuit’s deliberate-indifference framework for pretrial detainees.