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Meagher v. Quick12/11/2003
Hattie Sanders as administratrix of the estate of Jamorio Montez Marshall ("child" or "decedent"), a ten-year-old child, originally filed the instant wrongful death action in the Superior Court of Athens-Clarke County, against the appellants/cross-appellees/defendants Unified Government of Athens-Clarke County ( the "Unified Government"), Unified Government Police Chief Jack Lumpkin, and Unified Government police officers Sergeant Melanie Rutledge, David Meagher, and Harry Duranzo. The matter was thereafter removed to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia as a civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Finding no violation of the decedent's constitutional rights, the district court granted summary judgment to the defendants and remanded the remaining state law claims to the superior court. There, the superior court dismissed the plaintiff's claims against the defendants, less Officers Duranzo and Meagher. Appellee/cross-appellant/plaintiff Regina Quick, substituted as the administratrix of the decedent's estate upon Sander's resignation as administratrix thereof, then filed an amended complaint against Duranzo and Meagher, averring actual malice and negligence in the discharge of their ministerial duties under the Family Violence Act, OCGA § 17-4-20.1 (c), particularly in failing to complete a Family Violence Report.
Upon our grant of interlocutory appeal, in Case No. A04A0153 the Unified Government challenges the superior court's partial denial of its motion for summary judgment grounded upon the official immunity doctrine, Officers Duranzo and Meagher as immune from liability because the negligent acts alleged were discretionary. In Case No. A04A0154, Quick cross-appeals from the superior court's grant of partial summary judgment for the Unified Government upon finding no jury question as to actual malice in Officers Duranzo and Meagher upon giving preclusive effect to the district court's findings (a) that they had not misled their supervising officer, Sergeant Rutledge, and Unified Government police department dispatcher, Leigh Martin Ives, as to the scope of the investigation they conducted, and (b) that such investigation was not violative of the Fourteenth Amendment as a substantive due process violation. By a further claim of error, Quick challenges partial summary judgment for the Unified Government, contending that the superior court erred in finding that no jury question remained on the issue of the investigation in issue as showing actual malice in Duranzo and Meagher. Finding the duty to complete a Family Violence Report under the Act ministerial and no genuine issue of material fact as to the issue of actual malice, we affirm in the main appeal and in the cross-appeal.
The record shows that Officers Duranzo and Meagher were dispatched to 155 Kentucky Circle, Athens, Georgia, shortly after noon on February 12, 1998. They arrived separately, minutes apart, Dispatcher Ives having directed them to the residence upon a 911 call from a neighbor reporting a female child being whipped after what sounded like someone having sex. On reaching the Kentucky Circle residence, an apartment, Duranzo questioned several workmen who appeared to be leaving the area. The men indicated that they had overheard a man and a woman arguing with a child, this from a downstairs apartment where the workmen had been working. Officer Duranzo went to the door of the residence, knocked, and a woman, later identified as Vernessa Marshall, answered the door. Duranzo explained that he had been dispatched to the scene upon a 911 call. Contemporaneously, Officer Meagher arrived on the scene and joined Duranzo at the door. On Marshall's invitation, both officers entered the home.
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