Alaska Employment Law

In two opinions issued Friday, the Alaska Supreme Court discussed the relationship between state law and federal civil rights claims under 42 USC § 1983. 

1)  Prentzel v. State.  The first opinion put an end to Thomas Prentzel’s wrongful arrest claims (both state and federal) against several Alaska State Troopers.  On remand from an earlier opinion, Judge Mark Wood had entered summary judgment against Prentzel.  The Supreme Court now affirms Judge Wood in Prentzel II.  Most of the opinion focuses on the state tort claims, but as to the § 1983 claims, the Court (per Justice Bryner) addressed Prentzel’s claim that the illegality of the arrest under state law was a per se violation of his Fourth Amendment rights.  The Court rejected that claim, holding, “In general, ‘a violation of state law does not lead to liability under § 1983.’”   Prentzel v. State, Department of Public Safety, 2007 WL 2685223 *10 (Alaska Sept. 14, 2007).

2)  State v. Doherty.  The second opinion clarifies the difference between the state and federal tests for qualified immunity.   Here, a mother sued a state social worker after she had defeated a CINA termination petition.  The CINA trial judge had made extensive findings of poor investigative techniques by the social worker and DHSS.  In the follow-up civil action against the social worker, the mother moved for collateral estoppel arising from the CINA findings, and the social worker moved for quasi-prosecutorial immunity.  Judge Wood (the same judge as in Prentzel) granted the mother’s collateral estoppel motion, and denied the social worker’s immunity motion.  The Supreme Court granted the social worker’s two petitions for review. 

 The Supreme Court (per Chief Justice Fabe) held that Judge Wood erred in applying state immunity law to the § 1983 claim.  This error was material because Alaska immunity law inquires “into the subjective intentions of the government official” (did the official “act in a corrupt or malicious manner or in bad faith”?).  Op. at p. 10.  Federal immunity law, in contrast, asks a “wholly objective” question: “whether it would be clear to a reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted”?  Id. at pp. 9 & 12.   The Court remanded for further proceedings on immunity.

On the collateral estoppel issue, the Court sided with the majority of courts that hold that “government employees, in their individual capacities, are generally not in privity with the government and are not bound by adverse determinations against the government.”  Id. at p. 14.  The Court, thus, reversed the trial court’s estoppel holding.  The Court doesn’t discuss whether federal or state law of collateral estoppel applies to the § 1983 claim, or whether the law differs.

  State, DHSS v. Doherty, 2007 WL 2686833 (Alaska Sept. 14, 2007).