was filed with the clerk of the circuit court, nor did the order cite any statutory authority for the action being taken. On July 15, Linda Spitler entered DeKalb Memorial Hospital, just four blocks from her home. She was told that she was to have her appendix removed. The next day a tubal ligation was performed on her by Dr. John H. Hines, M.D., assisted by Dr. Harry M. Covell, M.D., and anesthesiologist Dr. John C. Harvey, M.D. In 1973, Linda Spitler married Leo Sparkman. Failing to become pregnant, she learned from Dr. Hines in 1975 that she had been sterilized. The Sparkmans then brought an action for damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) for alleged deprivation of Linda Sparkman's civil rights against Ora McFarlin, her attorney, Judge Stump, the doctors who performed the operation and the hospital where it was performed. Leo Sparkman asserted a pendent claim under state law for loss of potential fatherhood. Linda Sparkman also asserted pendent state claims for assault and battery and medical malpractice. The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana. Linda Sparkman later changed her name to Jamie Renae Coleman and coauthored a 2003 book, The Blanket She Carried, with her friend Paula Headley. The case below The district court judge, Jesse E. Eschbach, dismissed the case, holding that the only state action, which was necessary to the federal claims, was Judge Stump's approval of the petition and that he was "clothed with absolute judicial immunity", thereby cutting off the claims against the other defendants as well. The Sparkmans appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which reversed the dismissal. Judicial immunity is the principle in which “a judge [has] complete protection from personal liability for exercising judicial functions”. Applying the doctrine of judicial immunity adopted by the U. S. Supreme Court in Bradley v. Fisher in 1871 and held applicable to § 1983 actions in Pierson v. Ray in 1967, Judge Luther M. Swygert, writing for himself and Judges Harlington Wood, Jr., and William G. East, found that immunity is available only when a judge has jurisdiction over the subject-matter of a case and that it is not available when he acts in "clear absence of all jurisdiction." Although Indiana statute law permitted the sterilization of institutionalized persons under certain circumstances, it provided for the