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Roy v. City of Everett2/6/1992
mmunity which individual peace officers enjoy extends to the officers' municipal employer and that all claims against the employer, therefore, should be dismissed. The majority does not address this issue, because it concludes that the immunity provision of RCW 10.99.070 does not shield the individual peace officer's conduct. This court previously has held that good faith immunity of an employee may preclude an employer 's liability in any civil action when the employer's liability is based solely on the doctrine of respondeat superior. In Guffey v. State, supra, summarized above, this court concluded that the common law, qualified immunity which shielded individual peace officers from suit extended to the municipal employer, when the liability of the employer rested on acts of the employee and was attributed to the employer via the theory of respondeat superior. Guffey, 103 Wash. 2d at 153; see also Spurrell v. Bloch, 40 Wash. App. at 869-70 (police officers have qualified immunity from false imprisonment claims arising out of everyday operational acts, and a finding of employee nonliability precludes any finding that an employer is liable when liability is based solely on the doctrine of respondeat superior); cf. Creelman v. Svenning, 67 Wash. 2d 882, 885, 410 P.2d 606 (1966) (common law prosecutorial immunity which shields judicial or quasi-judicial officers extends to municipal employer for acts of officers in the performance of duties which rest upon them). Similarly, in Frost v. Walla Walla, 106 Wash. 2d 669, 673, 675, 724 P.2d 1017 (1986), we concluded that the immunity which the Uniform Controlled Substances Act offered "any . . . state, county, or municipal officer", RCW 69.50.506(c), also shielded the jurisdiction that employed prosecutors "for acts of [prosecutors] in the performance of [their] duties . . . ." Frost, at 673 (quoting Creelman, at 885). In these cases, we reasoned that the
objective sought by immunizing individual officers, "unhampered police action, free from the hindrance created if liability could be imposed on police for their good faith, objectively reasonable actions", Frost, 106 Wash. 2d at 673, would be defeated if individual officers were immune but their employers were not, because it would require that an officer "weigh the possibilities of precipitating . . . litigation involving [his employer ] against his action in any criminal case . . . ." Creelman, 67 Wash. 2d at 885.
I find the reasoning adopted in Guffey, Frost, and Creelman persuasive here. I therefore would hold that the protection which RCW 10.99.070 offers individual police officers extends to the jurisdiction which employs the officer, for acts or omissions of the peace officers undertaken in good faith, in the performance of duties under the act. This immunity shields a municipal employer from liability for any claim where the employer's liability is based upon the doctrine of respondeat superior. In this case, the immunity of RCW 10.99.070 entirely shields the police officers from liability for Roy's claims. The protection that good faith immunity accords the individual officers also shields the municipal employer , via the doctrine of respondeat superior. The trial court therefore erred when it denied summary judgment of those claims where the municipality's liability is based on conduct of individual officers.
Municipal Employer
Discretionary immunity shields the municipal employer
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