Title: Loigman v. The Township Committee of Middletown

State: new-jersey

Issuer: New Jersey Supreme Court

Document:

(This syllabus is not part of the opinion of the Court. It has been prepared by the Office of the Clerk for the convenience of the reader. It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the Supreme Court. Please note that, in the interests of brevity, portions of any opinion may not have been summarized). SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY A- 99 September Term 2004 LARRY S. LOIGMAN, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. THE TOWNSHIP COMMITTEE OF THE TOWNSHIP OF MIDDLETOWN IN THE COUNTY OF MONMOUTH, NEW JERSEY and THOMAS J. SAVAGE, ESQ., Defendants-Appellants, and SAUNDER WEINSTEIN and WILLIAM F. DOWD, ESQ., Defendants. Argued October 12, 2005 Decided January 18, 2006 On certification to the Superior Court, Appellate Division. Matthew J. Giacobbe argued the cause for appellants (Scarinci & Hollenbeck, attorneys; Mr. Giacobbe and Steven W. Kleinman, on the briefs). Linda B. Kenney argued the cause for respondent. JUSTICE ALBIN delivered the opinion of the Court. In this appeal, we must determine whether the litigation privilege shields a lawyer from a civil suit charging him with the improper use of a sequestration motion to exclude a spectator from a public hearing. Plaintiff Larry Loigman, Esq. filed a federal civil rights lawsuit under 42 U.S.C.A. 1983, alleging that defendants Thomas J. Savage, Esq. See footnote 1 and the Township of Middletown (Township) violated his First Amendment right to attend an administrative law hearing. The gist of the lawsuit is that Savage, the Township s specially retained labor attorney, persuaded the Administrative Law Judge to enter a sequestration order barring Loigman from the courtroom by pretending that Loigman was a potential witness in the case. In a jury trial on the 1983 action, Loigman obtained a judgment against Savage and the Township. Both the trial court and Appellate Division rejected defendants claim that Savage s request for a sequestration order was protected by the litigation privilege, thereby giving defendants absolute immunity from a 1983 lawsuit. In addition, both courts determined that, under 1983, Savage was acting as a policymaker in his capacity as the Township s lawyer in the case, thus making the Township vicariously liable for Savage s violation of Loigman s rights. We now reverse. We hold that the litigation privilege protects Savage and the Township from being haled into a civil court to face a damages judgment as a result of Savage s sequestration motion. We also hold that Savage s role as special counsel for the Township at the administrative hearing did not transform him into a municipal policymaker under 1983. [Id. at 197-98.] The litigation privilege has long been embedded in New Jersey s jurisprudence. Fenning v. S.G. Holding Corp., 47 N.J. Super. 110, 117 (App. Div. 1957) (observing that absolute immunity doctrine is firmly established principle and is indispensable to the due administration of justice, and that lawyers and litigants must be permitted to speak and write freely without the restraint of fear of an ensuing defamation action ). The public policy rationale for the litigation privilege has not changed in half a millennium. We are persuaded that the litigation privilege was firmly rooted in the common law as of 1871, the year of the passage of the Civil Rights Act, and therefore, we now must decide whether the privilege can be harmonized with the history and purposes of 1983. [Id. at 481-82, 106 S. Ct. at 1299-1300, 89 L. Ed. 2d at 464-65 (citation and footnotes omitted).] In City of St. Louis v. Praprotnik, the United States Supreme Court summarized the Pembaur analysis for determining when a municipality is liable for the acts of one of its policymakers. 485 U.S. 112, 123, 108 S. Ct. 915, 924, 99 L. Ed. 2d 107, 118 (1988). First, the municipality faces 1983 liability only for acts which the municipality has officially sanctioned or ordered. Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). Second, the municipality is subject to liability only for the acts of those officials who have final policymaking authority. Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). Third, state law determines whether a particular official has final policymaking authority. Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). Last, the unconstitutional action must have been taken pursuant to a policy adopted by the official or officials responsible under state law for making policy in that area of the [municipality s] business. Ibid. In light of those principles, it is clear to us that Savage was not a municipal policymaker for 1983 purposes. Savage did not exercise control over a policymaking division of municipal government. Cf. McMillian v. Monroe County, 520 U.S. 781, 783, 793-95, 117 S. Ct. 1734, 1735-36, 1740-41, 138 L. Ed. 2d 1, 6, 12-13 (1997) (deciding that Sheriff of Monroe County under Alabama law is state policymaker); Webb v. Sloan, 330 F.3d 1158, 1165 (9th Cir. 2003) (concluding that principal district attorneys are final policymakers for the local governments (quoting McMillian, supra, 520 U.S. at 785, 117 S. Ct. at 1737, 138 L. Ed. 2d at 8)), cert. denied, 540 U.S. 1189, 124 S. Ct. 1428, 158 L. Ed. 2d 97 (2004); Cherrits v. Vill. of Ridgewood, 311 N.J. Super. 517, 534 (App. Div. 1998) (recognizing that chief of police was policymaker for municipality). Savage served a limited role for the Township as its special counsel. Savage defended the municipality s appointment of a chief of police from a challenge by an officer who claimed that he was wrongly bypassed for that position. By hiring Savage to represent it in that litigation, the Township did not transform him into an official with final policymaking authority. Lawyers exercise considerable discretion in performing their duties on behalf of clients. In exercising his duties as a lawyer, Savage was responsible for making certain tactical and evidentiary decisions at the hearing, such as determining what evidence to present, which witnesses to call, how to cross-examine the various witnesses, and whether to request a sequestration order from the ALJ. In almost every case, trial lawyers will make the routine, and perhaps rote, decision whether to seek a sequestration order. Making a mundane sequestration motion is hardly the type of decision that reflects an officially sanctioned municipal policy. On the other hand, if the highest ranking Township officials conspired to pervert the judicial process by misusing a sequestration motion for the purpose of excluding a person from a courtroom who they had no intention of calling as a witness, that would be a different question. However, Loigman did not present any evidence of such a conspiracy or that Savage executed a municipal policy to deprive him of his constitutional right to attend judicial or quasi-judicial proceedings. On that basis, the Township could not have been liable under 1983. SUPREME COURT OF NEW JERSEY NO. A-99 SEPTEMBER TERM 2004 ON CERTIFICATION TO Appellate Division, Superior Court LARRY S. LOIGMAN, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. THE TOWNSHIP COMMITTEE OF THE TOWNSHIP OF MIDDLETOWN IN THE COUNTY OF MONMOUTH, NEW JERSEY and THOMAS J. SAVAGE, ESQ., Defendants-Appellants, and SAUNDER WEINSTEIN and WILLIAM F. DOWD, ESQ., Defendants. DECIDED January 18, 2006 Chief Justice Poritz PRESIDING OPINION BY Justice Albin CONCURRING/DISSENTING OPINIONS BY DISSENTING OPINION BY