Alaska Employment Law

Same issue was recently before the Alaska Supreme Court

The 9th Circuit has referred the issue of social worker immunity from § 1983 claims to an en banc panel.

In Beltran v. Santa Clara County, 491 F.3d 1097 (9th Cir. 2007), earlier this summer, a three-judge panel held that a social worker who allegedly submitted a fraudulent affidavit in support of a dependency petition was immune under previous caselaw.  All three members of the panel believed the prior caselaw was wrong, but the majority felt compelled to follow that precedent.  Now the case has been accepted for en banc review.

This is the same issue that was before the Alaska Supreme Court in State v. Doherty, 167 P.3d 64 (Alaska 2007), issued less than one month ago.  In that case, the Court held that Judge Mark Wood may not have applied the proper federal test for § 1983 immunity when he denied the social worker’s motion for immunity.   The Court remanded for a clearer application of the test.

The eventual en banc opinion won’t necessarily resolve the Alaska case.   Alaska courts are not obligated to adopt Ninth Circuit caselaw when applying federal law.  Totemoff v. State, 905 P.2d 954, 963 (Alaska 1995)(”this court is not bound by decisions of federal courts other than the United States Supreme Court on questions of federal law.”).