Opinion ID: 1423841
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: intentional interference with a business expectancy

Text: Appellant next contends that the trial court improperly dismissed its claim of intentional interference with a business expectancy. That dismissal was based on the trial court's conclusion that the hearing examiner and the county council were entitled to quasi-judicial immunity. Appellant claims again, based on Monell v. Department of Social Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 56 L.Ed.2d 611, 98 S.Ct. 2018 (1978), that this is an official capacity lawsuit and that it is suing the County based on its own acts, not based on the acts of any of its agents. Therefore, the argument goes, the immunity of the County's agents does not transfer to the County as it would if the sole basis of liability were respondeat superior. See Owen v. Independence, 445 U.S. 622, 654-56, 63 L.Ed.2d 673, 100 S.Ct. 1398, reh'g denied, 446 U.S. 993 (1980). In other words, appellant is attempting to transplant the official policy analysis and all that it entails from § 1983 to state tort law. This is something we decline to do. [25, 26] Although Monell's official policy analysis purports to hold local governments liable only for their own acts and not the acts of their agents, the analysis is still, like respondeat superior, just a form of vicarious liability. A governmental entity cannot take independent action, but must necessarily act through its agents. Therefore, the local government can only be liable, if at all, if the acts of its agents are imputed to it. St. Louis v. Praprotnik, 485 U.S. 112, 122, 99 L.Ed.2d 107, 108 S.Ct. 915 (1988); Kramer & Sykes, Municipal Liability Under § 1983: A Legal and Economic Analysis, 1987 Sup. Ct. Rev. 249; Snyder, The Final Authority Analysis: A Unified Approach to Municipal Liability Under Section 1983, 1986 Wis. L. Rev. 633, 636 n. 13. The only difference between the official policy doctrine and respondeat superior liability is that the official policy analysis only imputes the acts of some of the entity's agents to the entity, while respondeat superior imputes all of the agents' acts (within certain limits) to the entity. This difference in vicarious liability has led to different results in terms of vicarious immunity. The Supreme Court has determined on a policy basis that for purposes of § 1983 and the limited vicarious liability scheme created by Monell, a local governmental entity does not enjoy the immunity of its agents. Owen, at 654-56. We, on the other hand, have recognized that for purposes of the complete vicarious tort liability (respondeat superior) we impose in the quasi-judicial context, a local governmental entity does enjoy the immunity of its agents. Creelman v. Svenning, 67 Wn.2d 882, 885, 410 P.2d 606 (1966). Our decision in Creelman considered the same policy concerns presented to the Supreme Court in Owen, but in the different context of our different vicarious liability scheme. We therefore came to a different result. Not only would it be inappropriate for us to follow a nonbinding decision which does not involve the same considerations as those at issue here, but it would also create unwanted and unnecessary confusion. We decline to apply the official policy and immunity analyses of § 1983 to state tort law claims such as the one presented here by appellant. Instead, we retain respondeat superior as the basis of local entity tort liability for the acts of their officers. As a result, public policy ... requires immunity for both the state and the county for acts of judicial and quasi-judicial officers in the performance of the duties which rest upon them.... Creelman v. Svenning, supra at 885. The only way the County could be liable to appellant is through the acts of its quasi-judicial officers, the hearing examiner and the county council members. As we have already stated, the parties agree the officers are protected by absolute quasi-judicial immunity and, for purposes of this appeal, we assume the parties are correct. Therefore, the County is immune from suit on this cause of action. The trial court properly granted summary judgment to the County on this issue.