Sargent v. Paiewonsky
| Decision Date | 06 September 1974 |
| Docket Number | Civil No. 74-63 |
| Citation | 10 V.I. 544 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Virgin Islands |
| Parties | SARGENT, WEBSTER, CRENSHAW & FOLLEY, Plaintiffs v. RALPH M. PAIEWONSKY and MARIO A. LEWIS, Defendants |
Tort action against former government officials. District Court, Christian, C.J., held the action barred by sovereign immunity.
GRUNERT, STOUT, HYMES AND MAYER, for plaintiffs
THOMAS D. IRELAND, for defendants
MEMORANDUM
On this motion by defendants seeking dismissal of plaintiffs' complaint, a hotly contested issue is whether plaintiffs' basic claim, however pleaded, is barred by the statute of limitations. It would appear that however viewed and whether the applicable statute of limitations be two years or six, these claims are barred since what is being set up as fraud was discoverable from the very onset of these parties' dealings. But, statute of limitations issues aside, all of plaintiffs claims are confronted by what I view as an insurmountable obstacle—the defense of sovereign immunity.
Defendants are charged essentially with having misrepresented their authority. This differs markedly from instances in which government employees allegedly abused their authority or committed actionable torts in the course of their official duties. Especially in the latter category, a civil rights action can be brought against the individual pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Right Act of 1871). In our case, there is no claim that plaintiffs were deprived of their civil rights, and thus most of the local cases cited by both sides are inapposite. The Civil Rights Act is applicable in those cases, moreover, because the court of appeals has held that its application is consistent with, rather than foreclosed by Section 2(b) of the Revised Organic Act of 1954. Ocasio v. Bryan, 6 V.I. 43, 374 F.2d 11 (3rd Cir. 1967). It is not argued in the instant case that there is any act of Congress which would exempt defendants from application of the Organic Act, or implement its underlying purpose as in Ocasio. The question is, whether this tort suit is against the defendants "in their official capacity", within the meaning of section 2(b). The argument that suit can now be brought because defendants are not presently clothed in official garb, as they are no longer in office, is patently frivolous. The action complained of was taken at a time when they were in office and the mere passage of time cannot change the nature of their acts.
Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Corp., 336 U.S. 682 (1949), is cited for the proposition that,
if . . . actions [of a government officer] are such as to create a personal liability, whether sounding in tort or in contract, the fact that the officer is an instrumentality of the sovereign does not, of course, forbid a court from taking jurisdiction over a suit against him .... [T]he principle that an agent is liable for his own torts "is an ancient one and applies even to certain acts of public officers or public instrumentalities". 336 U.S. at 686-87.
The relevance of this case to that before the Court must be questioned, however. First, such a principle was not before the Court in Larson and Chief Justice Vinson was simply-enumerating issues which were related but not under consideration. Even more important, the cases cited in Larson to support that principle are completely distinguishable in that they concern "the utilization of corporate facilities in the broadening phases of federal activities in the commercial or business field, [in which] immunity from suit is not favored." Brady v. Roosevelt S.S. Co., 317 U.S. 575 (1943). See, also, Sloan Shipyards v. U.S. Fleet Corp., 258 U.S. 549 (1922).
There is language in the treatises extolling both the broad, nonactionable discretion vested in public officials and, on the other hand, personal liability for their wrongful conduct. Thus, in 63 Am.Jur.2d Public Officers & Employees, Section 321, we find that,
It has been held that where public agents, in good faith, contract with persons having full knowledge of the extent of their authority, or who have equal means of knowledge with themselves, they do not become individually liable, unless the intent to incur a personal responsibility is clearly expressed, even though it is found that through ignorance of the law they may have exceeded their authority. But an officer may render himself liable in a tort action where through negligence or misfeasance he exceeds his authority in entering into contracts which do not bind his principal, and the courts have frequently held officers personally liable where, through their negligent failure to comply with legal requirements in entering into purported obligations for their boards or governments, no recourse can...
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