## Facts

- Robert Kerman’s girlfriend called 911 after he allegedly said he might buy a gun, kill his psychiatrist, and then commit suicide.
- NYPD officers, including Officer William Crossan, went to Kerman’s apartment.
- Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict, officers immediately handcuffed Kerman when he answered the door in a towel.
- Officers searched the apartment and found no gun or other weapons.
- On Crossan’s order, officers placed Kerman in a restraint device, transported him to Bellevue Hospital, and held him overnight for psychiatric observation.
- Kerman sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment and asserted New York false imprisonment claims.
- At trial after remand, the jury found Crossan ordered Kerman’s detention and involuntary hospitalization without probable cause but awarded only nominal damages after being instructed to consider only medical expenses, physical pain, and emotional distress.
- The district court entered judgment for defendants on qualified immunity and denied a new trial on damages.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court could grant Crossan qualified immunity as a matter of law after trial despite an earlier appellate ruling rejecting qualified immunity on essentially the same record.
2. Whether the district court improperly resolved disputed historical facts itself, rather than leaving those fact questions to the jury, in granting qualified immunity post-verdict.
3. Whether Kerman was entitled to a new trial on damages because loss of liberty from an unlawful seizure is compensable even without proof of physical injury, medical costs, or emotional distress.

## Decision

- The Second Circuit vacated the judgment insofar as it dismissed the Fourth Amendment unlawful seizure claim and the related state false imprisonment claims on qualified-immunity grounds.
- The court held the district court erred by re-granting qualified immunity as a matter of law where the prior appeal had already rejected that disposition on an essentially unchanged record.
- The court held the post-verdict qualified-immunity ruling rested on judicial factfinding that conflicted with the jury’s role and with the jury’s no-probable-cause finding.
- The court held the district court abused its discretion by denying a new trial on damages because the jury was not instructed that deprivation of liberty is itself a compensable injury.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings, including a new trial limited to damages for Kerman’s loss of liberty attributable to the unlawful detention and hospitalization.

## Legal Principles

- Under the law-of-the-case doctrine, a district court generally may not revisit an appellate determination in the same case absent materially changed evidence, intervening controlling law, or other recognized exceptions.
- When qualified immunity depends on disputed historical facts (including what an officer knew, observed, and reasonably believed), those fact disputes must be resolved by the jury; a court may not grant immunity by substituting its own post-verdict view of the facts.
- A jury finding of no probable cause for a seizure is ordinarily incompatible with a post-verdict judicial conclusion that the officer’s conduct was objectively reasonable as a matter of law when that conclusion requires resolving disputed facts.
- In § 1983 unlawful-seizure and state false-imprisonment cases, the deprivation of liberty itself is a compensable injury; damages are not limited to out-of-pocket loss, physical injury, or emotional distress.
- Failure to instruct the jury that it may award damages for loss of liberty can require a new trial on damages where liability for unlawful detention has been found.

## Conclusion

The Second Circuit held that the district court improperly granted qualified immunity after a jury found Kerman was detained and involuntarily hospitalized without probable cause, and it ordered a new trial on damages because the loss of liberty from an unlawful seizure is independently compensable.


Kerman v. City of New York, 374 F.3d 93 (2d Cir. 2004)