Source: https://www.cunninghambounds.com/blog/2017/march/qualified-immunity-state-agent-immunity-ex-parte/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 07:03:20+00:00

Document:
Ex parte Hugine, [Ms. 1130428, Mar. 17, 2017] __ So. 3d __ (Ala. 2017). In this 75-page opinion, the full Court (Murdock, J., and Stuart, Bolin, Main, Wise, and Bryan, JJ., concur; Parker, J., concurs in part and concurs in the result; Shaw, J., concurs in the result) grants a petition for a writ of mandamus and directs the Madison Circuit Court to enter summary judgment in favor of an administrator at Alabama A&M on the bases of qualified immunity relative to retaliation claims premised upon alleged violations of a tenured professor’s free-speech and free-association rights and on the bases of state-agent immunity relative to the professor’s state-law claims alleging wrongful termination, fraud and tortious interference with a contractual relationship.
“Qualified immunity offers complete protection for individual public officials performing discretionary functions ‘insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.’” Sherrod v. Johnson, 667 F.3d 1359, 1363 (11th Cir. 2012) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982)).
Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 232 (2009).
“Consider the first prong of the test – whether the official is engaged in a legitimate job-related function. In Sims v. Metropolitan Dade County, 972 F.2d 1230 (11th Cir. 1992), ‘we did not ask whether it was within the defendant’s authority to suspend an employee for an improper reason; instead, we asked whether [the defendant’s] discretionary duties included the administration of discipline.’ Harbert [Int’l., Inc. v. James], 157 F.3d  at 1282 [(11th Cir. 1998)]. ... Put another way, to pass the first step of the discretionary function test for qualified immunity, the defendant must have been performing a function that, but for the alleged constitutional infirmity, would have fallen with his legitimate job description.
370 F.3d at 1265, 1266-67 (some emphasis added).
Ms. *33-34. Once a defendant establishes that he/she was engaged in a discretionary function at the time of the act in question, the burden shifts to the plaintiff to show that the defendant is not entitled to summary judgment on qualified immunity ground. Ms. *34. “To do so, the plaintiff must demonstrate that a reasonable jury could interpret the evidence in the record as showing that the defendant violated a constitutional right that was clearly established at the time of the acts in question.” Ms. *34-35, quoting Holliman, 370 F.3d at 1267.
Ms. *50, quoting Foy, 94 F.3d at 1534.
With respect to the state-agent immunity analyses, the Court recognizes first that “[t]he dismissal of a public employee who is entitled to a pre-termination hearing, without such a hearing, is a wrongful act constituting a tort under Alabama law.” Ms. *56, quoting Hardric v. City of Stevenson, 843 So. 2d 206, 210 (Ala. Civ. App. 2002). Here, however, because the evidence supported a finding that the administrators violated no rule, regulation, policy, or procedure in determining that the professor was not in fact tenured and therefore not entitled to a pre-termination hearing, they were engaged in doing their jobs as state-school officials and entitled to state-agent immunity as to this particular claim.
Ms. *63, quoting Johnson v. Sorensen, 914 So. 2d 830, 837 (Ala. 2005) (quoting Waddell & Reed, Inc. v. United Investors Life Ins. Co., 875 So. 2d 1143, 1161 (Ala. 2003), quoting in turn State Farm Fire & Cas. Co. v. Slade, 747 So. 2d 293, 323-24 (Ala. 1999)). Here, no evidence supported any duty to speak on the part of the administrators, thus the administrators were entitled to state-agent immunity as to this claim as well.
Ms. *69-70, quoting Michelin Tire Corp. v. Goff, 864 So. 2d 1068, 1077 (Ala. Civ. App. 2002). Here again the evidence was insufficient to meet the required elements and in particular there was no showing of any pattern of interference, so the administrators were entitled to state-agent immunity with respect to this claim, too.

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