United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
Argued December 7, 2001 Decided January 8, 2002
No. 01-7052
William T. Gray, III,
Appellant
v.
Theisha Poole,
Appellee
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Columbia
(No. 99cv02233)
Brian A. Hill, appointed by the court, argued the cause as
amicus curiae on the side of appellant. With him on the
briefs were Alan I. Horowitz and John D. Bates.
William T. Gray, III, appearing pro se, was on the briefs
for appellant.
Mary L. Wilson, Assistant Corporation Counsel, argued
the cause for appellee. With her on the brief were Robert R.
Rigsby, Corporation Counsel, and Charles L. Reischel, Depu-
ty Corporation Counsel.
Before: Edwards, Henderson, and Garland, Circuit
Judges.
Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Edwards.
Edwards, Circuit Judge: Appellant William T. Gray, III,
appeals the District Court's dismissal of his pro se lawsuit
against Theisha Poole, a District of Columbia social worker.
Poole investigated and helped initiate a child neglect action
filed in the District of Columbia Superior Court ("Superior
Court"), which ultimately resulted in the termination of
Gray's custody of his younger brother. Gray filed a com-
plaint in District Court, claiming that Poole and the two
attorneys responsible for the child neglect action had violated
42 U.S.C. s 1983 in investigating, initiating, and prosecuting
the matter. The District Court dismissed Gray's action,
holding that all three defendants were protected by absolute
immunity. This court summarily affirmed the dismissal as to
the two attorneys. See Gray v. Poole, 243 F.3d 572 (D.C. Cir.
2001) ("Gray I"). The only remaining issue before this court
is whether Poole is protected by absolute or qualified immuni-
ty.
Poole engaged in two distinct types of activities in connec-
tion with the child neglect matter. She first investigated the
case and recommended that a neglect action be brought.
Those activities were similar to actions taken by police offi-
cers prior to the commencement of a criminal prosecution
and, consequently, should be assessed in the same way.
Accordingly, Poole is entitled to only qualified, not absolute,
immunity for those functions. She also submitted a statement
to the court in connection with the neglect action. That
activity was "intimately associated" with the judicial process
and, therefore, Poole is entitled to absolute immunity from
suit for what she said in the statement. See Imbler v.
Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409 (1976).
We hereby affirm in part and reverse in part the District
Court's dismissal of Gray's claims and remand for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion.
I. Background
The underlying facts in this case are fully recounted in
Gray I. Therefore, we will only briefly summarize the events
relevant to Poole's appeal.
Appellant Gray lost custody of his minor brother and
guardianship of his brother's estate in a series of actions,
culminating in a neglect action brought by the District of
Columbia in 1999. The petition initiating the neglect action
was signed by the Corporation Counsel for the District of
Columbia and Poole, and the matter was heard in Superior
Court. Subsequent to the initiation of the neglect action,
Gray filed a pro se law suit against the attorney prosecuting
the neglect action, Corporation Counsel, and Poole, the social
worker assigned to the neglect case. In the original com-
plaint, Gray claimed, inter alia, that Poole violated 42 U.S.C.
s 1983 in negligently investigating the neglect case and then
filing an unfounded petition in support of the neglect case.
In a response to the defendants' motion to dismiss, Gray also
alleged that Poole made an ill-founded recommendation to
Corporation Counsel to bring the neglect action and autho-
rized or participated in an illegal entry of Gray's home.
The District Court dismissed Gray's law suit after finding
that, on the facts alleged, all three defendants were protected
by absolute immunity. See Gray v. Poole, Civ. Act. No.
99-2233, slip op. at 3, 5 (D.D.C. Apr. 27, 2000). In Gray I,
this court granted the motions for summary affirmance filed
by the two attorneys who brought and supervised the neglect
action, and "directed full briefing and argument for Gray's
appeal of Poole's dismissal." 243 F.3d at 575 n.3. The court
then appointed amicus curiae to present argument in support
of Gray.
II. Discussion
In reviewing the District Court's dismissal of Gray's law
suit, we must accept all of appellant's allegations as "entirely
true." Buckley v. Fitzsimmons, 509 U.S. 259, 261 (1993).
And, because Gray is proceeding pro se, our review of his
pleadings is subject to "less stringent standards than formal
pleadings drafted by lawyers." Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S.
519, 520 (1972). We must also examine other pleadings to
understand the nature and basis of Gray's pro se claims. See
Richardson v. United States, 193 F.3d 545, 548 (D.C. Cir.
1999) (holding that District Court abused its discretion when
"failing to consider [pro se plaintiff's] complaint in light of his
reply to the motion to dismiss").
In reviewing Gray's claims, we must first consider whether
Poole is entitled to absolute immunity, as the District Court
held, or only qualified immunity, as Gray contends. The
Supreme Court has instructed the lower federal courts to
adhere to a "functional approach" in determining the applica-
bility of absolute versus qualified immunity:
[W]e have recognized two kinds of immunities under
s 1983. Most public officials are entitled only to quali-
fied immunity. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 807
(1982); Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S. 478, 508 (1978).
Under this form of immunity, government officials are
not subject to damages liability for the performance of
their discretionary functions when "their conduct does
not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional
rights of which a reasonable person would have known."
Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S., at 818. In most cases,
qualified immunity is sufficient to "protect officials who
are required to exercise their discretion and the related
public interest in encouraging the vigorous exercise of
official authority." Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S., at 506.
We have recognized, however, that some officials per-
form "special functions" which, because of their similarity
to functions that would have been immune when Con-
gress enacted s 1983, deserve absolute protection from
damages liability. Id., at 508. "[T]he official seeking
absolute immunity bears the burden of showing that such
immunity is justified for the function in question."
Burns v. Reed, 500 U.S. [478,] 486 [(1991)]; Antoine v.
Byers & Anderson, Inc., 508 U.S. 429, 432, and n.4
(1993). Even when we can identify a common-law tradi-
tion of absolute immunity for a given function, we have
considered "whether s 1983's history or purposes none-
theless counsel against recognizing the same immunity in
s 1983 actions." Tower v. Glover, 467 U.S. [914,] 920
[(1984)]. Not surprisingly, we have been "quite sparing"
in recognizing absolute immunity for state actors in this
context. Forrester v. White, 484 U.S. 219, 224 (1988).
In determining whether particular actions of govern-
ment officials fit within a common-law tradition of abso-
lute immunity, or only the more general standard of
qualified immunity, we have applied a "functional ap-
proach," see, e.g., Burns, 500 U.S., at 486, which looks to
"the nature of the function performed, not the identity of
the actor who performed it," Forrester v. White, 484
U.S., at 229.
Buckley, 509 U.S. at 268-69.
In Gray I, we examined the Supreme Court's application of
this functional approach in two cases - Imbler and Butz - and
held that "government attorneys who prosecute child neglect
actions perform 'functions analogous to those of a prosecutor
[and] should be able to claim absolute immunity with respect
to such acts.' " 243 F.3d at 577 (quoting Butz, 438 U.S. at
515). Here, Poole urges us to extend this analogy so that she
is afforded absolute immunity for all of her actions. Amicus
for Gray, on the other hand, asserts that, because the statuto-
ry responsibility for initiating the neglect action did not lie
with Poole, any analogy to prosecutorial immunity is spurious.
Amicus suggests, instead, that we should adopt a rule that
provides absolute immunity only for in-court oral testimony,
which, in this case, would afford Poole only qualified immuni-
ty. In our view, neither Poole nor Gray has enunciated the
correct standard for the determination of the appropriate
level of official immunity to which Poole is entitled.
We begin our analysis by identifying the relevant functions
carried out by Poole that form the basis of Gray's complaint.
The actions at issue include two distinct and separate types of
activities. Some of Gray's charges involve Poole's functions
as an investigator and adviser to the Corporation Counsel,
while the remaining claims focus on the statement Poole
signed in the neglect action. These two groups of functions
fall neatly into two clear-cut categories, which we discuss in
turn.
Poole's actions as an investigator and adviser to the Corpo-
ration Counsel - i.e., relating to whether Corporation Counsel
should bring the neglect action - are analogous to actions
taken by police officers prior to the giving of testimony in a
criminal prosecution. Like a police officer, Poole tracked
down information, made professional judgments, and passed
on her findings to attorneys in the office of the Corporation
Counsel. These functions are subject to qualified, not abso-
lute, immunity.
In Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 344-45 (1986), the
Supreme Court made it clear that, in assessing the appropri-
ate level of official immunity, the function of a police officer
applying for a warrant is not equivalent to the function of a
prosecutor seeking an indictment:
We intend no disrespect to the officer applying for a
warrant by observing that his action, while a vital part of
the administration of criminal justice, is further removed
from the judicial phase of criminal proceedings than the
act of a prosecutor in seeking an indictment. Further-
more, ... the prosecutor's act in seeking an indictment is
but the first step in the process of seeking a convic-
tion.... Thus, we shield the prosecutor seeking an
indictment because any lesser immunity could impair the
performance of a central actor in the judicial process.
Id. at 342-43 (footnote omitted). The distinction drawn in
Malley is controlling here, for it confirms that a social worker
who functions as investigator and advisor has no legitimate
basis upon which to claim absolute immunity in actions
brought with respect to these functions.
The statement Poole signed in the child neglect action in
Superior Court is a different matter, however, because her
function in this connection was as a witness in a judicial
proceeding and hence was "intimately associated" with the
judicial process. Poole is therefore entitled to absolute im-
munity from suit for what she said in that statement. Under
the relevant District of Columbia statutes, Poole was not
required to play any role in the initiation of the neglect
proceeding. The Corporation Counsel, not the social worker,
must prepare every petition "after an inquiry into the facts
and a determination of the legal basis for the petition." D.C.
Code s 16-2305(c) (2001); see also In re: J.J.Z., 630 A.2d 186,
190 (D.C. 1993) (describing statutory framework). In this
case, however, Poole was much more than a bystander in the
Superior Court action. She signed a statement in the petition
setting forth the facts of the case and attesting, under oath,
that those facts were true. Thus, while Poole may not have
been required to sign the petition, she was not forbidden from
doing so. And when she did, she acted as a witness in a
judicial proceeding.
In Briscoe v. LaHue, 460 U.S. 325, 326 (1983), the Court
held that government officials "are absolutely immune from
damages liability based on their testimony" in a judicial
proceeding. This same principle applies to Poole's partic-
ipation in the Superior Court action. It does not matter
whether Poole's sworn statement was given in oral or written
form; what matters is that her statement was the equivalent
of sworn testimony in a judicial proceeding.
Amicus for Gray argues that Poole's sworn statement is
not entitled to absolute immunity protection, because it was
not "intimately associated" with the Superior Court judicial
process. In other words, counsel appears to suggest that
Poole should only be protected by absolute immunity if she
appeared as a witness and offered her statement in the form
of oral testimony before the court. This argument does not
hold up, however, when viewed in the light of Briscoe. The
Court in Briscoe looked to English common law to determine
the bounds of absolute immunity for "parties and witnesses
from subsequent damages liability for their testimony in
judicial proceedings." 460 U.S. at 330-31 (footnote omitted).
None of the common law cases cited by the Court distin-
guished between in-court and out-of-court, or written and oral
statements. Indeed, in Henderson v. Broomhead, 157 Eng.
Rep. 964, 967 (Ex. Ch. 1859), one of the cases cited by the
Supreme Court, the English court considered "whether an
action will lie against a party who in the course of a cause
made an affidavit which contained matter scandalous to the
present plaintiff, and which was false and malicious" and held
that "[a]n action will not lie for defamatory words spoken in
the course of litigation which are relevant to that litigation."
The relevant variable in the court's analysis was the nature of
the connection between the disputed affidavit statement and
the judicial process, not the form of the testimony. Under
this standard, Poole's statement under oath that was given to
initiate the Superior Court action is protected by absolute
immunity.
The Supreme Court's recent discussion of absolute immuni-
ty in Kalina v. Fletcher, 522 U.S. 118 (1997), further supports
this conclusion. There, a prosecutor contemporaneously filed
three documents in a criminal prosecution - an information
charging respondent with burglary, a motion for an arrest
warrant, and an affidavit supporting the issuance of the
arrest warrant. Id. at 121. The Court granted absolute
immunity for the first two documents - the information and
the motion for an arrest warrant. The Court denied absolute
immunity for the affidavit that was given in support of the
arrest warrant, however, because the prosecutor was not
functioning as " 'an advocate for the State' " when she submit-
ted the affidavit. Id. at 126 (quoting Buckley, 509 U.S. at
273). Thus, Kalina confirms that officials who serve as
complaining witnesses receive qualified, not absolute, immuni-
ty. See also Malley, 475 U.S. at 340 (stating that "complain-
ing witnesses were not absolutely immune at common law").
In this case, Poole's statement under oath was not that of a
"complaining witness." Rather, the petition initiated the
neglect action in Superior Court, just as a complaint does in
federal district court, and Poole's sworn statement was thus
an undeniable part of the "judicial process." In Kalina and
Malley, by contrast, the sworn statements merely supported
warrant applications, filed as part of an ex parte process prior
to the indictment that begins the criminal case. Like the
trial testimony in Briscoe, Poole's statements are "intimately
associated" with the judicial process. See Malley, 475 U.S. at
342-43.
Poole makes three other arguments on appeal, all of which
are meritless and only one of which is even worthy of
discussion. Poole claims that, because Gray's claims are "inex-
tricably intertwined with the propriety of the Superior Court
neglect proceeding concerning his younger brother and could
have been litigated in that neglect proceeding," Br. for Thei-
sha Poole at 17, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine precludes this
court from exercising jurisdiction. The Rooker-Feldman doc-
trine prevents lower federal courts from hearing cases that
amount to the functional equivalent of an appeal from a state
court. See Dist. of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman,
460 U.S. 462 (1983); Rooker v. Fid. Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413
(1923). Because 28 U.S.C. s 1257 requires that appeals from
state courts go exclusively to the Supreme Court, the Rooker-
Feldman doctrine ensures that the Supreme Court's appel-
late jurisdiction is exclusive. See Stanton v. Dist. of Colum-
bia Court of Appeals, 127 F.3d 72, 75 (D.C. Cir. 1997). In
this case, however, Rooker-Feldman does not come into play,
because Gray's federal claims are entirely separate and dis-
tinct from the result of the D.C. neglect action. The legality
of Poole's actions was not at issue in the neglect action and
the remedy for any illegal action in the s 1983 suit - money
damages - would not disturb the judgment of the state court
action - custody. See, e.g., Ernst v. Child & Youth Servs. of
Chester County, 108 F.3d 486, 491-92 (3d Cir. 1997) (declining
to invoke Rooker-Feldman doctrine under similar circum-
stances).
III. Conclusion
For the reasons given above, we affirm in part and reverse
in part the District Court's dismissal of Gray's claims against
Poole on absolute immunity grounds. Poole is entitled to
absolute immunity for any testimony that she gave to Superi-
or Court in the child neglect action, and only qualified immu-
nity for all other disputed actions at issue in this case. We
remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.