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Miller v. City of Red Lodge3/13/2003
aim that municipalities should be afforded qualified immunity, much like that afforded individual officials, based on the good faith of their agents. These decisions make it quite clear that, unlike various government officials, municipalities do not enjoy immunity from suit-either absolute or qualified-under §§ 1983. In short, a municipality can be sued under §§ 1983, but it cannot be held liable unless a municipal policy or custom caused the constitutional injury. Leatherman, 507 U.S. at 166, 113 S.Ct. at 1162 (citations omitted). Despite the foregoing case law, this Court affirmed a summary judgment ruling in favor of the defendants in Reisdorff. In Reisdorff, 17, we noted that the plaintiff "filed a complaint . . . against: Yellowstone County; the City of Billings; the Yellowstone County Sheriff's Office of Animal Control; the Billings Animal Shelter; John Fleming; Darlene Larson; Scott Lance of the BAS; and Does 1 through 10." This Court framed the §§ 1983 summary judgment issue on appeal as, "Did the District Court err when it awarded summary judgment to governmental Defendants and the employees of those governmental entities based on quasi-judicial immunity?" Reisdorff, 4.
As the above federal case law indicates, our blanket affirmation of immunity in favor of all of the defendants in Reisdorff constituted error. In Reisdorff, we correctly applied the doctrines of judicial and quasi-judicial immunity to the extent we immunized any "employees of those governmental entities" from individual §§ 1983 liability. Further, while Reisdorff does not expressly address this issue, the local government units would have been entitled to summary judgment on the §§ 1983 claim in the absence of a constitutional deprivation, as alluded to in City of Los Angeles above. However, to the extent that we afforded the local government units immunity from §§ 1983 liability pursuant to the doctrines of judicial and quasi-judicial immunity, Reisdorff is hereby overruled.
In the case at bar, Miller filed a third-party complaint against "Safeco Property and Casualty Insurance Companies, Hoiness Labar Insurance, Inc., Gene Culver and City of Red Lodge." Miller did not include any of the City officials as named defendants in the complaint, in individual or official capacities. Nevertheless, the City ultimately obtained summary judgment based upon individual immunities unavailable to local government units.
In ruling upon the City's first motion for summary judgment, the District Court appeared focused on the appropriate §§ 1983 liability issues. That is, it queried whether a constitutional deprivation occurred and, if so, raised questions regarding the origin of the alleged deprivation. The second motion for summary judgment, with its corresponding assertion of immunity, seemingly derailed the initial deprivation analysis. Unfortunately, it appears that this Court motivated the diversion with our erroneous application of the §§ 1983 immunities in Reisdorff.
Admittedly, it sounds somewhat disingenuous to proclaim that the District Court erred when it granted summary judgment on the §§ 1983 claim to the City on judicial and quasi-judicial immunity grounds. After all, the District Court did so primarily based on our direction in Reisdorff. However, for the reasons discussed above, Reisdorff erroneously misconstrued and misapplied the §§ 1983 immunities as they apply to local government units. Therefore, we must reverse the District Court's order of summary judgment. We do not intend to pass judgment on the substantive immunity analyses undertaken by the District Court in regard to the individual officials. For, the dispositive flaw in this case occurred when the City obtained immunity
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