Summary
The Alabama Supreme Court granted a petition for a writ of mandamus and directed the Hale Circuit Court to enter summary judgment for the City of Greensboro and Marjorie Davis. The court held that Davis’s actions as a municipal court clerk and magistrate in recalling arrest warrants were discretionary judicial acts protected by absolute judicial immunity, precluding liability for both Davis and the City.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether Davis's actions in recalling and communicating the recall of Tubbs's arrest warrants were discretionary judicial acts protected by absolute judicial immunity.
- Whether the City of Greensboro could be held liable for those acts.
- Whether mandamus was an appropriate remedy to compel entry of summary judgment based on immunity.
Holdings
- A municipal court clerk and magistrate is entitled to absolute judicial immunity for discretionary judicial acts performed within the officer's jurisdiction, even when the acts are erroneous, malicious, or in excess of authority. Davis's decisions and actions concerning recall of Tubbs's warrants were discretionary judicial acts.
- The City of Greensboro cannot be held liable for acts for which Davis is entitled to absolute judicial immunity.
- Mandamus is available where the petitioner demonstrates a clear legal right to the requested order, an imperative duty to perform, no adequate alternative remedy, and properly invoked jurisdiction; those requirements were satisfied because immunity required entry of summary judgment.
Key quotations
“Judicial immunity extends to magistrates and court clerks performing judicial functions” (543)
“Davis’s actions, as a magistrate and court clerk for the City of Greensboro, were discretionary judicial acts. She is entitled to absolute judicial immunity, and the City of Greensboro cannot be held liable for those acts.” (544)
Factual background
A Greensboro municipal court issued two arrest warrants for Tubbs relating to unpaid fines, and Tubbs was later arrested on both warrants. Davis, the municipal court clerk and magistrate, arranged for payment of Tubbs's fines, recalled the warrants, notified the county emergency dispatcher, distributed copies of the recall order, and marked the warrants as recalled. A county dispatcher later mistakenly reentered one warrant into the national criminal-information system, resulting in Tubbs's arrest in Tuscaloosa County before she was released when the warrant recall was confirmed.
Procedural history
Tubbs sued the City of Greensboro and Davis in the Hale Circuit Court after she was arrested on a warrant that had previously been recalled. The trial court dismissed several claims, including punitive damages, outrage, and wantonness against the City, but denied defendants' later motion for summary judgment. Defendants petitioned the Supreme Court of Alabama for a writ of mandamus, which the court granted.
Remand instructions
The Hale Circuit Court was directed to enter a summary judgment in favor of the City of Greensboro and Marjorie Davis.