Acres Bonusing, Inc., et al. v. Lester John Marston, et al.

In Forrester v. White, 484 U.S. 219, 227 (1988) this Court explained an absolute immunity is “justified and defined by the functions it protects and serves, not the person to whom it attaches.” Then, in Antoine v. Byers Anderson, 508 U.S. 429, 435-436 (1993), this Court explained the function absolute judicial immunity protects is “the function of resolving disputes between parties, or of authoritatively adjudicating private rights.” Conduct by court employees outside this function is not protected by absolute immunity, even if it is “essential” (Forrester, 227) or “indispensable” (Antoine, 437). Lower courts have not applied Forrester or Antoine consistently, resulting in divergent holdings and a creeping expansion of absolute immunity. For instance, the Ninth and D.C. Circuits – splitting with the Eighth, Seventh and Fifth Circuits – hold absolute immunity bars claims against court clerks for filing documents because court clerks are “integral to the judicial process.” And the Ninth, Fifth and Second Circuits have all expanded absolute immunity to bar claims against court employees whose work is “intimately connected” with the work of a judge. The question presented is: Should this Court’s “functional” approach to absolute immunity be discarded to allow absolute judicial immunity to bar claims against court employees for their administrative, ministerial, or conspiratorial conduct if that employee or their conduct is “intimately connected with” or “integral to” the judicial process?