Court Opinion

ID: 9530072
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:57:09.149315+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:59.644392
License: Public Domain

Utter, J.
(concurring) — The majority opinion sets forth a coherent and persuasive analysis on the issues of immunity and the public duty doctrine. Justice Guy's opinion, concurring in part and dissenting in part, fails to articulate an acceptable alternative to the majority's analysis and runs contrary to established precedent. Justice Guy also says that he would overrule Babcock v. State, 116 Wn.2d 596, 809 P.2d 143 (1991), without offering persuasive legal reasons besides "public policy concerns." This concurrence responds to Justice Guy's concurrence/dissent.
First, the concurrence/dissent would have us extend quasi-judicial immunity to the parole board's administrative employees because those employees are acting "pursuant to the authority of the board in carrying out parole decisions of the board." This stretches the coverage of quasi-judicial immunity, which is an absolute form of immunity, too far.
As we noted in Babcock, even the United States Supreme Court has been reluctant to extend absolute prosecutorial immunity to anyone but prosecutors and judges because of the extraordinary sweep of absolute immunity. Babcock, 116 Wn.2d at 608 (citing Achterhof v. Selvaggio, 886 F.2d 826, 829 (6th Cir. 1989) (citing Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 89 L. Ed. 2d 271, 106 S. Ct. 1092 (1986)); Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 429, 47 L. Ed. 2d 128, 96 S. Ct. 984 (1976)). More recently, the Supreme Court in Hafer v. Melo,_U.S. *230_, 116 L. Ed. 2d 301, 112 S. Ct. 358 (1991) emphasized the limited instances where absolute immunity is appropriate:
This Court has refused to extend absolute immunity beyond a very limited class of officials, including the President of the United States, legislators carrying out their legislative functions, and judges carrying out their judicial functions, "whose special functions or constitutional status requires complete protection from suit."
112 S. Ct. at 364 (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 807, 73 L. Ed. 2d 396, 102 S. Ct. 2727 (1982)).
In Babcock, both the majority and Justice Andersen's concurrence/dissent closely examined the Washington Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) caseworkers' actions to determine whether an extension of absolute immunity was justified. Similarly, the majority in this case has employed a functional analysis in determining what sorts of conduct are entitled to quasi-judicial immunity. Majority opinion, at 210. As the United States Supreme Court stated in Forrester v. White, 484 U.S. 219, 227, 98 L. Ed. 2d 555, 108 S. Ct. 538 (1988), "immunity is justified and defined by the functions it protects and serves, not by the person to whom it attaches." This is a principled, sensible way of extending judicial immunity to protect those officials who perform quasi-judicial functions. But that immunity applies to officials' actions only when they are playing a judicial role.
The majority in this case applies its functional test to the duties of parole officers when it holds that they are entitled to quasi-judicial immunity only for those functions that are an integral part of a judicial or quasi-judicial proceeding. Majority opinion, at 213. Thus, parole officers have quasi-judicial immunity when they enforce the conditions of parole or they provide the Indeterminate Sentence Review Board (the Board) with reports in parole proceedings. These types of roles are an integral part of the Board's proceedings. Administrative and supervisory actions of parole officers, however, are a different matter. When the parole officers in this case allegedly failed to supervise their *231parolees, they were not acting in a quasi-judicial capacity. They were not assisting the Board in deciding whether or not prisoners should be paroled. The decision to parole Louie Brock and Keith Geyman already had been made. The parole officers allegedly acted, or failed to act, in their supervisory capacity. For example, Leda Richardson, Brock's parole officer, never required him to submit to drug testing after his release. She never contacted Brock's friends or employers to inquire as to his progress. These are supervisory failures, unrelated to judicial or quasi-judicial proceedings. Similarly, James Kairoff, Geyman's parole officer, failed to supervise him between April 5, 1984, and July 27, 1984, even though Geyman was a maximum supervision parolee, and Kairoff had received negative reports about him. Later, Kairoff failed to act even after he learned that Geyman had violated his parole and was beating his girl friend and her children. All of these alleged actions, or failures to act, were supervisory, not judicial, in nature.
The concurrence/dissent, however, fails to distinguish between the different roles that parole officers play. Instead, it lumps all of those roles together by finding that absolute immunity attaches "inasmuch as the administrative employees are acting pursuant to the authority of the board in carrying out parole decisions of the board." In essence it asserts that parole officers deserve absolute immunity for virtually everything they do. This runs contrary to this court's functional analysis. No precedent is cited for such an extension of absolute immunity. Given the broad measure of protection that absolute immunity gives officials, this court has properly declined to extend absolute immunity in such a wholesale fashion.
The concurrence/dissent derides the qualified immunity that the majority gives parole officers as "illusory and nothing more than a negligence standard wrapped like a gift box which contains sticks and ashes." This criticism is harsh, but unfounded. The qualified immunity that the majority grants parole officers for their supervisory actions in this case is actually quite generous — even more generous than *232the qualified immunity we gave to DSHS caseworkers in Babcock. Babcock, 106 Wn.2d at 618. All that parole officers need show to be immune from a suit is that they acted in furtherance of a statutory duty and in substantial compliance with the directives of superiors and relevant regulatory guidelines. Majority opinion, at 216. Unlike the immunity for caseworkers announced in Babcock, parole officers need not show they acted reasonably. They also need to show only that they acted in substantial compliance, rather than strict compliance, with the directives of superiors and regulatory procedures. In fact, the majority gives parole officers a qualified immunity for their supervisory actions that more closely resembles the qualified immunity proposed by Justice Andersen in his concurrence/dissent in Babcock, 116 Wn.2d at 634-35. This gives parole officers ample protection from liability for their supervisory actions.
The public policy analysis in the concurrence/dissent focuses solely on the unfairness of holding parole officers individually hable, while ignoring the competing policy considerations in this case. The majority's formulation of qualified immunity fairly balances the needs of protecting the public, allowing recovery for victims of parolees' crimes, and providing the necessary protection for parole officers to perform their jobs. Granting absolute immunity to parole officers would disrupt that delicate balance. Ultimately, if the Legislature finds that we have not given parole officers adequate protection from liability, it can choose to grant them greater protection.
Justice Guy also claims he would overrule Babcock. His concurrence/dissent, however, does not contain a functional analysis of the caseworkers' actions in that case. It suggests that DSHS workers should be absolutely immune for all of their actions, regardless of the functions they are performing. Once again, his opinion is contrary to our functional approach, and unduly expands the coverage of absolute immunity.
In addition, the concurrence/dissent fails to note that the Legislature has granted DSHS caseworkers only qualified *233immunity when they remove children from child abuse in an emergency. RCW 26.44.056(3). It would have been anomalous for us to grant DSHS caseworkers an absolute immunity for foster care placement decisions in Babcock, while those workers only have a qualified immunity for removing children from abusive situations. Babcock, 116 Wn.2d at 606-07. We properly declined to create such a glaring inconsistency in Babcock.
Although Justice Guy does not explicitly mention the public duty doctrine, his opinion suggests that he disagrees with the majority's conclusion that the parole officers may have had a duty to the victims in this case. The majority's conclusion that parole officers have a duty to prevent foreseeable injuries to victims is based on its conclusion that parole officers have a "special relation" to parolees within the meaning of Restatement (Second) of Tbrts § 315 (1965). The majority also concluded that parole officers have "taken charge" of parolees within the meaning of Restatement (Second) of Torts § 319 (1965). The concurrence/dissent counters that parole officers do not have a duty to victims because parole officers do not have control "over convicted felons who are free on parole." This is nothing more than word play. Parolees are not "free" from the control of parole officers. As the majority demonstrates, parole officers exercise extensive supervisory control over prisoners. See majority opinion, at 219-20. Therefore, the majority properly concluded that parole officers take charge of the parolees they supervise. The majority cites numerous cases in which other courts have concluded that parole officers may owe a duty to the victims of parolees. See, e.g., Semler v. Psychiatric Inst., 538 F.2d 121 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 827, 50 L. Ed. 2d 90, 97 S. Ct. 83 (1976); Sterling v. Bloom, 111 Idaho 211, 723 P.2d 755 (1986); Division of Corrections v. Neakok, 721 P.2d 1121 (Alaska 1986).
Another recent case, Mahomes-Vinson v. United States, 751 F. Supp. 913 (D. Kan. 1990), also illustrates that absolute control over an individual is unnecessary to establish a legal duty. In Mahomes-Vinson, the court found that a *234plaintiff could sue the federal government because a Veterans Administration Medical Center failed to control a psychiatric patient receiving outpatient services. 751 F. Supp. at 923. That patient only reported to the hospital every 2 weeks for outpatient treatment. Nevertheless, the court found this sufficient to establish a special relationship under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 315, so the federal government could be hable. Therefore, continuous and absolute control over an individual is not, as the concurrence/ dissent suggests, a prerequisite of a legal duly.
Our conclusion that a duty may exist does not mean that parole officers will invariably be held hable for the actions of parolees. Victims must still prove that the harm was reasonably foreseeable to establish a duty. In addition, they must overcome any claim of immunity that the parole officer may have before they even reach the issue of whether a duty exists.
The majority's approach does not make parole officers the guarantors of parolees' conduct. Instead, it fairly balances the competing concerns of protecting the public, compensating victims, and giving public officials enough protection so that they can do their jobs.