The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has rejected efforts to revive a woman’s lawsuit against attorneys who represented her minor child in custody litigation, concluding that, despite allegations by the plaintiff that their conduct was “wrongful and illegal,” the attorneys had been acting in line with their judicial duties as court-appointed attorneys, and were therefore entitled to immunity.
In an Aug. 7 decision authored by Judge Raymond W. Gruender for the Eighth Circuit, the three-judge panel concluded attorneys from Frankel, Ruben, Klein, Payne & Pudlowski, Dunlop & McCarter, and James D. Reid, Ph.D., LLC were exempt from plaintiff Devon Arseneau’s suit, which accused them of violating her Fifth, Sixth, and 14th Amendment rights, stemming from their representation of her minor child during a custody battle, in which the court granted Arseneau’s ex-husband sole legal custody of their child.
