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Estate Of Ashley Jones v. State12/26/2000
law.
In Taggart v. State, the court held that a parole officer takes charge of a parolee and thereby assumes a duty to protect against reasonably foreseeable dangers. This is so despite the absence of a custodial relationship and without exercising a continuing hourly or daily dominance and dominion over the parolee. Taggart also held that quasi-judicial immunity only applies to acts of a quasi-judicial nature and does not include a party's other acts that are not quasi-judicial.
In Savage v. State, the court held that while parole officers have qualified personal immunity, that immunity does not run to the State, which remains liable for a parole officer's negligent supervision.
In Bishop v. Miche, the court held that a parole officer's duty to supervise parolees applies equally to county probation officers supervising probationers and obligates them to protect others from reasonably foreseeable harm by the probationer. Accordingly, probation officers have a duty to monitor and report violations. Where there is a failure to adequately monitor and report violations quasi-judicial immunity does not preclude liability for negligent supervision.
Finally, the court's recent decision in Tyner v. Department of Social & Health Services significantly affects the law governing claims for negligent supervision. A judicial order will not act as a superseding intervening cause terminating State liability where the State fails to provide all material information to the court for its decision. In the context of a claim for negligent investigation, the State's failure to provide all material information to the court may be the proximate cause of injury . Whether information is material is generally a question of fact for the jury.
Island County's Liability
Here, the estate makes three claims against Island County. It claims Island County failed to properly supervise Dodge while he was on probation because it did not properly investigate or report evidence of possible parole violations by Dodge. The Estate also claims that Island County failed to forward all material information to the court for its sentencing determination. Finally, the Estate claims Island County was negligent when it failed to forward relevant information to the State for its placement evaluation of Dodge and negligent when probation officer Deremiah reported that Dodge had no major community supervision problems and did well in structured programs.
Whether or not a duty has been breached is generally a question of fact for the jury. The information in Deremiah's notes provided evidence of possible parole violations by Dodge. Therefore, it is for a jury to decide whether Island County was negligent in its supervision of Dodge because it failed to properly monitor and report this evidence of possible misconduct.
Quasi-judicial immunity does not protect Island County from liability for deficiencies in the sentencing information it provided to the court. Quasi- judicial immunity does not apply where the defendant county fails to adequately monitor and report probation violations or fails to provide all material information to the court. Because Deremiah's notes were not provided to the court and because it is a question for the jury whether those notes were material, summary judgment on this issue was improper.
Similarly, it is for the jury to determine whether Island County was negligent because it provided incomplete information to the JRA for Dodge's placement evaluation: Deremiah's report indicated that Dodge had no major community supervision problems and did well in structured programs. For all of these reasons, dismissal of the claim ag
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