Suppose a law enforcement officer enters the front door of your home without a warrant. You are asleep when he enters, but wake up when you hear the door open. You pick a gun up from your nightstand and walk toward the front door. The officer sees you coming toward him with the gun pointed in his direction. Is it reasonable for him to shoot you? Is the entity that employed the officer liable for your injuries? The Ninth Circuit in Mendez v. County of Los Angeles, 815 F.3d 1178 (9th Cir. 2016), concluded that it was reasonable for an officer to shoot the occupant of a home in a similar circumstance. Yet, the Ninth Circuit reasoned in Mendez, even if the force used is reasonable and not excessive, an officer is liable for its use if he intentionally and recklessly provokes a violent response and that provocation is an independent constitutional violation. For that reason, the Mendez court determined that the officers who entered the Mendezes’ home without a warrant were liable for their use of force. The United States Supreme Court vacated the Ninth Circuit’s judgment in Mendez yesterday, rejecting, in a unanimous opinion, the Ninth Circuit’s provocation rule as incompatible with the high court’s excessive force jurisprudence. See County of Los Angeles v. Mendez, 581 U.S. ___, (2016). Noting that the issue of whether the officers used excessive force was not before it, the Supreme Court left undisturbed the lower court’s determination that the use of force was [...]