In December 2020, the United States Supreme Court issued its most important decision on qualified immunity since Harlow v. Fitzgerald, and the issue in the case did not even involve the doctrine. In the Court’s unanimous opinion in Tanzin v. Tanvir, which dealt with the interpretation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Justice Thomas explicitly distanced the Court from the very type of policy reasoning used to create qualified immunity. He also embraced the availability of damages claims against government officials as historically justified and often necessary to vindicate individual rights and to check the government’s power. The Court’s decision in Tanvir—alongside those in Taylor v. Riojas and McCoy v. Alamu—offers the strongest signal in decades that the Court is ready to recalibrate its qualified immunity jurisprudence. While it is not time to celebrate the demise of qualified immunity just yet, this Article will discuss how the Court’s disposition of those cases reveals the Court is reconsidering both the foundations and applications of qualified immunity.

2020年12月，美国最高法院发布了自哈洛诉菲茨杰拉德案以来最重要的合格豁免判决，而该案的问题甚至没有涉及该学说。在涉及对《宗教自由恢复法》的解释的Tanzin v. Tanvir 案中，法院的一致意见中，Thomas 法官明确将法院与用于创建合格豁免的政策推理类型保持距离。他还接受了针对政府官员的损害赔偿索赔的可用性，这是历史上合理的，并且通常是维护个人权利和检查政府权力所必需的。 法院在Tanvir案中的判决——与Taylor 诉 Riojas 案和McCoy 诉 Alamu案——提供了几十年来最强烈的信号，表明法院已准备好重新调整其合格的豁免判例。虽然现在还不是庆祝合格豁免权消亡的时候，但本文将讨论法院对这些案件的处理如何揭示法院正在重新考虑合格豁免权的基础和应用。