By Kelly Wiese
The Kansas City Daily Record
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — While individual police officers are immune from being sued for their conduct during a police chase, their government employer can still be held liable, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.
The Supreme Court issued a lengthy ruling to clarify how the various liability protections for governments and their workers - sovereign immunity, official immunity and public duty doctrine - should be interpreted.
The ruling followed arguments in November about a wrongful death lawsuit stemming from a May 2004 police chase in Farmington. Police were pursuing an armed robbery suspect when one officer’s car crashed into another vehicle, killing two people inside.
A lower court had granted the city’s motion for summary judgment in the case, Debra Southers v. City of Farmington, finding the officers and city were not liable.
The Supreme Court affirmed the part of the ruling regarding the three individual police officers, saying that both official immunity and the public duty doctrine protect them from liability. The court said that furthers the public interest of ensuring that officers can focus on emergencies as they unfold rather than worry about whether they could be sued later.
However, it said, that protection does not necessarily extend to the government employer, in this case Farmington, and reversed that part of the decision, sending it back down to St. Francois County Circuit Court. It said such claims can be brought under the doctrine of respondeat superior, or holding an employer responsible for its worker’s actions.
“This court is no longer willing to apply the judicially-created protections of the public duty doctrine in a way that would insulate government entities from tort liability where the legislature has expressly abolished such immunity,” the court said in a unanimous decision written by Judge Mary Russell.
The court ruling said that while cities typically enjoy sovereign immunity, state law lays out some exceptions to that protection, and this situation fell under one of them. State law makes an exception for injury cases where an employee is alleged to have been negligent while operating a government vehicle on duty.
Regarding the remaining two officers, other issues come into play. While their conduct may have gone against departmental policies on how to respond to emergencies, such actions do not waive the common law protection of sovereign immunity, the court said.
However, the court said it did not have enough information in the court record to determine whether the city waived its immunity by purchasing liability insurance, and said that is an issue the trial court can consider further.
Southers was represented by Matthew Devoti and Thomas Casey of the Casey & Devoti law firm in St. Louis.
Devoti said his clients were thrilled that they get to try their case against the city, and estimated trial could begin early next year.
“Without a doubt the city may be liable for the conduct of Officer Ratliff,” whose car collided with that which carried the two victims, Devoti said.
He also said the court’s explanation of how the various immunity protections work should be a great help to all attorneys in cases involving local governments.
“That was one of the problems both sides had before the trial court,” Devoti said. “There were opinions that stepped on each other. It will be a tremendous help to practitioners on both sides from this point. “
Farmington’s attorney, Mark Zoole of Mark Zoole and Associates in St. Louis, did not return a call seeking comment by press time.
Copyright 2008 The Kansas City Daily Record