Court Opinion

ID: 9464714
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:40:28.807882+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:46.358019
License: Public Domain

COFFIN, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from that part of the majority opinion relating to the immunity of Roberta Sawtelle, and the three defendant social workers. The majority contends that public officials should receive absolute or qualified immunity from § 1983 liability only if common law traditions of immunity or public policy interests in protecting the free exercise of official discretion are found to require the extension of such protection to particular classes of officials. As an abstract proposition, this approach has a certain attraction. But at the present time a significant body of case law has developed concerning who is eligible for immunity. Reasonable inferences from these precedents convince me that a remand is unnecessary on this issue and that social workers fall within the range of those permitted to assert the qualified immunity detailed in Wood v. Strickland, 420 U.S. 308, 95 S.Ct. 992, 43 L.Ed.2d 214 (1975).
The majority acknowledges that the Supreme Court has extended qualified immunity to include hospital administrators, school officials, police officers, prison officials, and executive officers. Lower courts have applied the Wood v. Strickland test to parole officers, correctional staff, and even state bank officials. I fail to see why one would doubt that social workers would be included within this official continuum. There seems little basis for distinguishing them in terms of the public policy rationale, and social workers are a new' enough profession to make it unlikely that relevant common law traditions will shed light on their status. Rather than remand for a determination whether or not the social workers were entitled to assert a qualified immunity defense, I would hold that they are and proceed directly to the question whether sufficient evidence has been presented to reach the jury as to their subjective and objective “bad faith”. However, in light of the majority’s disposition of this issue, I express no opinion as to whether the record supports a directed verdict on the immunity question.
My second point of disagreement with the majority concerns the liability of Roberta Sawtelle. It is by no means clear to me that a private party allegedly acting in concert with state actors should be subject to damages, if the state actors can successfully assert a qualified or absolute immunity. The majority’s analysis based on the Adickes case is not without merit. And I share the desire to avoid any erosion of the protections afforded citizens by § 1983. But both a sense of fairness and public policy caution against adopting an inflexible rule permitting private parties to be held liable when relevant and perhaps critically important state actors are immune. Particularly strong is the case for not imposing liability on a private person when his state actor collaborator has not manifested sufficient bad faith to breach a qualified immunity. Therefore, to the extent the state actors with whom Ms. Sawtelle allegedly acted in concert are found to be immune under Wood v. Strickland, I would hold that the corresponding claims against Ms. Sawtelle should be dismissed.