This program provides a practical roadmap to the doctrines that shield state and local government from tort liability in Minnesota, including sovereign immunity (Minn. Stat. ยง 3.736), municipal immunity (Minn. Stat. ch. 466), statutory discretionary-function immunity, official immunity, and vicarious official immunity.
The program will explore the ethical and professional responsibility requirements of immunity litigation, where a case's outcome often turns on how counsel characterizes the government's conduct. The discussion will focus on the tension between a lawyer's duty of zealous advocacy and the duty of candor to the tribunal under Minn. R. Prof. Conduct 3.3, and the related obligation under Rule 3.1 to assert only non-frivolous, good-faith positions. Using the plaintiff's incentive to frame conduct as "operational" or "ministerial" and the defense's incentive to frame the same conduct as discretionary "policy," the program explores where vigorous, permissible framing ends and misleading or unsupportable characterization of facts and law begins.
Speaker:
Mark Bradford, Bradford Andresen Norrie & Camarotto
1.0 Ethics Credit applied for in MN
