Jefferson v. Moore

── Jefferson v. Moore ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Date: June 08, 2026 Category: General Appellate Case: 25-3020 Document: 51-1 Date Filed: 06/08/2026 Page: 1 PUBLISH FILED United States Court of Appeals UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT June 8, 2026 _________________________________ Christopher M. Wolpert Clerk of Court ANTHONY JEFFERSON, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. No. 25-3020 LEONARD MOORE, Major, El Dorado Correctional Facility; AUSTIN MERZ, SST Officer, El Dorado Correctional Facility; BRYAN BUCHMAN, SST Officer, El Dorado Correctional Facility; TRENTON BURK, COI Officer, El Dorado Correctional Facility; ORLANDO PEREZ, SST Officer, El Dorado Correctional Facility; CLAY COOPER, COI Officer, El Dorado Correctional Facility, Defendants - Appellants, and SARA THATCHER, COI Officer, El Dorado Correctional Facility; CHRISTOPHER FINCH, CSI Officer, El Dorado Correctional Facility; CENTURION, Nursing Staff, El Dorado Correctional Facility, Defendants. _________________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Kansas (D.C. No. 5:23-CV-03263-TC-TJJ) _________________________________  Appellate Case: 25-3020 Document: 51-1 Date Filed: 06/08/2026 Page: 2 Matthew L. Shoger, Assistant Attorney General (Kris Kobach, Attorney General, with him on the briefs) Office of Kansas Attorney General, Topeka, Kansas, for Defendants- Appellants. Lia Rose Barrett (Patrick D. Powers with her on the briefs), Latham & Watkins LLP, Washington, DC, for Plaintiff-Appellee. _________________________________ Before HARTZ, PHILLIPS, and MORITZ, Circuit Judges. _________________________________ HARTZ, Circuit Judge. _________________________________ Plaintiff Anthony Jefferson filed a pro se civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that a group of officers and a nurse staffing company violated his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights while he was imprisoned in a state facility. Six defendants (Defendants) filed a combined motion for dismissal of the complaint or summary judgment, relying on Eleventh Amendment immunity and qualified immunity. The district court denied the motion without prejudice. The court held that Defendants’ motion exceeded the page limits set by the local rules and, alternatively, that their motion for summary judgment was premature. Defendants responded by filing this interlocutory appeal, requesting us to order the district court to immediately consider their motion. We dismiss the appeal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. It is often said that Eleventh Amendment immunity and qualified immunity protect defendants not just from liability but also from the burdens of litigation. See, e.g., P.R. Aqueduct & Sewer Auth. v. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc., 506 U.S. 139, 143–45 (1993). This proposition is the rationale for permitting defendants claiming such immunity to invoke the collateral-order doctrine to appeal interlocutory orders denying their motions to 2  Appellate Case: 25-3020 Document: 51-1 Date Filed: 06/08/2026 Page: 3 dismiss or motions for summary judgment. See id. But Defendants have taken that proposition well beyond its proper bounds. Anyone who is sued will suffer some burdens of litigation. What these immunities d