Court Opinion

ID: 6922618
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-23 23:07:05.142703+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:06:50.606625
License: Public Domain

WATERMAN, Circuit Judge
(concurring in the result).
I concur in the result reached by my colleagues. I do so because the plaintiff’s allegations of wrongdoing demonstrate that the alleged tortious acts of these particular defendants not only occurred in the necessary course of their obviously important official duties as contracting officers of the General Services Administration but were acts required of them if they were conscientiously to perform those duties.
I do not fully join in the majority opinion, however, for in these days of greatly expanded governmental commercial activity and increased governmental payrolls, I question the wisdom of flatly holding that the law grants immunity from personal tort liability to all governmental employees performing official duties that can be represented by the actors to be duties involving the exercise of judgment and discretion. This I understand to be the rationale of the majority opinion.
All jobs, even the most routine government ones, require the jobholder to exercise some degree of judgment and discretion on the job. A rational doctrine originally evolved to protect high-ranking policy-making administrative officers of our Government should not be extended to cloak with immunity all government employees.