The following excerpt is from Gamble v. Moran, 15 F.3d 1085 (9th Cir. 1994):
In Fourth Amendment unreasonable force claims, the legal question whether an objectively reasonable officer in the defendant's position would have believed his conduct not to be violative of clearly established federal rights must be predicated upon factual determinations regarding what actually transpired during the incident giving rise to the claim. See Act Up!/Portland, 988 F.2d 868, 873 (9th Cir.1993). If, viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, a reasonable jury could not find facts sufficient to support the legal conclusion that the officer's conduct was objectively unreasonable, it follows that summary judgment on the issue of qualified immunity is appropriate. Cf. Hopkins v. Andaya, 958 F.2d 881, 885 n. 3 (9th Cir.1992) (declining to address the issue of qualified immunity separate from that of summary judgment on the merits because "the qualified immunity inquiry is the same as the inquiry made on the merits.")
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