On April 17, 2012, the Supreme Court issued an opinion in Filarsky v. Delia reversing the decision of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The key litigated issue was whether a private attorney retained by a government entity for temporary work is eligible for qualified immunity in a civil rights suit alleging a deprivation of rights under Section 1983 of Title 42 of the US Code.

The City of Rialto, California, hired Filarsky, a labor and employment attorney, to interview a city employee suspected of misusing workplace injury leave time to perform construction work on his home. During the interview, Filarsky ordered the employee, Delia, to produce certain building materials to verify his claim that he had purchased materials but not done work. Despite his objections to this order, Delia ultimately produced the materials for city officials.

Delia brought a civil rights action under Section 1983 of Title 42 of the US Code against the city, various city employees and Filarsky, alleging that the order to produce the building materials violated his rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution. The district court concluded that all individual defendants were protected from these claims by qualified immunity. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the judgment for all defendants except Filarsky, holding that because Filarsky was a private attorney, rather than a city employee, he was not eligible for qualified immunity.

The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the Ninth Circuit, holding that Filarsky, like other city employees, was entitled to seek qualified immunity from Section 1983 claims. The court concluded that:

The court also distinguished its decisions in Wyatt v. Cole and Richardson v. McKnight. The court noted that in Wyatt, where private individuals were found unprotected by qualified immunity when they used a state law to compel a local sheriff to seize disputed property from a former business partner, private individuals used government to achieve their own ends, rather than working as government agents in pursuit of government interests.

In Richardson, the court found that guards employed by a privately-run prison were not entitled to qualified immunity. The court emphasized the narrowness of the holding in Richardson, stating that the particular circumstances of that case, where a private firm undertook a major administrative task for profit and with limited government oversight, differed from this case where Filarsky was hired to assist in carrying out government work.

The decision in Filarsky provides assurance to private attorneys and other experts who are retained for temporary or part-time work that they are entitled to raise a qualified immunity defense against Section 1983 claims, so long as they are engaged to assist with government objectives.