Gill v. Ripley

• Citation: 352 Md. 754,724 A.2d 88
• Decision Date: 16 February 1999
• Docket Number: No. 36,36
• Parties: Joyce E. GILL, et al. v. Jeanne RIPLEY, et al.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

724 A.2d 88

352 Md. 754

Joyce E. GILL, et al. v. Jeanne RIPLEY, et al.

No. 36, Sept. Term, 1998.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

February 16, 1999.

E. Pamela Waldron, Bel Air, for appellants.

Lawrence P. Fletcher-Hill, Assistant Attorney General (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Attorney General, Margaret Witherup Tindall, Staff Attorney, all on brief), Baltimore, for appellees.

Argued before BELL, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, RODOWSKY, CHASANOW, RAKER, WILNER and CATHELL, JJ WILNER, Judge.

The issue in this appeal is whether prosecutors and their support staff enjoy absolute immunity from civil liability for conduct committed in the prosecution of a paternity action under Maryland Code, title 5, subtitle 10 of the Family Law Article. After filing such an action, the appellee prosecutors dismissed it, with prejudice, over the objection of the child's mother. The mother, appellant Joyce Gill, later sued the prosecutors and a clerical employee, alleging a variety of common law torts arising from the dismissal of the paternity action. Concluding that the prosecutors and the clerical employee were endowed with absolute immunity, the Circuit Court for Harford County dismissed the complaint. We shall affirm that judgment.

BACKGROUND

This action was filed by appellant, individually and as guardian and next friend of her daughter, Jessica. The defendants/appellees are (1) Joseph Cassilly, the State's Attorney for Harford County, (2) Jeanne Ripley, formerly an Assistant State's Attorney for that county, (3) Beverly Green, a child support enforcement employee working in or for the State's Attorney's Office, (4) the office of the State's Attorney for Harford County, (5) Harford County, and (6) the State of Maryland.

Because this case comes to us from the dismissal, on the pleading, of appellant's complaint, we must take as fact the well-pleaded allegations in that complaint, along with the reasonable inferences that may properly be drawn from those allegations. Warner v. Lerner, 348 Md. 733, 735, 705 A.2d 1169,1170 (1998); Flaherty v. Weinberg, 303 Md. 116, 135, 492 A.2d 618, 628 (1985). This action stems from an earlier one that reached this Court, however, and much of the background of the current dispute was set forth in the opinion filed in that case, Jessica G. v. Hector M., 337 Md. 388, 653 A.2d 922, cert. denied, 516 U.S. 829, 116 S.Ct. 99, 133 L.Ed.2d 53 (1995). The recitations are not identical, but neither are they materially inconsistent, so we shall draw from both.

In March, 1985, Joyce Gill had an intimate relationship with Hector Montesdeoca. On December 31, 1985, she gave birth to Jessica. In May, 1986, pursuant to §§ 5-1011 and 10-115 of the Family Law Article, Mr. Cassilly and Ms. Ripley filed a paternity action on behalf of Joyce against Hector in the Circuit Court for Harford County.¹ Although blood tests indicated a 99.97% probability that Hector was Jessica's father, Hector vigorously contested the action and, for two years, engaged in extensive discovery. Joyce contends in her complaint that "the defendants, and their respective offices, supervisors and staff, became annoyed at the level of effort they had to expend to prosecute the paternity case," that they also became annoyed when Joyce called about her case, that they avoided her calls and visits "because they were forced to contend with a troublesome case, a troublesome opposing counsel, and a frustrated client who was angry after years of litigation and no order of paternity or support," and that, after two years of litigation and no foreseeable trial date, Ms. Ripley dismissed Joyce's paternity action with prejudice.² The order of dismissal, apparently framed as a consent order, was signed by Hector, Hector's attorney, Ms. Ripley, and a judge of the circuit court. Joyce, who objected to the dismissal "with prejudice" and communicated that objection to Ms. Ripley, refused to sign the order. Notwithstanding that objection, Ms. Ripley filed the order on March 1, 1988, thereby terminating the action. Promptly and over the next three years, Joyce returned to the State's Attorney's office on numerous occasions to ask that the case be reopened, but she was consistently turned away and was not allowed to speak to Ms. Ripley or any other attorney in the office. Finally, Ms. Green, who was not an attorney, informed her that, because of the dismissal, she was forever precluded from bringing a paternity action or support proceeding against Hector. In 1992, a Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act (URESA) action was filed in New York, but in June of that year the New York court, applying res judicata, dismissed the action with prejudice, based on the dismissal of the Harford County action. Joyce then moved the Circuit Court for Harford County to vacate the 1988 dismissal; that motion was denied upon a finding that there had been no fraud, mistake, or irregularity in the entry of the judgment and therefore there was no basis for reopening it. Joyce's pro se appeal to the Court of Special Appeals was dismissed for failure to file a brief.

In December, 1992, Jessica filed a paternity action against Hector in the Harford County court. That action also was dismissed on the ground of res judicata, but on appeal, we reversed. In presenting her argument, Jessica urged that res judicata should not be applied because of the "procedural and equitable defects" in the dismissal of the original action, namely, the fact that Ms. Ripley docketed the consent order of dismissal without Joyce's signature and over her objection. She contended that that action "went beyond the scope of the attorney's authority," in that "an attorney has no implied authority to compromise a client's claim." Jessica G., supra, 337 Md. at 395, 653 A.2d at 926. We did not rule directly on that contention, although it played a part in our decision. Our ruling was based on § 5-1038(b) of the Family Law Article, which, except for "a declaration of paternity," expressly allows a court to modify or set aside a paternity order "as the court considers just and proper in light of the circumstances and in the best interests of the child." We concluded that "[t]he action of the State's Attorney in dismissing the paternity action with prejudice over the objection of the child's indigent mother in spite of a 99.97% probability of paternity was certainly contrary to the best interests of the child." Id. at 402, 653 A.2d at 929.

The record now before us does not reveal what has transpired with respect to Jessica's claim since our ruling in February, 1995—whether a support order has been entered against Hector. In this tort action, filed in November, 1995, Joyce and Jessica are seeking substantial compensatory and punitive damages as a result of the dismissal of the initial proceeding. They contend that the dismissal without Joyce's consent was motivated by the defendants' ill will and malice and was intended to harm and punish Joyce and Jessica. They aver that Cassilly, Ripley, and Green fraudulently concealed their wrongful behavior by representing that the dismissal was Joyce's fault and by refusing to allow Joyce to see an attorney to discuss her case. On those allegations, Joyce and/or Jessica sued Ripley and Green for negligence, gross negligence, fraud, detrimental reliance, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Ripley, in addition, was sued for professional malpractice. Cassilly was sued for professional malpractice, detrimental reliance, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and gross negligence, and Harford County and the State were sued, vicariously, as the alleged employers of Ripley and Green. These were all common law actions; no claim was made under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, or under the Maryland Constitution.

Ripley, Green, and Cassilly moved to dismiss the complaint on a number of grounds but principally relied on the defense of absolute prosecutorial immunity. The State adopted the individual defenses and argued as well the failure to file a timely claim with the Treasurer, as required by the State Tort Claims Act, Maryland Code, § 12-106 of the State Government Article. Harford County denied that Ripley and Green were its employees.

In a well-reasoned memorandum opinion, Judge Carr granted the motions to dismiss. He concluded that the individual defendants were, indeed, clothed with absolute prosecutorial immunity with respect to the challenged conduct, that the plaintiffs had failed to give timely notice to the Treasurer, thereby dooming their action against the State, and that Ripley and Green were not county employees. The only issue raised in this appeal is that of the individual defendants' prosecutorial immunity. Appellants do not challenge Judge Carr's rulings with respect to the State and Harford County.

DISCUSSION

Prosecutorial Immunity In General

The question of whether a prosecutor enjoys absolute immunity from civil liability was raised in Gersh v. Ambrose, 291 Md. 188, 434 A.2d 547 (1981). We observed then that we had never considered the extent to which a prosecutor may be entitled to such immunity outside of a judicial proceeding, and we found it unnecessary to do so in that case. We deal with the issue now.

Although prosecutorial immunity has been recognized for over a century in the United States, it is a relative latecomer.³ It arose initially as an adjunct to the doctrine of judicial immunity but has been clothed as well with the mantle of executive official immunity; indeed, it is the distinction between those two forms of immunity that has marked much of the development of prosecutorial immunity.

Judicial immunity has the more ancient lineage. As Judge Eldridge pointed out in Parker v. State, 337 Md. 271, 277, 653 A.2d 436, 439 (1995), "[t]he principle that judicial officers should be immune from all civil liability for their judicial acts has been part of the common law since very early days." It was "firmly established" in England by the...