(Pamela Cosel, Headline USA) Just because a person works for a government entity does not entitle them to enforce laws, unless they are a sworn officer of the law. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.
Jonathan Large, a highway engineer in Mahnomen County, Minnesota, who was not an authorized authority, pulled over two truckers on July 18, 2017, pretending to be a traffic cop, reported the Institute for Justice.
The truckers were detained for three hours “as part of a personal vendetta he had with family-owned road construction company Central Specialties, Inc.,” wrote IJ.
CSI sued Large, stating in the lawsuit that he had violated the company’s constitutional rights.
The kicker is that Large said he was protected by “qualified immunity” because he works for the government. His belief and statement to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals was that his job entitled him to act as a police officer, and he challenged the court to show in any specific court ruling where he could not act as an officer of the law.
Surprisingly, the court sided with Large and granted him “qualified immunity.”
The case is now being handled by the Institute for Justice on an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The question is to determine whether Large’s actions were indeed within the scope of his authority as a highway engineer.
The lawsuit states that Large’s job description only requires him to “make and prepare all surveys, estimates, plans, and specifications which are required of the engineer.” He also “may impose weight and load restrictions on any highway under (his) jurisdiction.”
Large attempted to get police officers to come to the site where he had the truckers detained, but they refused, and also cited their own “lack of authority.”
IJ and CSI believe that the definition of qualified immunity does not apply in this case, and Large should not have been permitted to act as he did.
“When the U.S. Supreme court created qualified immunity, it supposedly balanced what it called ‘two evils’,” wrote The Federalist.
Now the Supreme Court will need to decide if any government employee is allowed to take on duties that are not legally within the scope of one’s job. Otherwise, we might see park employees or a government secretary stopping vehicles in attempts to issue tickets for just about anything.
