Public employees' immunity limited

Public employees' immunity limited
Friday, January 29, 2010 3:11 AM
By Randy Ludlow

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Public employees who act recklessly are not protected by their employers' cloak of immunity and can be sued personally for damages, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled yesterday.

A lawyer who regularly defends local governments said he fears that the ruling will prompt a flurry of lawsuits against public employees.

The ruling ended appeals in a wrongful-death lawsuit in which the estate of a woman killed in a 2003 crash with a drunken driver sued two Circleville police officers and a dispatcher, accusing them of reckless conduct.

Attorneys for the police employees had argued that they could not be sued because a 1988 Ohio Supreme Court ruling, based on events that occurred in 1981, largely shielded public employees from personal liability.

However, the justices found that state lawmakers ended that blanket protection in 1985 by passing a law granting immunity from lawsuits to government entities and their employees, except those who act maliciously or recklessly. Yesterday's decision was the first to block reliance on the 1988 ruling.

"If the Supreme Court held otherwise, it truly would have immunized public employees from reckless and wanton misconduct. It's obviously an important decision," said Rex Elliott, the Columbus lawyer who filed the suit against the Circleville officers.

Although Circleville cannot be sued directly, the city would be on the hook for damages if jurors found that its employees' conduct was reckless, Elliott said.

Organizations representing Ohio police, county commissioners, school boards, townships, children services, mental health, and job and family services employees all had asked the court to rule in favor of the Circleville officers.

"Employees are going to be subject to a lot more lawsuits any time someone believes they have not done everything they could to protect the public," said Mark Landes, the Columbus lawyer representing most of the groups.

"I don't think the taxpayers believe that every time someone is hurt, that the public's coffers should be open to them. This opens the coffers wider than they were yesterday. It gets to be a failure-to-protect-the-world kind of claim."

The attorneys for the Circleville employees declined to comment on the court's ruling.

The Circleville lawsuit says that, after 57-year-old Cornelius Copley was arrested on a drunken-driving charge on July 4, 2003, police returned his car despite knowing they were required to impound it. Police also knew that the five-time DUI offender's driver's license was suspended, the suit says.

On July 6, 2003, Copley was driving drunk the wrong way on Rt. 23 in Ross County when his car collided head-on with a car driven by Jill Graves, 23, of Chillicothe. Both Copley, of Circleville, and Graves died in the crash.

The justices' 6-1 opinion upheld appellate and trial court rulings, clearing the way for the lawsuit to go to trial in Pickaway County Common Pleas Court more than six years after it was filed.

rludlow@dispatch.com
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