FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT IGNACIO LANUZA, No. 15-35408 Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No. v. 2:14-cv-01641- MJP JONATHAN M. LOVE, Assistant Chief Counsel, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, OPINION Defendant-Appellee. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington Marsha J. Pechman, Senior District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted October 3, 2017 Seattle, Washington Filed August 14, 2018 Before: Kermit Victor Lipez, * Kim McLane Wardlaw, and John B. Owens, Circuit Judges. Opinion by Judge Wardlaw * The Honorable Kermit V. Lipez, United States Circuit Judge for the First Circuit, sitting by designation. 2 LANUZA V. LOVE SUMMARY ** Bivens The panel reversed the district court’s order declining to extend a Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Fed. Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), remedy to an immigrant pursuing lawful permanent resident status where a government immigration attorney intentionally submitted a forged document in an immigration proceeding to completely bar that immigrant from pursuing relief to which he was entitled. The panel concluded that while the Supreme Court “has made clear that expanding the Bivens remedy is now a ‘disfavored’ judicial activity,” Ziglar v. Abbasi, 137 S. Ct. 1843, 1857 (2017) (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 675 (2009)), a Bivens remedy was available in this narrow circumstance because none of the special factors outlined in Abbasi and other Supreme Court precedent applied. The panel affirmed the district court’s order denying qualified immunity to ICE Assistant Chief Counsel Jonathan Love because qualified immunity was not meant to protect those who are “plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.” Taylor v. Barkes, 135 S. Ct. 2042, 2044 (2015) (quoting Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 743 (2011)). The panel concluded that qualified immunity could not shield an officer from suit when he intentionally ** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader. LANUZA V. LOVE 3 submitted a forged document in an immigration proceeding in clear violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1357(b). COUNSEL Matt Adams (argued) and Glenda M. Aldana Madrid, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Seattle, Washington; Christopher Schenck and Stephanie M. Martinez, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP, Seattle, Washington; for Plaintiff-Appellant. Amanda E. Lee (argued), Law Office of Amanda Lee PLLC, Seattle, Washington, for Defendant-Appellee. H. Thomas Byron III (argued) and Barbara L. Herwig, Appellate Staff; Joseph H. Harrington, Acting United States Attorney; Chad A. Readler, Acting Assistant Attorney General; Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.; for Amicus Curiae United States. Mary Kenney, American Immigration Council, Washington, D.C.; Trina Realmuto, National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, Boston, Massachusetts; for Amici Curiae American Immigration Council and National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild. 4 LANUZA V. LOVE OPINION WARDLAW, Circuit Judge: We are tasked with answering in part a question asked by many legal commentators in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Ziglar v. Abbasi, ...
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