Opinion ID: 1852398
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Development of the Doctrine of Immunity

Text: We today reexamine the doctrine of immunity of officers, agents, and employees of the State for torts committed in the course of their performance of their duties. [2] We begin our discussion with a review of the doctrine of immunity where the issue arises in the context of the immunity available to the State in an action against the State (State immunity) as opposed to the immunity available to individual defendants sued for actions taken on behalf of the State (State-agent immunity). [3] In Hutchinson v. Board of Trustees of University of Alabama, 288 Ala. 20, 256 So.2d 281 (1971), this Court traced the history of State immunity in Alabama, using Copeland and Screws, Governmental Responsibility for Tort in Alabama, 13 Ala. L.Rev. 296 (1961), as a rich source of information. Our first Constitution required the Legislature to direct in what manner and in what courts actions could be brought against the State. Art. 6, § 9, Ala. Const. of 1819. The Legislature obliged in the following year with a statute allowing any claim against the state to be instituted by petition to the supreme court where two judges would form a court for the trial of such suit, with provision for trial by jury on demand. Toulmin, Digest of the Laws of Alabama, tit. 61, ch. 28, §§ 8-10 (1823). In the Constitution of 1865, a change in philosophy first surfaced when the privilege of suing the State was shifted from a matter of right to a matter within the discretion of the Legislature. [4] The 1820 legislation and successor provisions permitting actions against the State remained in effect until their repeal in 1875. [5] The Constitution of 1875 included, for the first time, a provision stating that the state of Alabama shall never be made defendant in any court of law or equity. Art. I, § 15, Ala. Const. of 1875. Art. I, § 14, Ala. Const. of 1901, contains the same provision. In the early years of statehood, this Court allowed a county to enjoy immunity from negligence or nonperformance of its duties except when a statute expressly provided otherwise. A city's liability turned on whether the city was performing a corporate, as opposed to a governmental, function. [6] The aforementioned constitutional prohibition of actions against the State dealt only with the State, not cities and counties. The law applicable to cities and counties was outside the sphere of constitutional regulation. [7] The decisional law underpinning immunity of cities was overturned in Jackson v. City of Florence, 294 Ala. 592, 320 So.2d 68 (1975), in face of dissents arguing in favor of deferring to the Legislature for change in the longsettled understanding of municipal liability. 294 Ala. at 600-04, 320 So.2d at 75-79. This Court adopted a similar rule allowing actions against counties, in Lorence v. Hospital Bd. of Morgan County, 294 Ala. 614, 320 So.2d 631 (1975), and Cook v. County of St. Clair, 384 So.2d 1 (Ala.1980). In Hutchinson, supra, this Court addressed whether the State, acting in its proprietary function, was entitled nonetheless to assert its immunity. Answering in the affirmative, the Court spoke as follows: The wall of `governmental immunity' is almost invincible, made so by the people through their Constitution as interpreted by this Court. Our cases are clear that the operation of a hospital is a `governmental function,' but even if we should classify the operation of University Hospital as being a `business function,' nevertheless, the State could not be sued. 288 Ala. at 24, 256 So.2d at 284. Today we must decide whether agents of the State sued in their individual capacity are entitled under certain circumstances to similarly sweeping immunity, regardless of how we would classify the activity in which they are engaged. No counterpart to Art. I, § 14, Ala. Const. of 1901, which declares the State immune from suit, appears in the Constitution of the United States. Also, the United States Constitution has no counterpart to Art. I, § 13, guaranteeing every person a remedy by due process of law for any injury done ... in his lands, goods, person, or reputation. The immunity of the United States Government is based upon the decisional law of the federal courts, uninfluenced by the presence of provisions comparable to §§ 13 and 14 of the Alabama Constitution of 1901. The explanation for the initial acceptance in the United States of the feudal and monarchistic doctrine of sovereign immunity is obscure. In 1821, in Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. (6 Wheat.) 264, 411, 412, 5 L.Ed. 257, Chief Justice Marshall declared that no suit could be commenced or prosecuted against the United States without its consent. On the basis of this and other early cases the rule of tort immunity became firmly established on the procedural ground that the Federal Government could not be sued without its consent. When justifications were offered, they were consistent with the form in which the rule was stated. The explanation most commonly quoted is that of Mr. Justice Holmes, in Kawananakoa v. Polyblank, (1907) 205 U.S. 349, 353, 27 S.Ct. 526, 51 L.Ed. 834: `A sovereign is exempt from suit, not because of any formal conception or obsolete theory, but on the logical and practical ground that there can be no legal right as against the authority that makes the law on which the right depends.' A separate idea of substantive immunity, as distinct from the denial of the right to sue, also appeared in the federal decisions, and in Gibbons v. United States, (1868) 75 U.S. (8 Wall.) 269, 19 L.Ed. 453, it was held that the Government was immune from all liability in tort. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 895A cmt. a (1977). Over time, the United States Congress, unfettered by constitutional restraints on lawsuits against the United States and not subject to any constitutional guaranty that a person would have the right to a civil action to redress an injury, enacted statutes that allowed the United States Government to be sued in certain circumstances. For example, in 1855 Congress established the Court of Claims to hear contract cases; in 1887, the Tucker Act waived immunity from suit and conferred jurisdiction upon the Court of Claims and the United States district courts to hear claims against the United States relating to the taking of property; in 1946, the Federal Tort Claims Act allowed actions against the United States for money damages for torts committed by Government employees and eliminated personal liability of those employees. Because the source of the immunity from suit enjoyed by the State of Alabama differs from the source of immunity of the United States Government in that the State's immunity is constitutionally based, [8] neither the Alabama Legislature nor this Court has the power to waive the State's immunity from suit. [9] Nor can the Legislature or this Court eliminate the right to a remedy by a civil action against an individual unless our constitution authorizes it to do so. Copeland and Screws, in their 1961 article, supra, refer to State-agent immunity only in passing, when dealing with the separate concept of governmental immunity. [10] They conclude: Sovereign immunity not only protects state agencies and corporations, but officers, agents or employees in their official capacity where the suits [involve] a state obligation. The problem of agency here is one of incongruitythe individual is not liable while acting for the state if the suit directly affects the state treasury, but the agent is liable for torts committed within his authority and cannot escape personal liability through the immunity shield. Since the state `can do no wrong,' any tort committed by an employee is without authority and the employee cannot set up a defense to escape liability that he was acting within his authority. Copeland & Screws at 307 (emphasis in original) (footnotes omitted). In England, the doctrine that the king can do no wrong came to be accompanied by the concept that his ministers were personally responsible when they acted illegally. Under their authority to create a common law, courts have struggled over the years to develop a meaningful compromise between the two extremes. [11] Restatement (Second) of Torts § 895D, Public Officers (1974), codifies this compromise, with its dichotomy between discretionary functions, in regard to which the public officer or employee is immune, and ministerial functions, in regard to which the public officer or employee is personally liable. In Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 521, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985), the Supreme Court recognized the footings of the doctrine of immunity in considerations of the separation-of-powers doctrine. Art. III, § 43, Ala. Const. of 1901, requires that each of the three separate coequal branches confine its activities to its respective sphere. While we have not heretofore considered the separation-ofpowers doctrine as part of the equation in determining issues of liability of State agents, other jurisdictions have traced the doctrine of State-agent immunity back to the provisions of their respective constitutions mandating separation of powers. See, e.g., Adams v. City of Tenakee Springs, 963 P.2d 1047 (Alaska 1998); Sutton v. Golden Gate Bridge, Highway & Transp. Dist., 68 Cal.App.4th 1149, 81 Cal. Rptr.2d 155 (1998); Department of Health & Rehabilitative Servs. v. B.J.M., 656 So.2d 906 (Fla.1995); Hiers v. City of Barwick, 262 Ga. 129, 414 S.E.2d 647 (1992), superseded by constitutional amendment, as stated in City of Thomaston v. Bridges, 264 Ga. 4, 439 S.E.2d 906 (1994); Ransom v. City of Garden City, 113 Idaho 202, 743 P.2d 70 (1987); Rumbold v. Town of Bureau, 221 Ill.App.3d 222, 581 N.E.2d 809, 163 Ill.Dec. 655 (1991); Wade v. Norfolk & Western Ry., 694 N.E.2d 298 (Ind.App. 1998); Goodman v. City of LeClaire, 587 N.W.2d 232 (Iowa 1998); Hardy v. Bowie, 719 So.2d 1158 (La.App.1998); Christensen v. Mower County, 587 N.W.2d 305 (Minn. Ct.App.1998); Mahan v. New Hampshire Dep't of Admin. Servs., 141 N.H. 747, 693 A.2d 79 (1997); Broadway & 67th St. Corp. v. City of New York, 116 Misc.2d 217, 455 N.Y.S.2d 347 (Sup.Ct.1982), order rev'd, 100 A.D.2d 478, 475 N.Y.S.2d 1 (1984); Moody v. Lane County, 36 Or.App. 231, 584 P.2d 335 (1978); City of Brownsville v. Alvarado, 897 S.W.2d 750 (Tex.1995); Hudson v. Town of East Montpelier, 161 Vt. 168, 638 A.2d 561 (1993). Soon after the Constitution of 1901 was adopted, this Court, in Elmore v. Fields, 153 Ala. 345, 45 So. 66 (1907), recognized the right of a citizen to sue a State employee for a tort committed in the line of duty. Elmore was the first Alabama case ever to deal with the issue of immunity for State agents sued in their individual capacity for the commission of a tort. The Court recognized no immunity, citing State v. Hill, 54 Ala. 67 (1875), wherein the Court had held that the State could not be liable under the doctrine of respondeat superior for the torts of its agents. The Court in Elmore also cited United States v. Lee, 106 U.S. 196, 1 S.Ct. 240, 27 L.Ed. 171 (1882), wherein the Supreme Court had quoted from Chief Justice Marshall's opinion in Osborn v. Bank of United States, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 738, 842-43, 6 L.Ed. 204 (1824), as follows: `[B]ut if the person who is the real principal, the person who is the true source of the mischief, by whose power and for whose advantage it is done, be himself above the law, be exempt from all judicial process, it would be subversive of the best established principles to say that the laws could not afford the same remedies against the agent employed in doing the wrong which they would afford against him could his principal be joined in the suit.' 106 U.S. at 213. Thus, because the State can do no wrong, its agents, when committing a tort, are not acting within their authority and, therefore, they do not act on behalf of the State. Elmore, 153 Ala. at 351, 45 So. at 67. Section 13, with its guaranty of a right to a remedy, was applied in J.B. McCrary Co. v. Phillips, 222 Ala. 117, 130 So. 805 (1930), where a contractor argued that a statute granting Jefferson County the authority to build a sewer system also granted immunity to the county and that the county's immunity shielded it from liability. In rejecting this argument, this Court stated that such a construction of the statute would conflict with § 13 of the Constitution. The Constitution and cases construing it require that we not ignore § 13 in order to protect State agents from suit. However, the vulnerability of State agents to suit, if not constrained, could lead to excessive judicial interference in the affairs of coequal branches of government, contrary to § 43. In Finnell v. Pitts, 222 Ala. 290, 132 So. 2 (1930), a divided Court (4-3) allowed an action in tort to proceed against a State agent. The dissenting opinion of Justice Thomas invoked as an extreme example the problems that would be posed if the majority's holding led to tort actions against the Governor. 222 Ala. at 303, 132 So. at 15. We cannot ignore precedents such as Elmore, J.B. McCrary Co., and Finnell, clearly recognizing an open door to lawsuits against State agents and written by Justices of this Court who lived, worked, and wrote in an era much closer to the drafting of the Constitution of 1901 than we do. Yet, at the same time, we cannot ignore the strong policy against judicial interference in the affairs of State government as articulated in § 14 and mandated by § 43. Although § 14 is, by its terms, restricted to prohibiting lawsuits against the State, we cannot disregard its impact upon our obligation to observe the constitutional separation of powers. However, we cannot give excessive deference to the authority of the legislative branch, grounded in the separation-of-powers doctrine stated in § 43, to eliminate entirely personal liability of State agents. The authority to exercise the judicial power in § 6.01 of Amendment No. 328 appears after Art. I, § 36. [12] Section 36 erects a firewall between the Declaration of Rights that precedes it and the general powers of government, including the authority to exercise judicial power, that follow it. We must, as far as possible, construe §§ 13, 14, 36, and 43 and § 6.01 of Amendment No. 328 as a whole and in the light of [the] entire instrument and to harmonize with other provisions. State Docks Comm'n v. State ex rel. Cummings, 227 Ala. 414, 417, 150 So. 345, 346 (1933). In light of the foregoing constitutional provisions, we conclude that while we have the constitutional power to decide casesthereby applying the law in cases that come before usif the authority conferred upon this Court pursuant to the Judicial Article (Article VI) conflicts with the provisions of § 13, we must construe § 13 as dominant, subject to our obligation to observe the separation of powers established by § 43. In applying the doctrine of separation of powers, we must recognize § 14 as an expression of a strong public policy against the intrusion of the judiciary into the management of the State while, at the same time, acknowledging that it speaks only to a prohibition of lawsuits against the State and does not mention lawsuits against individuals. For this reason, the express provisions of § 13 establishing the right to a remedy through a lawsuit against an individual must, as to the issue before us, stand above the implications from § 14 in the hierarchy within the declaration of rights. In the final analysis, we cannot invoke merely the authority to declare sound public policy through caselaw in order to find State agents immune from suit; in order to declare them immune, we must find the immunity in constitutional provisions. This constitutional backdrop enables us to articulate public policy through caselaw in this troublesome area, using constitutional principles, and not simply personal notions of good government, as our compass. Against this backdrop, we turn to the more recent cases dealing with Stateagent immunity. Seventy-five years after this Court first recognized in Elmore the open door to lawsuits against State agents, this Court decided DeStafney v. University of Alabama, 413 So.2d 391 (Ala.1981). In DeStafney, after recognizing that a claim alleging personal injury caused by the alleged negligent conduct [13] of a State employee, even when that conduct is committed in the line and scope of her employment, is not within the ambit of the constitutional prohibition against lawsuits against the State as expressed in § 14, this Court adopted a rule of qualified immunity derived from Restatement (Second) of Torts § 895D. [14] The adoption of that rule partially closed the door that had been opened in Elmore. Over the years since this Court decided DeStafney, a case in which an injured child was allowed to sue an employee of a day-care center operated by the University of Alabama, based on the ministerial nature of the employee's duties, the doctrine of State-agent immunity has been applied in a variety of settings. A review of the cases in their factual context illuminates the line the courts of this State have drawn between conduct involved in planning or decision-making in the administration of government [15] and the conduct of those required to carry out the orders of others or to administer the law with little choice as to when, where, how, or under what circumstances their acts are to be done. [16] See the Appendix to this opinion for a compilation of cases from this Court and the Court of Civil Appeals applying the doctrine of State-agent immunity (792 So.2d at 417). The most difficult applications of the rule derived from the Restatement come in instances where the discretion being exercised has little, if any, bearing on the administration of an agency of government or the execution of duties imposed by law. We cannot insulate State employees acting outside that zone, without disregarding § 13. In Taylor v. Shoemaker, 605 So.2d 828 (Ala.1992), this Court again dealt with the question of qualified immunity and noted the impact of DeStafney on earlier cases: The plaintiffs recognize that § 14 of the Constitution of Alabama of 1901 (`the State of Alabama shall never be made a defendant in any court of law or equity') extends immunity to state officers and employees acting within their official capacities, but contend that a tortious act by a state officer or employee removes such an officer or employee from this immunity. They cite Finnell v. Pitts, 222 Ala. 290, 132 So. 2 (1930). By a four-to-three vote, this Court held in that case: `We also think that this suit does not violate the constitutional prohibition against suing the state. For though the state cannot be sued (section 14, Constitution), its immunity from suit does not relieve the officers of the state from their responsibility for an illegal trespass or tort on the rights of an individual, even though they act pursuant to authority attempted to be conferred by the state. For when the state officers take private property though they apply it to a public use, a tort has been committed by them. Private property rights have been thereby unlawfully disturbed by them. We believe that the rule is universal that an agent is not excused from personal liability for a tort which he commits for and in the name of his principal, whether the principal is liable to suit or not. `The decisions of this court and the authorities generally apply that principle to torts committed by state officers in the name of the state and on account of the state's public affairs. An individual cannot justify a tort on a contention that it is for the state, if the state had no such right. If the state had the right, then its officers, acting by its authority, were justified. The officers cannot be justified upon a mistaken notion of state authority. An inadvertent tort-feasor is such, though he may not be liable to the amount of damages as a willful tort-feasor would be. The question now being discussed is not the extent of liability, but the fact of liability vel non. If in the promotion of the state's business its officers without authority of law apply private property to the state's enterprises, they are guilty of the same nature of wrong, as if they were acting as agents of a private corporation. The wrong is that of the officers personally as well as that of their principal. The officers are sued, not because the state has committed a wrong, but because they personally, though acting as officers, have done so. When a person commits a tort, it is wholly immaterial upon the question of his liability, whether he was acting officially or personally.' 222 Ala. at 292-93, 132 So. at 4-5. (Citations omitted.) The holding by a majority of this Court in Finnell v. Pitts should be read in light of later cases decided by this Court involving the immunity of public officers. The law of this State is that there is immunity when the state officer or employee has not exceeded his or her authority, but has merely negligently performed a statutory duty while acting pursuant to statutory authority. Gill v. Sewell, 356 So.2d 1196 (Ala.1978). Likewise, consistent with Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 895D, Public Officers (1974), there is immunity when the state officer or employee commits a tort while engaged in the exercise of a discretionary function. Sellers v. Thompson, 452 So.2d 460 (Ala.1984). Consequently, any statements made in Finnell v. Pitts, supra, and Elmore v. Fields, 153 Ala. 345, 45 So. 66 (1907) (the only Alabama authority on which the majority of this Court relied in Finnell ), regarding the application of the qualified immunity defense should be considered in light of these later holdings. 605 So.2d at 829-30. This Court in Taylor noted that the sweep of Finnell had been restricted by DeStafney. Our more recent cases dealing with the question when conduct constitutes the performance of a discretionary function as opposed to the performance of a ministerial function have used language that suggests a requirement that the actor be involved in planning tasks and policy-level decision-making in order to qualify for immunity. See Defoor v. Evesque, 694 So.2d 1302, 1305 (Ala.1997), followed in Town of Loxley v. Coleman, 720 So.2d 907 (Ala.1998). Recently, the Court of Civil Appeals referred to conduct that falls under the heading of ministerial functions as characterized by operational tasks and minor decision-making. Kassaw v. Minor, 717 So.2d 382, 385 (Ala.Civ.App.1998). This language in these recent cases could be read as disallowing State-agent immunity in instances where the actor, even though he may be making a complex decision beyond the range of the lay person, is not involved at the time in decision-making that directly relates to the exercise of a governmental-policy judgment. [17] Under the most elementary elaboration of the DeStafney formulation, conduct related to policy and planning and involving the exercise of judgment carries immunity, while ministerial acts carrying out the commands of decision-makers do not. However, at least two primary problems arise in the application of this test drawn from the American Law Institute's appreciation of prevailing law from around the country. First, as is the case with liability under the Federal Tort Claims Act, as discussed in Berkovitz v. United States , see note 17, cases from other jurisdictions often draw the line in the context of statutory remedies under which all agents enjoy immunity and therefore the point of demarcation relates only to the extent to which the public coffers will be open. These decisions arising in a context where all agents are immune do not have to reckon with the effect upon the rendition of governmental services if agents are inclined to indecision rather than risk personal liability. However, because we are bound by the aforementioned constitutional provisions, we cannot allow such extraconstitutional considerations to control the outcome. Second, as long as the agent has not disobeyed clear instructions, almost any challenged conduct can be reduced to the exercise of some degree of judgment or discretion. However, judicial deference to all conduct in which judgment or discretion is employed would exalt the immunity of § 14 over the right to a remedy preserved by § 13. As an example, there should be some recognizable difference in legal consequence between, on the one hand, a prison warden's decision not to fire or not to sanction the entity contracting with the State Department of Corrections to provide medical services and, on the other hand, a decision by the driver of a pickup truck on how to drive through or around potholes while transporting prisoners. Each situation involves judgment or discretion. Under our recent cases, the warden is immune [18] and the truck driver is not. [19] We cannot, in blind obedience to the doctrine of stare decisis, continue to accept an expansive application of caselaw characterizing as a discretionary function conduct remote from the execution of governmental policy; to do so would perpetuate an erroneous construction of the Constitution. Ex parte Dan Tucker Auto Sales, Inc., 718 So.2d 33, 42 (Ala.1998) (Lyons, J., concurring specially) (citing Gwin, White & Prince, Inc. v. Henneford, 305 U.S. 434, 454-55, 59 S.Ct. 325, 83 L.Ed. 272 (1939) (Black, J., dissenting)). The time has come to face the necessity of defining injury, as that word is used in § 13, in lawsuits against State employees alleging torts committed in the line of duty, in a manner that neither violates § 13 nor prefers § 14 or § 6.01 of the Judicial Article over § 13. We decline to label all discretionary acts by an agent of the State, or all acts by such an agent involving skill or judgment, as immune simply because the State has empowered the agent to act. Such an expansive view of the power of the State to act with immunity for its agents would be inconsistent with the rights secured by § 13.