Opinion ID: 397847
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Official Immunity of Executive Officials Reporting Performance Evaluations of Employees

Text: 19 Since we are not satisfied that the district court can be affirmed on the theory of an exclusive Performance Rating Act remedy or a theory of no actionable tort, we now consider the official immunity defense which was raised but which the district court found unnecessary to address. The issue is whether federal common law confers on defendants Acree and Dickerson an absolute immunity from suit for allegedly subjecting Lawrence for purely personal reasons to a performance evaluation aimed at causing him to remove himself from office. In the absence of such immunity we must remand for further proceedings. 20 (1) Barr v. Matteo 21 Defendants rely here, as they did below, on the holding of Barr v. Matteo, 360 U.S. 54, 79 S.Ct. 1335, 3 L.Ed.2d 1434 (1959) that a false and damaging publication within the outer perimeter of a federal official's scope of duty was an exercise of discretion which was not itself actionable and would not become so even if it be assumed that it was issued maliciously. 22 A threshold issue presented, then, is whether defendants, in preparing Lawrence's job evaluation, were acting within the scope of their duty. Lawrence contends that (d)efendants' only discretion in a case such as this is to counsel and evaluate an employee on performance problems with the intent of improving his performance; and to take in good faith such adverse actions as will promote the efficiency of the service. Appellant's reply brief at 7. Lawrence proceeds from that premise to argue that defendants are fully subject to suit, notwithstanding any immunity they might otherwise have, because he alleges they exceeded the bounds of their authority when the performance rating was issued with the improper motive of coercing his resignation. The flaw in Lawrence's premise-a too constricted view of an official's scope of authority for immunity purposes-was laid bare in Barr: 23 it can be argued that official powers, since they exist only for the public good, never cover occasions where the public good is not their aim, and hence that to exercise a power dishonestly is necessarily to overstep its bounds. A moment's reflection shows, however, that that cannot be the meaning of the limitation without defeating the whole doctrine. What is meant by saying that the officer must be acting within his power cannot be more than that the occasion must be such as would have justified the act, if he had been using his power for any of the purposes on whose account it was vested in him. 24 360 U.S. at 572, 79 S.Ct. at 1340 (quoting Gregoire v. Biddle, 177 F.2d 579, 581 (2d Cir. 1932)). That is, the defendants contend, so long as their actions were, on their face, performed within the scope of the defendants' duties, the fact that they were alleged to have been performed with an unlawful intent does not deprive them of a claim to immunity. The statute in effect when defendants acted required agencies to use performance ratings to evaluate employee work performance, 5 U.S.C. § 4302 (1976), 9 and the responsibility for complying with this Act rested upon the defendants. We therefore conclude that defendants were acting within the scope of their duties and are therefore entitled to some form of official immunity. 25 (2) Absolute or Qualified Immunity 26 A second and more substantial point of contention concerning defendants' official immunity is whether it is to be absolute or qualified. Absolute immunity defeats a damage suit once it appears the defendant's actions were within his line of duty, while qualified immunity defeats the suit only if the defendant shows his actions were taken in good faith, i.e., with a reasonable belief that they were lawful. Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 419 n.13, 96 S.Ct. 984, 989 n.13, 47 L.Ed.2d 128 (1976). Although the act complained of here falls well within a broad reading of the holding in Barr v. Matteo, supra, Lawrence argues that Barr's absolute immunity rule should not apply because (1) he is relying on an express statutory remedy (§ 1985(1)), and not simply on a common law tort, as did the plaintiff in Barr; and (2) he also allegedly has a constitutional claim, to which he contends defendants can have only a qualified immunity, under Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S. 478, 98 S.Ct. 2894, 57 L.Ed.2d 895 (1978). 27 We address the second contention first. 28 (a) 29 Lawrence's constitutional claim is that defendants' performance evaluation deprived him of property or liberty without due process of law. Appellant's reply brief at 13 n.6. 10 The complaint reveals no basis for this claim. The only property interest present in this context stemmed from an expectation of continued federal employment absent just cause for adverse action (Lawrence being in the competitive service). Yet Lawrence concedes he quit voluntarily. There is thus no nexus between the act complained of and any deprivation of a property interest. The only liberty interest present in this context was that in averting stigmatizing governmental action in the course of termination of employment. Here, with Part I of Lawrence's evaluation declared invalid and with only the overall satisfactory rating of Part II remaining intact it can be doubted that Lawrence has incurred any stigma at all. Even more fundamental, perhaps, is the point that whatever stigma Lawrence did incur did not occur in connection with termination of employment. As is the case with Lawrence's property interest, his voluntary retirement breaks any nexus between the offending performance evaluation and damage to a constitutionally protected interest. 30 (b) 31 This brings us to Lawrence's emphasis on the statutory nature of his claim. Defendants argue that they were entitled to repulse any nonconstitutional claim by invoking the absolute immunity announced in Barr v. Matteo, while Lawrence argues that Barr is distinguishable because it involved only one form of nonconstitutional claim-a common law tort action. Lawrence stresses that Barr did not involve what is present here-a congressionally created cause of action. 32 (3) Butz v. Economou 33 Both sides rely on Butz v. Economou, supra. In Butz the Supreme Court declined to extend Barr's absolute immunity rule to cover federal officials sued in their personal capacities for constitutional torts committed within the scope of their duties. The Court held that such officials were generally entitled only to qualified immunity. 438 U.S. at 507, 98 S.Ct. at 2911. The Court's language may be read to limit this departure from Barr to claims based on the Constitution, see e.g., id. at 495 n.22, 507, 98 S.Ct. at 2905 n.22, 2911, but the Court also said: 34 It is apparent ... that a quite different question would have presented (in Barr) had the officer ignored an express statutory or constitutional limitation on his authority. 35 Id. at 489, 98 S.Ct. at 2902 (emphasis added). Assuming, without deciding, that Lawrence is able to distinguish Barr v. Matteo simply because his claims rests on a federal statutory tort (as opposed to a state common law tort), 11 we nevertheless conclude that defendants under the circumstances here alleged are entitled to absolute immunity. 36 We reach that conclusion under the analysis provided in Butz, supra, in which the Court stated that, a general rule of qualified immunity was subject to those exceptional situations where it is demonstrated that absolute immunity is, essential to the conduct of public business. 438 U.S. at 507, 98 S.Ct. at 2911. The Court went on to hold absolutely immune those defendants in the Executive Branch-the Chief Hearing Examiner, Judicial Officer and prosecuting attorney, id., at 508-517, 98 S.Ct. at 2911-2916-who were performing prosecutorial and adjudicative functions within the agency in recognition of the rule that some (executive) officials (with) special functions require a full exemption from liability. (Citing cases). Id., at 508, 98 S.Ct. at 2911. Before applying the Butz test, we reject at the outset any notion that section 1985(1) precludes any official immunity defense. Section 1985, like 42 U.S.C. § 1983, is a statute that creates a species of tort liability that on its face admits of no immunities. Imbler v. Pachtman, supra, 424 U.S. at 417, 96 S.Ct. at 988. Yet we do not think that section 1985, any more than section 1983, was intended to abrogate the federal common law of official immunity. See generally Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U.S. 622, 637, 100 S.Ct. 1398, 1408, 63 L.Ed.2d 673, rehearing denied, 446 U.S. 993, 100 S.Ct. 2979, 64 L.Ed.2d 850 (1980). We think that here, as in a section 1983 case or a federal constitutional tort case, we should start with the assumption that defendants are entitled to at least qualified immunity for acts performed within the scope of their duties and then determine whether a broader immunity is appropriate by balancing the unavoidable harm to the person left unable to sue against the harm to effective government that the threat of suit would pose. See generally Butz v. Economou, supra, 438 U.S. at 505-17, 98 S.Ct. at 2910-16. 37 To determine whether absolute immunity exists in any given situation we must focus on the particular conduct and circumstances that gave rise to the claim of liability. See Tigue v. Swaim, 585 F.2d 909, 914 (8th Cir. 1978). Here Lawrence's sole claim surviving the statute of limitations is his claim for damages resulting from defendants' performance evaluation. The strong governmental interest in having a frank and honest assessment of federal employee work performance is absolutely essential to the proper rendering of federal services to our citizens. A supervisor's candid evaluation promotes efficient government by enabling an agency to identify and reward truly outstanding performance and to identify and correct, and on occasion dispense with, performance that is unsatisfactory. The judgment might be distorted if their immunity from damages arising from that decision was less than complete. Cf. 438 U.S. at 515, 98 S.Ct. at 2915. Requiring a supervisor to demonstrate his good faith whenever he is personally sued in damages for a displeasing performance appraisal would greatly discourage all but the most resolute supervisors from hazarding a conclusion that their subordinates' work was substandard. 38 The significance of this interest in insulating the exercise of supervisory judgment from non-job related concerns would be significantly less if the absence of a damage suit left an employee in Lawrence's position without any recourse against malicious and erroneous evaluation. But Lawrence had alternative remedies and he exercised them-as did Economou, 438 U.S. 516, 98 S.Ct. at 2915. His informal grievance was followed by a withdrawal of the most offensive part of his evaluation, and Performance Rating Act provisions then in effect permitted him to appeal even his overall rating of satisfactory. See p. 1322 supra.