A 15-year legal battle for 10 Filipino nurses who were arrested along with their lawyer after abruptly resigning over working conditions at a Smithtown nursing facility could be considered by America’s highest court.
The US Supreme Court is expected to decide in late January or early February whether to consider a petition filed on behalf of the 11 people indicted in 2007 by then-Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota. The nurses and their lawyer, Felix Vinluan, who was arrested after advising them, are challenging Spota and a colleague’s right to absolute immunity, which prevents the 11 from suing in civil courts.
The nurses on contract resigned from the Avalon Gardens Rehabilitation and Health Center on April 7, 2006 to protest conditions they said resulted in longer-than-expected work shifts, substandard housing, and lower wages and insurance benefits than promised included. according to court records.
Along with Vinluan, they were charged with conspiracy, child endangerment and endangering the well-being of a physically disabled person after all the nurses resigned on the same day. The terminations all occurred at the end of their shift or before the next, according to court records.
WHAT TO KNOW
- The US Supreme Court is likely to act In late January or early February on a petition filed on behalf of the 11 people charged in 2007 by then-Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota.
- Ten nurses and their lawyer question Spota and a colleague’s right to absolute immunity in a civil court.
- A federal law currently protects prosecutors from civil liability.
Lawyer Felix Vinluan, who was advising the 10 nurses, was seen last week. He was arrested and prosecuted along with his clients in 2007 by then Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota. The criminal case ended in 2009 after a state appeals court found that the charges violated the nurses’ constitutional rights to protection from “involuntary servitude” while violating Vinluan’s First Amendment rights. Credit: Jeff Bachner
“I never thought I would be criminally charged just for doing my job,” Vinluan said. “The district attorney trampled on my rights and the rights of the nurses.”
The Second US Circuit Court of Appeals found in March that the jurisprudence protects Spota and former Assistant District Attorney Leonard Lato, even though they “may have unlawfully punished the plaintiffs for exercising their right to resign on the advice of counsel.” terminate,” according to the verdict. The federal doctrine of “civil action for infringement” protects a prosecutor from liability for monetary damages in a court proceeding, even if the result is that an unjust plaintiff may be left without immediate relief, the court said.
“One of the most egregious violations of constitutional rights is the absolute immunity of prosecutors,” said attorney Brian Morris of the Institute for Justice, the Virginia-based libertarian nonprofit public interest law firm that filed the petition on behalf of Vinluan and the nurses.
The petition, filed Dec. 11, asks the U.S. Supreme Court to consider whether a plaintiff can waive a prosecutor’s absolute immunity by demonstrating “that the prosecutor had no valid authority to bring charges under the law which he relies,” and whether the court “should reconsider the doctrine of prosecution immunity.”
“We’re hopeful,” Morris said. “There have been many judges on both sides of the aisle who we believe have raised concerns about these immunity doctrines. You don’t see cases involving prosecutors with worse facts.”
According to a court spokesman, it takes about six weeks for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on an application after it is filed. The request for a High Court hearing will then either be refused or, if accepted, there will eventually be a hearing on the merits of the case. Of the more than 5,000 motions filed each year, the court typically hears about 60 to 70, the court notes on its website.
Since the firm’s founding in 1991, the Institute for Justice has tried 10 petitions before the US Supreme Court, according to spokesman Dan King. The institute typically files about one petition a month, Morris said.
Lato, who died in 2018, said publicly at the time that the treatment of half a dozen young children was impacted by the sudden resignations, including one child who was terminally ill and four who were on ventilators.
The criminal case ended in 2009 after a state appeals court found that the charges violated the nurses’ constitutional rights to protection from “involuntary servitude” while violating Vinluan’s First Amendment rights.
The nurses and Vinluan then filed a federal lawsuit in 2010, alleging that Spota and Lato improperly prosecuted them by fabricating evidence and engaging in other improper conduct before a grand jury. The lawsuit alleged that prosecutors worked with the nurses’ employer, Sentosa Care – who recruited them from the Philippines – to obtain charges they knew violated the nurses’ rights in order to punish them and others Discourage nurses from resigning.
The plaintiffs’ lawsuit also alleged that prosecutors lacked a probable cause to bring the charges, and the grand jury was not told that the state Department of Education had previously determined that the nurses did not violate the regulations they were charged with were charged with violating the law, court documents show.
Plaintiffs argued that there was a narrow exception to absolute immunity, but the appeals court disagreed by a 2-1 majority in March. The verdict also said there was insufficient evidence that Spota and Lato fabricated evidence.
Thomas Spota seen in 2013 stalking the 10 Filipino nurses and their lawyer Felix Vinluan in 2007. Spota was the Suffolk County District Attorney from 2002 to 2017, when he resigned following his federal charges of obstruction of justice and witness tampering, crimes for which he was convicted in an unrelated case. Credit: Newsday/John Paraskevas
US Judge Denny Chin wrote in his dissenting opinion that the case involved “extraordinary circumstances” and that Spota and Lato’s actions should not be protected by immunity. He noted that it was beyond their authority to criminally charge the nurses for resigning to protest what they felt were discriminatory working conditions, or to accuse their lawyer of providing them legal advice.
Spota’s attorney Stephen O’Brien told Newsday in March that he was “pleased with the court’s decision”.
Absolute immunity under federal doctrine dates back to a 1976 decision by the US Supreme Court. The ruling has been cited to uphold or overturn many other lower court decisions, including a 2004 appeals ruling that found no “political motives” to Suffolk County prosecutors, including former Assistant District Attorney Christopher McPartland, in an independent lawsuit filed by the city officials in Babylon should withdraw absolute immunity.
Spota and McPartland are both currently serving federal prison terms following their conviction on corruption charges. A jury found the two prosecutors helped orchestrate a cover-up of the 2012 caning of an alleged burglar carried out with detectives by then-Suffolk Police Chief James Burke.
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