On July 28, 2010, the Indiana Court of Appeals handed down the opinion of Putnam County Sheriff v. Pamela Rice. It continues what I see as a trend of judicial decisions eroding the immunities available to Indiana’s law enforcement officers under the Indiana Tort Claims Act. As I suggested in an earlier post, the more this continues, the more inaction by law enforcement is the safer liability option. In other words, if police officers sit on their hands, they are much less likely to be sued successfully.
The most recent installment involves a cold November morning at 5:30 a.m. where a Sheriff’s Deputy responded to an accident involving an icy roadway. Turns out the local water authority had a pipe leaking across the road. He called in the situation, and the local water authority that owned the pipe, among others, were notified. But, he didn’t hang around the site until the problem was fixed or stick around to wave off other motorists. Then, at 7:15 a.m., another motorist had an accident at the icy spot. The Indiana Court of Appeals held that the Sheriff could be liable for the second person’s injuries because, it concluded, “the Sheriff has a duty to warn the public of a known hazardous condition.” The court further opined that this duty was not closely enough related to things like preventing crime and providing emergency services to afford the Sheriff the immunity available for those activities.
I think the legislature needs to step in and clarify its intent with respect to the immunities available to law enforcement officials. The nature of the job is that police officers have to get involved in situations where bad things are happening – meaning, a disproportionate number of people injured in one fashion or another. The less they are protected from claims of negligence – resulting from the fact that the government has deep pockets more than from any notable wrongdoing – the more the incentive is going to run toward inactivity.
Are you kidding me? These cops were sued *because* they didn’t do anything. They would have been just as liable if it was proved that they ignored the call completely. I could not disagree with you more.
In this case, I think the holding will mean exactly the opposite. To find the officer responsible for a tort claim, the court had to hold that he had a duty to protect. Without any duty, there could be no claim. The unsafe condition was reported, so the police were aware. When they failed to warn the public of the known danger, they failed in their duty to protect. If the court didn’t find liability, the police could just ignore any known danger and not face consequences, because they have no duty. If the police force was informed of the danger, and chose not to act, they would have still been liable, no?
They would have been safer just not responding to the initial accident, apparently.
In our county, SOP would be for the officer to notify the appropriate street dept. for salt & or sand to mitigate the ice hazard. Same for trees down or washouts. The fire depts. usually baby-sit power lines in the road until the line workers get there.
Sounds like the officer notified the street department, but it hadn’t been taken care of in the 1.5 hours or whatever before the next accident.
Brad, I didn’t see your comment until just now. I’m pretty confident that the police would be entitled to immunity if they just ignored the call. By responding, they opened themselves up to the lawsuit.
Not responding is not an option. He has a duty to act if he was on duty and called. Knowing the roadway was unsafe, he left the scene. I wonder if he made the effort to set up flares to warn of a road hazard? Something as simple as that could c-y-a.
Having worked in emergency services for a dozen years, I was somewhat frequently confronted with such situations. I always asked myself, what would be the safest thing I can do. Usually, that will keep you out of trouble.
I’m telling you, if someone brings a lawsuit claiming they were injured because the police failed to respond to their call, they are much less likely to win than in the situation that was present in this case.