Webb v. Haas

• Decision Date: 13 May 1999
• Citation: Webb v. Haas, 728 A.2d 1261, 1999 ME 74 (Me. 1999)
• Parties: Kenneth E. WEBB et al. v. Jeffrey HAAS.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

728 A.2d 1261

1999 ME 74

Kenneth E. WEBB et al. v. Jeffrey HAAS.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Argued October 5, 1998.

Decided May 13, 1999.

David G. Webbert (orally,) Johnson & Webbert, LLP, Augusta, attorney for plaintiffs.

William R. Fisher (orally), Portland, attorney for defendant.

Andrew Ketterer, Attorney General, Paul Stern, Dep. Atty. Gen., Augusta, attorneys for amicus curiae.

Before WATHEN, C.J., and CLIFFORD, RUDMAN, DANA, and SAUFLEY, JJ.

DANA, J.

[¶ 1] Jeffrey Haas appeals from an order entered in the Superior Court (Kennebec County, Alexander, J.) denying his motion for a summary judgment on the state and federal claims of Kenneth E. and Virginia M. Webb. On appeal, Haas (1) contends that he is shielded by qualified immunity from suit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and (2) challenges the merits of the Webbs' state law claims. We conclude that Haas is shielded by qualified immunity from suit pursuant to federal law and that the causal link between Haas's misconduct and the Webbs' injuries is too tenuous to survive a summary judgment motion.¹

[¶ 2] This case comes before us for the second time. See Webb v. Haas, 665 A.2d 1005 (Me.1995). A complete discussion of the facts appears in our prior decision. We will, therefore, limit the presentation of facts to those necessary to place the issues in context. The Webbs' claims arise out of the abduction and murder of their daughter, Pamela Webb. On July 1, 1989, Pamela was abducted when her truck broke down on the Maine Turnpike. Although New Hampshire authorities found Pamela's body a few weeks later, the identity of the perpetrator remains unknown to this day.

[¶ 3] In 1992, the state police contacted the Webbs to tell them that the Kennebec Journal was about to publish an article that detailed the misconduct of state trooper Jeffrey Haas during the investigation of Pamela's murder. Haas was on patrol the night Pamela was abducted. He saw her disabled truck at about 11:30 p.m. on July 1 but did not stop to inspect it until approximately three hours later. When it became clear that Pamela had been abducted, the police asked Haas when he had first seen the truck. He responded falsely that he first saw the truck at 2:00 a.m. on July 2. Haas persisted with this false account in various forms, including a falsified patrol check card purporting to have been completed on July 1 at 11:30 p.m. Only after Haas became a suspect in the murder investigation, did he confess the truth. The internal affairs division investigated Haas's misconduct and discharged him in November 1989.

[¶ 4] In April 1992, the Webbs filed a notice of claim pursuant to the Maine Tort Claims Act (MTCA),² and in June they filed this action against Haas, the State of Maine, and the Turnpike Authority.³ In 1993, Haas filed a motion to dismiss, claiming that the Webbs' claims were barred by the statute of limitations and that discretionary and qualified immunity shielded him from liability. The trial court denied the motion, and we affirmed. Webb, 665 A.2d at 1008-11. After the completion of discovery, Haas moved for a summary judgment, asserting essentially the same arguments he had advanced in 1993. In addition, he asked the court to rule on the merits of the Webbs' state law claims. The court denied the motion and Haas appealed.

I. INTERLOCUTORY APPEAL OF A DENIAL OF A SUMMARY JUDGMENT

[¶ 5] Our final judgment rule generally precludes the immediate review of the denial of a summary judgment. Andrews v. Department of Envtl. Protection, 1998 ME 198, ¶ 4, 716 A.2d 212, 215. We have determined, however, that "`the denial of a motion for a summary judgment based on a claim of immunity is immediately reviewable pursuant to' the death knell exception to the final judgment rule." Id. (quoting J.R.M., Inc. v. City of Portland, 669 A.2d 159, 160 & n. 1 (Me.1995)). The death knell exception "permits an appeal from an interlocutory order where substantial rights of a party will be irreparably lost if review is delayed until final judgment." Id. (quoting Cook v. Cook, 574 A.2d 1353, 1354 (Me.1990)). We apply the death knell exception to the denial of a claim of "qualified immunity because qualified immunity confers more than immunity from damages; it is intended to provide immunity from suit, since `even such pretrial matters as discovery ... can be peculiarly disruptive of efficient government.'" Id. (quoting J.R.M., 669 A.2d at 160).⁴ [¶ 6] Recognizing that the availability of an interlocutory appeal in cases such as this is well established, the Webbs argue that we should nonetheless decline to allow this interlocutory appeal because a previous appeal was taken by the defendants. While we do not lightly dismiss the expense and time consumed by multiple appeals, we conclude in this limited circumstance that the resolution of the previous interlocutory appeal does not preclude a second such appeal. We accepted the first appeal from the denial of the motion to dismiss in order to effectuate the teachings of Andrews: when a claim of immunity may be resolved without subjecting the parties to the discovery process, it must be heard on appeal.

[¶ 7] We determined in the first appeal that the absence of a complete record compelled the denial of the motion to dismiss. See M.R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6); McAfee v. Cole, 637 A.2d 463, 465 (Me.1994) (motion to dismiss may be granted only where it appears "beyond doubt that a plaintiff is entitled to no relief under any set of facts that he might prove in support of his claim"). We recognized, however, the possibility that completion of discovery could result in a second interlocutory appeal. Indeed, we noted that "the Webbs may fail to withstand a subsequent motion for a summary judgment." Webb, 665 A.2d at 1010-1011. Because the reasoning of Andrews applies as much to the matter before us now as it did when the matter was presented to us previously, we decline the Webbs' invitation to adopt a "single appeal" rule. Therefore, we will review Haas's claim that he is shielded from liability on the Webbs' section 1983 claims by a qualified immunity.

II. FEDERAL QUALIFIED IMMUNITY

[¶ 8] Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983,⁵ the Webbs contend that Haas violated their constitutional right of access to the courts by attempting to conceal his misconduct. Qualified immunity shields government officials from civil liability under section 1983 "insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Andrews, 1998 ME 198, ¶ 11; 716 A.2d 212, 217 (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982)). Whether a right was clearly established at the time of the alleged violation is a question of law. Id. ¶ 13.

[¶ 9] For a right to be clearly established, "the contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. The unlawfulness must be apparent in light of preexisting law." Id. ¶ 12 (quoting Parsons v. Wright, 649 A.2d 1108, 1111 (Me.1994)). We have cautioned that the violation of a right can be apparent "even though that action has not previously been held to be unlawful." Id.

[¶ 10] The right of access to the courts "is basic to our system of government, and it is well established today that it is one of the fundamental rights protected by the Constitution." Ryland v. Shapiro, 708 F.2d 967, 971 (5th Cir.1983). The question, therefore, is whether in 1989 a reasonable police officer would have understood that Haas's conduct constituted a violation of the right of access to the courts. See Andrews, 1998 ME 198, ¶ 13,716 A.2d 212, 218. Because the facts of this case are outside the parameters of the case law existing in 1989, we conclude that qualified immunity shields Haas from damages pursuant to section 1983.

[¶ 11] By 1989, the federal courts had established that a government official violated an individual's right of access to the courts when he or she (1) committed a crime which gave rise to an underlying substantive claim or knew a colleague that did so; (2) concealed information that was crucial to the victim obtaining redress in the courts for the damages arising out of the misconduct; (3) did so in an attempt to frustrate the victim's right to obtain relief; and (4) succeeded in interfering with the victim's ability to obtain relief. See Ryland, 708 F.2d at 971-75; see also Gonsalves v. City of New Bedford, 939 F.Supp. 921, 929 (D.Mass.1996).

[¶ 12] Federal courts have principally looked to two cases to determine whether conduct violated a plaintiff's right of access to the courts: Ryland v. Shapiro, 708 F.2d 967 (5th Cir.1983) and Bell v. City of Milwaukee, 746 F.2d 1205 (7th Cir.1984). In Ryland, a local prosecutor murdered his girlfriend and then conspired with two colleagues to prevent a full investigation into the murder by leading authorities to believe that the death was a suicide. 708 F.2d at 969. Eleven months later, the state Attorney General exposed the coverup and obtained a murder conviction. Id. The family of the victim subsequently sued the murderer and his colleagues, claiming that they had interfered with their right to pursue a wrongful death action pursuant to state law. Id. at 969-70. The court concluded that the plaintiffs alleged a valid theory of recovery. Id. at 973.

[¶ 13] In Bell, a police officer shot an unarmed man in the back while attempting to apprehend him. 746 F.2d at 1215. The officer planted a knife in the dead man's hand and conspired with his colleagues to concoct a self-defense justification. Id. at 1215-16. The conspiracy was not uncovered until twenty years later, when one of conspirators confessed to the coverup to the local district attorney. Id. at 1223. Although a family member filed a wrongful death claim soon after the shooting, the court found that the coverup "rendered hollow" his right to redress pursuant...