## Facts

- Brent Newcomb, then a minor, lived in his mother Jean A. Mackey’s home; Mackey’s father, Howard Q. Day, was involved in the household.
- Mackey and Day installed a device on the home telephone line to record calls in the residence without Newcomb’s consent.
- The recording captured a call involving Newcomb, his brother, and their father, in which the father allegedly instructed the boys to set fire to Mackey’s home.
- Mackey and Day provided the recording to law enforcement, and it was later provided to prosecutor Nancy Ingle.
- Ingle used the recording in a criminal prosecution against Newcomb’s father; the father was convicted and later lost parental rights.
- After reaching adulthood, Newcomb sued Mackey, Day, and Ingle seeking civil relief under the federal wiretap statute (Title III) and related constitutional theories based on interception, disclosure, and use of the call.

## Issues

1. Whether custodial recording of a minor’s telephone calls in the home constituted a civilly actionable interception under Title III on the facts presented.
2. Whether Newcomb showed legally sufficient causation and compensable injury attributable to the interception and disclosure, as required for civil liability.
3. Whether the prosecutor could be held civilly liable for using or disclosing the recording in the criminal case, given immunity doctrines and Title III limits.

## Decision

- The Tenth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for all defendants.
- As to Mackey and Day, the court held Newcomb failed to establish recoverable damages proximately caused by the interception; harms tied to the father’s prosecution and parental-rights consequences were attributed to the father’s conduct and independent governmental and judicial decisions.
- As to Ingle, the court held she was not liable for actions taken in her prosecutorial role connected to the criminal case, and the asserted theories did not overcome immunity and causation barriers.
- The court concluded there were no genuine disputes of material fact requiring trial on the statutory or related claims.

## Legal Principles

- Civil recovery under Title III requires proof that the plaintiff’s claimed injury was proximately caused by the interception, disclosure, or use at issue; an attenuated chain of events involving independent prosecutorial and judicial decisions is insufficient.
- In the custodial context, a parent or custodian’s monitoring of a minor’s calls within the home for protective reasons may fall outside the type of conduct for which courts impose Title III civil damages, particularly where actionable injury is not shown.
- Prosecutors are absolutely immune from civil liability for conduct intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process, including decisions to use evidence in prosecution.

## Conclusion

The court upheld summary judgment because Newcomb did not show compensable injury proximately caused by the custodians’ recording and disclosure, and the prosecutor’s use of the recording in the criminal case was protected by prosecutorial immunity and failed on statutory and causation grounds.


Newcomb v. Ingle, 944 F.2d 1534 (10th Cir. 1991)