Cawood v. Davis

• Decision Date: 16 August 1984
• Citation: 680 S.W.2d 795
• Parties: F. Chris CAWOOD, Appellant, v. Ronald L. DAVIS, Appellee. 680 S.W.2d 795
• Court: Tennessee Court of Appeals

Page 795

680 S.W.2d 795

F. Chris CAWOOD, Appellant, v. Ronald L. DAVIS, Appellee.

680 S.W.2d 795

Court of Appeals of Tennessee Eastern Section.

Aug. 16, 1984.

Permission to Appeal Denied by

Supreme Court Oct. 29, 1984.

F. Chris Cawood, Kingston, pro se.

Foster D. Arnett and Rick L. Powers, Arnett, Draper & Hagood, Knoxville, for appellee.

OPINION

PARROTT, Presiding Judge.

The plaintiff-appellant in this malicious prosecution action is F. Chris Cawood, an attorney licensed by the state of Tennessee. The defendant-appellee is Ronald Davis, who served as Disciplinary Counsel to the Board of Professional Responsibility (hereinafter, the Board) at the time relevant to this action. On October 12, 1981, pursuant to its authority under Rule 9 of the Rules of the Supreme Court, the office of Disciplinary Counsel petitioned the Board to appoint a panel which would hear evidence on nineteen allegations of misconduct lodged against Cawood. Davis, while acting as Disciplinary Counsel, amended that petition by adding the charge that Cawood committed aggravated assault, with the use of his automobile, upon a minor child. ¹ Thereafter Cawood brought this action, arguing that the additional charge of aggravated assault was an act of malicious prosecution by Davis. The trial judge decided that Davis was immune from civil suit for acts committed as Disciplinary Counsel. He granted Davis' motion for summary judgment. We affirm for the reasons set out below.

At the appellate level, this case raises two issues: (1) Is the Board's Disciplinary Counsel clothed in a quasi-judicial absolute immunity for actions within the scope of his authority; and (2) Has Davis established that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that he is entitled to judgment as a matter of law? We consider first the question of immunity for the Board's Disciplinary Counsel.

We believe this question to be one of first impression in Tennessee and, therefore, we have surveyed the caselaw from other jurisdictions. We find that Kissell v. Breskow, 579 F.2d 425 (7th Cir.1978), cogently explains and applies what is apparently the majority rule in jurisdictions which have considered this question. In Kissell, the clients of an attorney, who was subject to a disciplinary proceeding, sued the executive secretary of the Indiana disciplinary committee. ² They alleged that the defendant, in presenting charges against plaintiffs' attorney and in certain related acts, had violated their constitutional right to counsel of choice. The federal district court granted defendant's motion for summary judgment and the Seventh Circuit affirmed. After reviewing several cases on the issue, the Kissell court decided that an officer of a state body charged with disciplining attorneys is entitled to a quasi-judicial absolute immunity. The Kissell court analogized the acts of such an officer to those of prosecutors and found that the same policies which give rise to quasi-judicial immunity for prosecutors also apply to officers of a state's disciplinary committee. In the recent case of Clulow v. State of Oklahoma, 700 F.2d 1291 (10th Cir.1983), the plaintiff-attorney sued various state bar officials after his suspension from the bar association. The Clulow court held as follows: "We therefore agree with the courts which have held that bar officials charged with the duties of investigating, drawing up, and presenting cases involving attorney discipline enjoy absolute immunity from damage claims for such functions (cites omitted)." We find the reasoning of...