Scheffield Medical Group Inc. v. Roth

ORDER

Appellate Opinion Decertified
Scheffield Medical Group Inc., Appellant. v. Bruce M. Roth, Respondent. No. S071428 Cal. App. 2nd, Div 2, No. B115042 California Supreme Court Filed August 12, 1998
        Appellant's petition for review DENIED.
        Kennard J., and Werdegar, J., are of the opinion the petition should be granted.
        The Reporter of Decisions is directed not to publish in the Official Appellate Reports the opinion in the above-entitled appeal filed May 20, 1998, which appears at 63 Cal.App. 4th 1465. (Cal. Cost., art. VI, section 14, rule 976, Cal. Rules of Court.)





[Editor's Note - For your convenience we reprint below the Daily Journal's Ruling column brief which summarized the earlier decision of the lower court.]


GOVERNMENT
TORTS

Attorney for State Compensation Insurance Fund has statutory prosecutorial immunity.         The C.A. 2nd has ruled that an attorney for the State Compensation Insurance Fund (State Fund) had prosecutorial immunity under Section 821.6 of the Government Code.
        Sheffield Medical Group was an industrial medical clinic. Sheffield provided medical services to workers' compensation claimants, accepting liens on their recoveries in lieu of cash payment. In January 1992 Aura Figueroa, a physical therapy supervisor for Sheffield, resigned. Figueroa submitted a post-termination stress claim for workers' compensation on March 24, 1992. On May 22, 1992, Sheffield's workers' compensation carrier State Fund denied Figueroa's claim. Subsequently, State Fund reversed its decision and paid Figueroa $39,000. Sheffield sued State Fund, alleging that it had engaged in a scheme designed to avoid or delay paying legitimate claims and liens. Sheffield also alleged that State Fund had paid Figueroa's claim in order to induce her to testify against Sheffield, helping State Fund to avoid paying Sheffield's legitimate liens. Sheffield named State Fund in-house attorney Bruce Roth in causes of action for abuse of process and breach of fiduciary duty, alleging that Roth had used litigation tactics designed to develop false testimony. Roth demurred on grounds of prosecutorial immunity, and his demurrer was sustained. Sheffield contended that Roth's conduct was not prosecutorial activity, that State Fund employees were not entitled to immunity, and that injunctive relief should be available notwithstanding any issue of immunity from suits for damages.
        The C.A. 2nd affirmed. Section 821.6 of the Government Code, provided that " '[a] public employee is not liable for injury caused by his instituting or prosecuting any judicial or administrative proceeding within the scope of his employment, even if he acts maliciously and without probable cause.' " State Fund was a state agency, organized as a public enterprise fund. All of the acts attributed to Roth in the complaint involved the initiation and prosecution of administrative proceedings within the scope of his employment. Roth was statutorily entitled to absolute immunity. The breach of fiduciary duty claim was an ineffective attempt to characterize Roth's conduct as something other than prosecutorial activity. The State Fund itself was not entitled to blanket immunity, but this did not affect the immunities of its employees. Section 11772 of the Insurance Code conferred immunity on State Fund employees for good faith acts; this protection existed alongside prosecutorial immunity and did not supplant it. The injunctive relief issue was moot because Roth no longer worked for State Fund.
        Scheffield Medical Group, Inc. v. Roth, No. B115042, filed May 20, 1998, by Nott, J.
        The full text of this case appears in 98 Daily Journal DAR 5299, May 22, 1998.