Court Opinion

ID: 9852710
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:35:13.820077+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:32.727739
License: Public Domain

STEWART, Associate Chief Justice,
concurring and dissenting:
I concur in the judgment and in the majority opinion with one exception. One of plaintiffs actions against Dean Laney, the nurse practitioner at the prison, was based on a claim of negligence. In my view, that claim was not barred by the doctrine of official immunity for the reasons set out in my dissenting opinion in Ross v. Schackel, 920 P.2d 1159 (Utah 1996), a companion case also issued today. The jury found that Laney was negligent. Because he was clearly acting in a ministerial capacity, he was not entitled to the protection of official immunity. Indeed, as to him I find it extraordinarily difficult to distinguish between negligence on the one hand and the deliberate indifference test the *745Court applies under article I, section 9 of the Utah Constitution.
DURHAM, J., concurs.