According to the pleadings, Helen Earley, the 911 system operator for the City, delayed dispatching the fire department until six minutes after she received the call reporting the fire. The fire department did not arrive at plaintiff's home until approximately ten minutes after that initial 911 call was placed. While plaintiff and others waited for the fire department to arrive, Shayla could be heard inside the house talking and calling for her mother. Bystanders, including police officers who arrived on the scene before the fire department, made several attempts to enter the house, but the intensity of the flames thwarted their rescue attempts. Shayla was alive inside the house for several minutes immediately following the beginning of the fire and prior to the fire department's arrival.
Sovereign immunity continues to be a viable protection against tort claims for local governments.
The general common law rule, known as the public duty doctrine, is that a municipality and its agents act for the benefit of the public, and therefore, there is no liability for the failure to furnish police protection to specific individuals. This rule recognizes the limited resources of law enforcement and refuses to judicially impose an overwhelming burden of liability for failure to prevent every criminal act. The holding in Braswell was specifically limited to the facts in that case and to the issue of whether the sheriff negligently failed to protect the decedent. We decline to expand the public duty doctrine in this case. Thus, the public duty doctrine, as it applies to local government, is limited to the facts of Braswell.