Are defendants entitled to qualified immunity on a claim(s) brought by a plaintiff against them for breach of the Fourteenth Amendment?

Defendants also contend that they are entitled to qualified immunity on plaintiff's claim(s) for violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. ECF No. 41 at 12. "The doctrine of qualified immunity protects government officials 'from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.'" Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982)). Resolving the defense of qualified immunity involves a two-step process: the court must decide 1) whether the plaintiff has alleged or shown a violation

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of a constitutional right; and 2) whether the right at issue was clearly established at the time of defendant's alleged misconduct. Pearson, 555 U.S. at 232 (citing Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201-202 (2001)).

"Qualified immunity is applicable unless the official's conduct violated a clearly established constitutional right." Pearson, 555 U.S. at 232. To be "clearly established" "[t]he contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right." Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987). "This is not to say that an official action is protected by qualified immunity unless the very action in question has previously been held unlawful, but it is to say that in light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness must be apparent." Id.