Supreme Court Says City's Special Counsel Entitled to Immunity for Employee Investigation

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Supreme has ruled in a case arising from a workplace injury claim that a lawyer hired to assist a municipality in its claim investigation was entitled to the same qualified immunity given to full-time government employees. Filarsky v. Delia, No. 10-1018 (U.S. Sup. Ct.).

The high court opinion was delivered April 17 by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. Justices Sonia M. Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg authored concurring opinions.

The appeal arose from a claim filed by Nicholas Delia, a firefighter in Rialto, Calif., who incurred injuries while responding to a toxic spill in …