7th Circuit Revives Claim Over Naked Guard Report

(CN) - A federal appeals court in Chicago allowed a former security guard to proceed with her claim that investigators maliciously accused her of submitting a false report about another guard who was locked out on the roof of a federal building while naked.

Maureen Reynolds reported that a guard with General Security Services Corp. had been locked out on the roof of the Minton-Capehart Federal Building in Indianapolis. The guard was inexplicably naked.

But because Reynolds didn't know that the guard was nude, she failed to mention the curious detail in her incident report. The trial court acquitted Reynolds of the false-report charge, but she lost her job as a result of the trial.

The appeals court ruled that, assuming the false-report allegations were true, the investigators' alleged actions are not protected discretionary acts under the Federal Tort Claims Act.

A federal investigator's decision "to lie under oath is separable from the discretionary decision to prosecute," Judge Rovner wrote. "There can be no argument that perjury is the sort of 'legislative (or) administrative decision grounded in social, economic, and political policy' that Congress sought to shield from 'second-guessing.'"

The 7th Circuit reversed dismissal and remanded for further proceedings.

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