Trial Argument I. THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN GRANTING THE

A. The defendant William Bailey's motion for JNOV was improperly granted because some of his communications were not absolutely privileged as statements made during the course of, or relevant to, a quasi-judicial proceeding.

The Washington Supreme Court has held that "quasi-judicial immunity attaches to persons or entities who perform functions that are so comparable to those performed by judges that it is felt that they should share the judges' absolute immunity while carrying out those functions. Quasi-judicial immunity is absolute." Lutheran Day Care v. Snohomish County, 119 Wash.2d 91, 829 P.2d 746, 749 (1992). Although there is no exact definition of a quasi-judicial proceeding, some general guidelines have been established. The official body conducting the proceeding must typically be able to exercise judgment and discretion, hear and determine or ascertain facts and decide, make binding orders and judgments, affect the personal or property rights of private persons, examine witnesses and hear litigation of the issues on a hearing, and enforce decisions or impose penalties. Thomas v. Petrulis, 125 Ill. App.3d 415, 419-20, 465 N.E.2d 1059 (1984). The powers granted to the Superintendent of Public Instruction tend to bring a teacher decertification proceeding within the definition

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ition on his own. In doing so, he went outside the normal proceeding, bringing devastating accusations against the plaintiff without subjecting their veracity to the review of the Board. There were no safeguards which could protect the plaintiff from false accusations; there were no measures which could expunge false statements from the public record, no sanctions which might have made the defendant examine the truthfulness of the accusations more closely. There presumably aren't even any outside disciplinary measures which could be brought to bear against the defendant, such as the ones which the Demopolis court held were inadequate to protect against the abuse of absolute privilege. The phone calls made by the defendant were in no way absolutely privileged. Because he bypassed the customary procedures, the defendant short-circuited the operation of the few safeguards available in the decertification process. In fact, the defendant may have hampered any investigation by the SPI by planting unsubstantiated rumors in the community. This may be analogous to the situation in Taggert v. Washington, 118 Wash.2d 195, 822 P.2d 243 (1992). In that case, the Washington Supreme Court held that parole officers enjoy no judicial immun
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