noting that Ohio has held that public defenders, as employees of a political subdivision, are immune from claims of negligence under its Political Subdivision Tort Liability Act, which provides that a public employee is “immune from liability in performing his job unless (1) his acts or omissions are manifestly outside the scope of his employment; (2) his acts or omissions are malicious, in bad faith, or wanton or reckless; or (3) liability is expressly imposed upon the employee by another statute.”
How later courts described this case
- noting that Ohio has held that public defenders, as employees of a political subdivision, are immune from claims of negligence under its Political Subdivision Tort Liability Act, which provides that a public employee is “immune from liability in performing his job unless (1) his acts or omissions are manifestly outside the scope of his employment; (2) his acts or omissions are malicious, in bad faith, or wanton or reckless; or (3) liability is expressly imposed upon the employee by another statute.”
- “[T]he United States Supreme Court has declined to hold that federal law provides immunity for counsel in state malpractice suits, leaving the issue to the states to resolve.”
- construing the general immunity statute Ohio Rev.Code § 2744.03
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Painter, Judge,
concurring.
{¶ 36} I concur in Judge Gorman’s well-reasoned opinion. The conclusions are required by the state of the law as handed down to us by the legislature and the Ohio Supreme Court.
{¶ 37} But I continue to believe that governmental immunity in the United States is simply one big legal mistake—based on the English model of “the king can do no wrong.”
3
We have no king. And we should not make the government king, and thus not liable for its transgressions against individual rights.
{¶ 38} As to this case, we do not know whether there was any malpractice—the case never got that far because of the immunity. But it is odd that a person with money, who can hire an attorney, has a remedy if the attorney errs, but a poor person has none. Alas, the way of the world; but in this case mandated by the legislature.
3
. See
Gladon v. Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Auth.
(1996), 75 Ohio St.3d 312 , 662 N.E.2d 287 , (Douglas, J., dissenting).