Legrand v. Nadeau
Annotate this Case
Download PDF
STATE OF MAINE YORK, SS SUPERIOR COURT CIVIL ACTION DOCKETNO. CV-15-269 RENEE LEGRAND, Plaintiff v. ORDER ROBERT M.A. NADEAU, York County Probate Judge, et al., Defendants Before the court is Judge Nadeau's motion to dismiss the complaint filed by plaintiff Renee LeGrand as class representative and his motion to compel a legal defense and reimbursement from York County. For the reasons set forth below and those stated on the record at the oral argument held on January 5, 2016, both of those motions are denied. Judicial Immunity The motion to dismiss is based on a claim of judicial immunity. At the outset, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Pulliam v. Allen, 466 U.S. 522 (1984), that "judicial immunity is not a bar to prospective injunctive relief against a judicial officer acting in Q1is] judicial capacity." 466 U.S. at 542. The result is that under federal law i.tnn1mtlty protects judicial officers from actions for damages, not actions seeking equitable relief. Following the Pulliam decision, Congress amended 42 U.S .C . § 1983 to add the following language: in any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officer's judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable. 42 U.S.C. § 1983, as amended in 1996 by Pub. L. No. 104-317, 110 Stat. 3847 § 309(c). In this case LeGrand's amended complaint seeks declaratory relief in the first instance on her section 1983 claim. The language of the 1996 amendment to section 1983 demonstrates that, at a minimum, declaratory relief for actions or omissions by judicial officers is available under section 1983. As a result, LeGrand's section 1983 claims are not barred by judicial immunity or by the 1996 amendment to section 1983 . In addition, even in actions where damages have been sought, the U.S. Supreme Coutt has drawn a distinction between judge's actions which are judicial in nature and those which are administrative. Forrester v. 'FVhite, 484 U.S. 219, 227 (1988) . Administrative actions taken by a judge are not enti tled to absolute judicial immunity. 484 U.S . at 229. While the cowt is reluctant to be cast into the role of reviewing scheduling decisions made by another judicial officer, it is constrained to conclude that the specific scheduling decisions challenged in this case appear to be administrative rather than adjudicatory in nature. While scheduling decisions made with respect to individual cases - e.g., whether the parties are ready for trial, whether requests for continuances should or should not be honored, how many days of trial or hearing time should be allotted - are necessarily part of a judge's adjudicative function, the decisions challenged by LeGrand relate to the overall scheduling of comt time and not to the adjudication of individual cases. The court is also keenly aware of the difficulty of scheduling cases in situations where judicial resources are scarce. However, that issue goes to the merits of whether LeGrand can prove that Judge Nadeau ' s scheduling decisions were not designed for that purpose . 2 Accordingly, because only equitable relief is sought and because the actions challenged appear to be administrative in nature, Judge Nadeau's motion to dismiss LeGrand's section 1983 claim based on judicial immunity is denied .1 Motion for Legal Defense and Reimbursement from York County Judge Nadeau's emergency motion to compel York County to provide him with a legal defense and reimbursement fo r legal expenses must be rejected based on the Law Court's decision in Hart v. County of Sagadahoc, 609 A.2d 282 (Me. 1992). The Hart case also involved a claim for reimbursement of legal expenses by a sitting probate judge, and the Law Com1 found that there was no conunon law right to obtain reimbursement for legal expenses. Crucially, it also rnled that a probate judge "is not a county officer" even though counties are required to pay probate judges' salaries. 609 A.2d at 284. Judge Nadeau now argues that Hart has been superseded by amendments to 30-A M.R.S. § 1(4) and to the Maine Tort Claims Act. However, nothing in either of those statutes as they have been amended establishes, contrary to the ruling in Harl, that probate judges are members of county government within the meaning of 30-A M.R.S . § 1(4) or are county employees within the meaning of 14 M.R.S. § 8102(1). Hart in fact suggests that probate judges are state officers rather than county officers. See 609 A.2d at 284. Judge Nadeau may therefore have a claim to have his legal defense provided by the State. See Kennedy v. State, 1999 ME 85, 730 A.2d 1252. This may depend on whether 14 I The cou1t reserves decision on whether LeGrand's equitable claims under the Maine Constitution are barred by judicial immunity as that do ctrine exists under Maine law. In addition, there is a question of whether those claims can be asse1ted where they do not appear to fal l wi thin the scope of the Maine Civ il Rights Act, 5 M.R.S. § 4682. 3 M.R.S. § 8112 applies to claims for equitable relief. In any event, the State is not a party to this action and would be entitled to be heard on those issues. Similarly, Judge Nadeau may have a claim to have his legal defense provided by the risk management pool maintained by the Maine County Commissioners Association. That also may depend, at least in part, on whether the County Commissioners ' risk pool covers the defense of probate judges in actions for equitable relief - an issue that ca1mot be decided in the absence of the County Commissioners Association. Finally, if Judge Nadeau is entitled to have his legal defense provided by the State under the Maine Tmt Claims Act or by the County Commissioners Association Risk Pool, any defense that might be available would almost certainly not cover the requests for affirmative relief that Judge Nadeau has asserted in his cross claims against York County and in his third party claims against Carol Lovejoy and Gregory Zinser.2 The entry shall be : Defendant' s motion to dismiss the amended complaint and defendant 's motion to compel a legal defense and reimbursement from York County are denied. The clerk is directed to incorporate this order in the docket by reference pursuant to Rule 79(a) . Dated: January _6_, 2016 Thomas D. Wanen Justice, Superior Court 2 The motions by York County , Lovejoy, and Zinser to dismiss the cross claims and the third party claims were argued on Janua1y 5, 2016, and those motions remain under advisement. 4
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
