There are many ways for a claim against a public entity to fail. Sometimes the problem is governmental or sovereign immunity. For claims against individuals working for the public, the problem may be public official immunity. When law enforcement activities are involved, the problem may well be the public duty doctrine, which basically prohibits claimants from suing police officers or similar folks who are providing protection to the general public. The idea is that cash-strapped police departments around the state would be unfairly burdened by having every quick decision they make in exigent circumstances second-guessed in court several years later by a bunch of Monday-morning quarterbacks. In a recent case arising from a hit-and-run accident in Columbus County, the court dismissed a lawsuit against the police officer which had sought money damages from his allegedly poor investigation.
The plaintiff in Inman v. City of Whiteville has been forced off the road by another driver, though there was no contact between the vehicles. While the investigating officer did question the other driver, he did not include the identity or contact information for that driver on the accident report. Since there had been no contact between the vehicles, the department had decided that no further investigation of that driver was needed. Because the identity of the at fault driver was now unknown, and because the no-contact fact prevents any claim under Uninsured Motorist Coverage, the plaintiff was left without a remedy – so of course that meant suing the police was their only remaining option.
Whatever one thinks about the sensibility of the policeman’s decision from a law enforcement point of view, the duty of a police officer to investigate car accidents is clearly the type of duty that is owed to the general public and thus the public duty doctrine operated to dismiss the suit according to the Court of Appeals. The plaintiff had not even tried to fall into one of the two recognized exceptions to the public duty doctrine, but let’s pretend that did happen so we can discuss those.
First, the doctrine does not apply if there is a “special relationship” between the claimant and law enforcement. This would apply if, for example, the claimant had been a police informant or perhaps an embedded reporter or something where the claimant could have reasonably expected a higher level of individualized protection based upon the existence of that relationship. Second, the doctrine does not apply if the claimant had been specifically promised protection by law enforcement and did not receive it, like when a person has been threatened or stalked and the police promised protection for some specific period of time. The claimant in Inman could not benefit from either of these exceptions.
Submitted by David Hood, Patrick Harper & Dixon, LLP
