Tur

The trial court ruled public employees are not immune from liability for malicious prosecution if they instigate the prosecution through fraudulent, corrupt or malicious misrepresentations. We hold the trial court misinterpreted the applicable immunity statutes and reverse the judgment for plaintiff.

Facts and Proceedings Below

Plaintiff Robert Albert Tur is a free-lance reporter and owner of a helicopter news service. He makes his living responding to breaking news stories, videotaping the events and selling the tapes to local television stations. Defendants Patrick Quinn and Tony M. Varela are firefighters employed by defendant City of Los Angeles. Quinn is assigned to the fire department’s helicopter unit; Varela is the department’s legal liaison.

The events leading to this lawsuit began when Tur was covering Quinn’s nighttime air hoist rescue of a fisherman stranded on the Los Angeles harbor breakwater. Quinn claimed that in filming the rescue, Tur trained a bright spotlight on Quinn’s helicopter causing him to momentarily lose control, imperiling his crew and the fisherman they were attempting to rescue. Quinn took his complaint to the Federal Aviation…