Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/04pdf/04-278.pdf
Page Number: 23

20 

CASTLE ROCK v. GONZALES 

Opinion of the Court 

provide  victims  with  personally  enforceable  remedies.
Although  the  framers  of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  and
the  Civil  Rights  Act  of  1871,  17  Stat.  13  (the  original 
source  of  §1983),  did  not  create  a  system  by  which  police 
departments are generally held financially accountable for 
crimes  that  better  policing  might  have  prevented,  the 
people  of  Colorado  are  free  to  craft  such  a  system  under
state law.  Cf. DeShaney, 489 U. S., at 203.15 
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is 

Reversed. 

—————— 

15 In  Colorado,  the  general  statutory  immunity  for  government  em-
ployees does not apply when “the act or omission causing . . . injury was 
willful  and  wanton.”    Colo.  Rev.  Stat.  §24–10–118(2)(a)  (Lexis  1999). 
Respondent’s  complaint  does  allege  that  the  police  officers’  actions 
“were taken either willfully, recklessly or with such gross negligence as 
to  indicate  wanton  disregard  and  deliberate  indifference  to”  her  civil 
rights.  App. to Pet. for Cert. 128a. 

The  state  cases  cited  by  the dissent  that  afford  a  cause of  action  for 
police failure to enforce restraining orders, post, at 11–12, 14–15, n. 13, 
vindicate  state  common-law  or  statutory  tort  claims—not  procedural 
due  process  claims  under  the  Federal  Constitution.    See  Donaldson  v. 
Seattle,  65  Wash.  App.  661,  881  P. 2d  1098  (1992)  (city  could  be  liable 
under  some  circumstances  for  per  se  negligence  in  failing  to  meet 
statutory duty to arrest); Matthews v. Pickett County, 996 S. W. 2d 162 
(Tenn.  1999)  (county  could  be  liable  under  Tennessee’s  Governmental 
Tort  Liability  Act  where  restraining  order  created  a  special  duty); 
Campbell v. Campbell, 294 N. J. Super. 18, 682 A. 2d 272 (1996) (reject-
ing  four  specific  defenses  under  the  New  Jersey  Tort  Claims  Act  in 
negligence action against individual officers); Sorichetti v. New York, 65 
N. Y. 2d 461, 482 N. E. 2d 70 (1985) (city breached duty of care arising 
from  special  relationship  between  police  and  victim);  Nearing  v. 
Weaver, 295 Ore. 702, 670 P. 2d 137 (1983) (statutory duty to individual 
plaintiffs arising independently of tort-law duty of care).