Francis v. Crafts, 203 F.2d 809, 1st Cir. (1953)

203 F.
2d 809
FRANCIS
v.
CRAFTS.
No. 4712.
United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

April 22, 1953.
Isadore H. Y. Muchnick, Boston, Mass., for appellant.

Herbert L. Barrett, Boston, Mass., for appellee.
Before MAGRUDER, Chief Judge, and WOODBURY and HARTIGAN,
Circuit Judges.
MAGRUDER, Chief Judge.
Here again is a complaint for damages under the Civil Rights Act, 8
U.S.C.A. 43, filed in the court below pursuant to the jurisdictional
provisions of 28 U.S.C. 1343(3). The action was brought against a large
number of officials of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, including the
present appellee, the Honorable Frederic A. Crafts, Special Justice of the
Second District Court of Eastern Middlesex.
So far as concerns Judge Crafts, the complaint alleged that on March 19,
1940, in utter disregard of plaintiff's constitutional rights, this defendant,
in his capacity as Special Justice of the Second District Court of Eastern
Middlesex, sentenced the plaintiff, then 17 years of age, as a "defective
delinquent", and ordered him committed to the custody of the
superintendent of the State Farm at Bridgewater, Massachusetts; that this
commitment was ordered in an ex parte proceeding, of which the plaintiff
received no notice; that plaintiff was not present at the hearing before
Judge Crafts nor represented there by counsel or any other person acting
on his behalf; that by virtue of said commitment order he was restrained of
his personal liberty at the State Farm until April 27, 1948, when he was
by administrative action transferred to the Massachusetts Reformatory at
Concord, where he remained incarcerated until he was ultimately released
on November 28, 1951, as the result of a petition for a writ of habeas
corpus addressed to the Superior Court for the County of Suffolk; that
defendant Crafts, and his codefendants, acting severally under color and
purported authority of the statutes of Massachusetts, subjected the plaintiff
to the deprivation of rights, privileges, immunities and guaranties secured
by the Constitution of the United States, all to the plaintiff's damage in the
sum of $500,000.
Defendant Crafts moved for summary judgment upon the ground, among
others, that as a Justice of the said court "this defendant is immune from
any action against him on account of his official acts as such a justice and
is not liable to answer to the plaintiff in this case as a matter of law."
Accompanying the motion was an affidavit by Judge Crafts reciting, in part, as

follows: On March 19, 1940, a report was made to him in his official capacity
by the superintendent of the Walter E. Fernald State School, "which was a
school for the feeble minded within the jurisdiction of this defendant, to the
effect that the plaintiff was an inmate of said school and was not a proper
subject for retention therein because of his misbehavior as set forth in the said
report," which report requested that plaintiff be transferred to the Department of
Mental Delinquents at Bridgewater, pursuant to Chap. 123, Mass. Gen.Laws
(Ter.Ed.) 113 et seq., as amended. Notice was given to the Department of
Mental Health, pursuant to 116 of Chap. 123, and said department caused the
plaintiff to be examined by two experts in insanity with a view to determining
whether or not the plaintiff was an improper subject to be retained in the said
school. The Department of Mental Health caused a written report to be made to
the defendant by two physicians, both of whom were well known to the
defendant and in whom he had confidence. The defendant made inquiry into the
facts, and being satisfied from the foregoing that the plaintiff was not a fit
subject for retention in the said school entered an order in his judicial capacity
for the removal of the plaintiff as requested in the application by the
superintendent of the school and in accordance with the provisions of
Mass.Gen.Laws, Chap. 123, 116. At the time of making inquiry into the facts,
defendant was informed and believed that the plaintiff was an inmate of the
Walter E. Fernald State School as the result of a voluntary admission pursuant
to Mass.Gen.Laws, Chap. 123, 47. Defendant was further informed and
believed that the mother of the plaintiff, who was then still a minor, was
present at the said school on March 19, 1940, "and was notified of the request
being made for the removal of the plaintiff therefrom and that she assented to
such removal". Further the affidavit recited that the said order for removal
"entered by this defendant in his judicial capacity was merely an order for
removal of the plaintiff from one institution to another in order that he might
receive a more suitable type of care." Attached to the affidavit were certified
copies of the aforesaid report and application for transfer filed by the
superintendent of the school, of the report of the two physicians on behalf of
the Department of Mental Health, and of the order of removal, above referred
to, issued by the defendant on March 19, 1940.
2
In this state of the record the plaintiff also moved for summary judgment on the
ground that there was no material issue of fact to be tried and that the plaintiff
was entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law.
After a hearing on the motions for summary judgment, the district court
allowed the defendant's motion, and on December 15, 1952, entered judgment
dismissing the complaint as to defendant Crafts. In a memorandum of decision
filed December 8, 1952, Judge Ford argues persuasively that the Civil Rights
Act should not be interpreted as overturning the time-honored immunity of
judges from civil liability for their official acts. 108 F.Supp. 884.
Plaintiff duly filed a notice of appeal from the aforesaid "final judgment". Since
in his memorandum the district judge expressly determined that there was no
just reason for delay and expressly directed the entry of judgment as to the
defendant Crafts, pursuant to Rule 54(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure, 28 U.S. C., the case is now properly before us on appeal. Boston
Medical Supply Co. v. Lea & Febiger, 1 Cir., 1952, 195 F.2d 853, 855.
Appellee has not questioned our appellate jurisdiction.
We are clearly of the opinion that the judgment of the district court should be
affirmed.
In the recent case of Cobb v. City of Malden, 1 Cir., 202 F.2d 701, we had
occasion to say that the apparently sweeping and unqualified language of the
old Civil Rights Act, 8 U.S.C.A. 43, "seems to say that every person in
official position, whether executive, legislative, or judicial, who under color of
state law subjects or causes to be subjected any person to the deprivation of any
rights secured by the Constitution of the United States, shall be liable in
damages to the person injured. The enactment in terms contains no recognition
of possible defenses, by way of privilege, even where the defendants may have
acted in good faith, in compliance with what they believed to be their official
duty. Reading the language of the Act in its broadest sweep, it would seem to
make no difference that the conduct of the defendants might not have been
tortious at common law; for the Act, if read literally, creates a new federal tort,
where all that has to be proved is that the defendants as a result of their conduct
under color of state law have in fact caused harm to the plaintiff by depriving
him of rights, etc., secured by the Constitution of the United States." We went
on to say that fortunately Tenney v. Brandhove, 1951, 341 U.S. 367, 71 S.Ct.
783, 95 L.Ed. 1019, "has relieved us of the necessity of giving the Civil Rights
Act such an awesome and unqualified interpretation." That case held that the
broadly expressed terms of the Civil Rights Act could not have been intended
to deprive state legislators of their pre-existing and well-established complete
immunity from civil liability for official acts done within the sphere of
legislative activity.
7
It is clear that the immunity of judges from civil liability for acts done in the
course of their official functions is no less firmly and deeply rooted in the
traditions of Anglo-American law, reaching back to ancient times. See the
learned opinion by Chief Justice Kent in Yates v. Lansing, 1810, 5 Johns.,
N.Y., 282, tracing the origins of this doctrine of judicial immunity back to the
days of Edward III. In that case an action of debt was brought against the
Chancellor of New York State for a monetary penalty under a state statute
expressed in broad terms. Referring to the doctrine of judicial immunity from
civil suit, Chief Justice Kent observed, 5 Johns. at page 291: "It is to be found
in the earliest judicial records, and it has been steadily maintained by an
undisturbed current of decisions in the English courts, amidst every change of
policy, and through every revolution of their government. A short view of the
cases will teach us to admire the wisdom of our forefathers, and to revere a
principle on which rests the independence of the administration of justice."
Further he said, 5 Johns. at page 296: "Ought such a sacred principle of the
common law, as the one we have been considering, to be subverted, without an
express declaration to that effect?". Judgment was entered for the defendant,
and was affirmed in, 1812, 9 Johns. 395. The views expressed by Chief Justice
Kent met with the approval of Chief Justice Shaw in Pratt v. Gardner, 1848, 2
Cush., Mass., 63. Equally emphatic were the views of the Supreme Court of the
United States in the leading case of Bradley v. Fisher, 1871, 13 Wall. 335, 20
L.Ed. 646. There the Court said, 13 Wall. at page 347, 20 L.Ed. 646: "The
principle, therefore, which exempts judges of courts of superior or general
authority from liability in a civil action for acts done by them in the exercise of
their judicial functions, obtains in all countries where there is any well-ordered
system of jurisprudence. It has been the settled doctrine of the English courts
for many centuries, and has never been denied, that we are aware of, in the
courts of this country." Further, the Court held that this immunity is not to be
defeated by allegations that the judge acted maliciously or corruptly or from
other improper motives. The reason of policy for this broad immunity was
stated as follows, 13 Wall. at page 349: "If upon such allegations a judge could
be compelled to answer in a civil action for his judicial acts, not only would his
office be degraded and his usefulness destroyed, but he would be subjected for
his protection to the necessity of preserving a complete record of all the

evidence produced before him in every litigated case, and of the authorities
cited and arguments presented, in order that he might be able to show to the
judge before whom he might be summoned by the losing party and that
judge perhaps one of an inferior jurisdiction that he had decided as he did
with judicial integrity; and the second judge would be subjected to a similar
burden, as he in his turn might also be held amenable by the losing party." [In
the case at bar it is not even alleged that Judge Crafts acted maliciously or from
corrupt motives in issuing the removal order in question.]
8
We do not think that Picking v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 3 Cir., 1945, 151 F.2d
240, is a controlling authority. In the first place, the judicial officer involved in
that case was a justice of the peace, not a judge of a court of general
jurisdiction, as in the case at bar. A possible distinction might be taken on this
score; but see Pratt v. Gardner, 1848, 2 Cush., Mass., 63, 70. More important,
the Picking case was decided in 1945 without benefit of the illumination and
compelling analogy to be found in the opinion of the Supreme Court in Tenney
v. Brandhove, supra, which came down several years later. In view of the
discussion in the latter case, we have no doubt that the Third Circuit would no
longer feel obliged, as it did in the Picking case, to read the Civil Rights Act in
such literal and unqualified manner as to impose a liability for damages upon a
state judicial officer for acts done in the exercise of his judicial function.
Certainly it would be absurd to hold, in the application of the Civil Rights Act,
that judicial officers of a state stand in any less favorable position than do state
legislators, in respect to immunity from civil liability for acts done in their
official capacity.
The judgment of the District Court is affirmed.

Francis v. Crafts, 203 F.2d 809, 1st Cir. (1953)

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203 F.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

Isadore H. Y. Muchnick, Boston, Mass., for appellant.

Accompanying the motion was an affidavit by Judge Crafts reciting, in part, as

his protection to the necessity of preserving a complete record of all the

The judgment of the District Court is affirmed.

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