On Tues­day, the Supreme Court handed down a deci­sion on Filarsky v. Delia, a case we dis­cussed here back in Jan­u­ary. In a rare unan­i­mous deci­sion,

The Supreme Court ruled on Tues­day that pri­vate attor­neys or oth­ers tem­porar­ily hired by local gov­ern­ments to con­duct inves­ti­ga­tions can assert immu­nity from civil rights law­suits alleg­ing con­sti­tu­tional vio­la­tions and seek­ing damages.

The high court ruled such indi­vid­u­als were not barred from get­ting immu­nity solely because they do not work for the gov­ern­ment on a per­ma­nent or full-​​time basis.

(more…)