This decision rejected an attempt to declare portions of the municipal liability statute, RSA Chapter 507-B, unconstitutional. The decision reaffirmed that municipal employees, and the municipal employer, cannot be held liable for intentionally caused injuries so long as the employee was acting under a reasonable belief that the offending conduct was authorized by law.
This case arises out of a motor vehicle stop of plaintiff Dennis G. Huckins by Town of Sanbornton Police Officer Mark McSweeney. Officer McSweeney had a reasonable belief Huckins was intoxicated and attempted to perform field sobriety tests to verify his suspicion of intoxication. When Huckins attempted to flee the scene on foot, Officer McSweeny used his stun gun to prevent Huckins from fleeing. Huckins claimed that McSweeney used his stun gun on him "multiple times." McSweeney asserts that he used it only once when the plaintiff began to run away before completing the field sobriety test.
The plaintiff sued Officer McSweeney and the Town of Sanbornton in Federal court claiming as a civil matter that the use of the stun gun was wrongful (an intentional tort called a “battery”) and a claim that the Town was liable for that battery under the doctrine of respondeat superior (a legal doctrine that provides that an employer is responsible for the actions of employees performed within the course of their employment). The case came to the NH Supreme Court on a question of law presented by the US District Court for the District of New Hampshire. The NH Supreme Court was asked to decide whether two municipal immunity statutes, RSA 507-B:2 and RSA 507-B:5, violate Part I, Article 14 of the State Constitution, which protects citizens and their right to seek civil remedies and to guard against arbitrary and discriminatory infringements upon access to courts.
The Court reaffirmed its prior decisions that there is no violation of the NH Constitution when the State immunizes itself and its municipalities from liability for intentional torts by governmental employees acting under a reasonable belief that the offending conduct was authorized by law. The Court also clarified that the municipal immunity statutes, RSA 507-B:2 and RSA 507-B:5, provide immunity to municipal employees under the same terms as provided to State employees as provided in NH RSA 541-B:19 (I) (d). That statute provides that:
(d) Any claim arising out of an intentional tort, including assault, battery, false imprisonment, false arrest, intentional mental distress, malicious prosecution, malicious abuse of process, libel, slander, misrepresentation, deceit, invasion of privacy, interference with advantageous relations, or interference with contractual relations, provided that the employee whose conduct gives rise to the claim reasonably believes, at the time of the acts or omissions complained of, that his conduct was lawful, and provided further that the acts complained of were within the scope of official duties of the employee for the state.
In a related case recently decided by the US Supreme Court, Robert R. Tolan v. Jeffrey Wayne Cotton, 572 U.S. ___ (2014) decided on May 5, 2014, the Court also addressed the issue of governmental immunity for intentionally caused harms. Using language similar to the Dennis G. Huckins v. Mark McSweeney case, the US Supreme Court stated that governmental actors are shielded from liability for civil damages if their actions did not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.