Case Name: FEISE et al. v. CHEROKEE COUNTY et al.
Court: Court of Appeals of Georgia
Jurisdiction: Georgia
Decision Date: 1992-12-04
Citations: 207 Ga. App. 17
Docket Number: A92A1504
Parties: FEISE et al. v. CHEROKEE COUNTY et al.
Judges: Judgment reversed. McMurray, P. J., and Cooper, J., concur. Beasley, J., concurs in judgment only. Sognier, C. J., Carley, P. J., and Johnson, J., concur specially. Andrews, J., dissents. Pope, J., disqualified.
Reporter: Georgia Appeals Reports
Volume: 207
Pages: 17–27

Head Matter:
A92A1504.
FEISE et al. v. CHEROKEE COUNTY et al.
(427 SE2d 294)

Opinion:
Birdsong, Presiding Judge.
Plaintiffs Cynthia Mary Feise and Jonathan Feise appeal the grant of summary judgment to defendants Cherokee County and John Seay as sheriff and individually. The Feises filed suit for damages after Mrs. Feise, holding her two-year-old son, was attacked and "sliced" repeatedly with a knife by a neighbor, Scott Kramer, whom the Feises' teenaged daughter and a teenaged neighbor had identified as the peeping tom who had plagued them. The Kramer house was behind the Feises' home. After reports of a recurrence of peeping tom incidents following Kramer's return from military service, deputies placed the Feises' and their neighbor's houses on extra patrol. Deputy Shields made special patrols, even going into the backyards to see how he would chase someone and shining spotlights into the yards. In July 1990, Deputy Shields told Deputy Hall he feared the incidents would escalate to a rape situation. One night Deputy Shields saw a figure jump off the Feises' deck; he gave chase; when Deputy Hall came on duty, he resumed the search and Kramer was picked up on a road near his house. Deputy Hall sought to have the Feises and their neighbors identify Kramer. Construing the evidence on defendants' motion for summary judgment most favorably to the Feises (Holland v. Sanfax Corp., 106 Ga. App. 1, 4 (126 SE2d 442)), their teenaged daughter and her friend were very upset to be asked to identify Kramer; they knew his reputation for bizarre and cruel behavior and were afraid. They agreed to identify Kramer only upon the deputy's promise that Kramer would not get out of jail. When the girls, relying upon this assurance, went outside and identified Kramer as the peeping tom, Kramer winked at them and said he would be back. He was mistakenly charged with a misdemeanor and was out on bail in one- and-one-half hours.
Six weeks later, Mrs. Feise, on September 4,1990, received a telephone call from a male who said: "I'm going to carve you and your daughter . . . up." The caller hung up quickly and Mrs. Feise called the operator to trace the call. Meanwhile, the caller called again on the call waiting line and said: "I'm going to get you all for what you did." Mrs. Feise received three threatening calls in a row. She assumed these calls were made by Kramer, because "who else wanted to do us harm?" The calls sounded as if they were made from a pay phone but the caller hung up before the calls could be traced. Deputies checked nearby stores and phone locations but found nothing. The neighbors also received a similarly threatening call that day. Mr. and Mrs. Feise sought to have Kramer arrested, but the sheriff's office and the district attorney told them there was no probable cause to arrest because the calls were not traced. It was suggested that the Feises get a warrant, but the Feises did not see how they could get a warrant if the police did not have probable cause to arrest.
Construing the evidence most favorably to the Feises (id.), despite the "extra" patrols expended by the deputies before the threats of revenge were received, and despite the deputies' heightened knowledge of Kramer's dangerous propensities, after the threatening phone calls were made the sheriff did nothing to help the Feises. They were left to their own devices. The threats made by Kramer as the only person with a motive to "get you all for what you did," were so frightening and posed a threat of such imminent harm that the next day Mr. Feise, who is a probation officer and former policeman, did not go to work but stayed with his family. During the day, however, it was necessary for him to go to the pharmacy. He gave his wife a gun and told her not to go outside without it, but she knew she could not shoot anybody and she did not think anything would happen in broad daylight, so she took her two-year-old son outside to the mailbox.
Scott Kramer had been stalking the house or lying in wait. He approached Mrs. Feise and slashed her repeatedly with a knife. He slashed her deeply on her arm when she flung it up to protect herself. She picked up her son and turned to run and Kramer repeatedly slashed her on her back. She managed to get away, but she and her baby were covered in blood and have suffered a great deal emotionally as the result of the slashing.
Sovereign immunity is not in issue. The trial court granted summary judgment to defendants. Plaintiffs Cynthia Feise and Jonathan Feise appeal. Held:
This court recently debated the basis for liability of law enforcement agencies and municipalities for failure to protect an individual from the criminal acts of a third party, in Jordan v. City of Rome, 203 Ga. App. 662, 667 (417 SE2d 730) (cert. granted). That decision was not concurred in by a majority of this court so it is physical precedent only. See Court of Appeals Rule 35 (b).
The trial court correctly granted summary judgment to defendants on the claim that defendants negligently induced the two girls to identify Scott Kramer by promising he would never get out of jail. Plaintiffs could not reasonably rely upon any such assurance, nor was the failure of such promise the proximate cause of Kramer's attack. Nor does liability attach to defendants for finding lack of probable cause to arrest Kramer after Mrs. Feise and her neighbor received threatening phone calls. See Ferguson v. City of Doraville, 186 Ga. App. 430, 432 (367 SE2d 551).
However, in view of the deputies' heightened apprehension that Kramer was of definite criminal propensity, and their having been advised that plaintiffs and their neighbors had suddenly received four viciously threatening telephone calls in one day, questions of fact exist as to defendants' duty to protect the Feise family against this imminent specific danger, by decoy or by surveillance or stake-out of their house or by some other means. The jury may find that defendants should reasonably have presumed the person who made four threatening telephone calls on one day was Scott Kramer, and that defendants should reasonably have inferred that Kramer had conceived an overwhelming and immediate desire and intent to take revenge and "slice" certain members of plaintiffs' family; and that defendants did not exercise ordinary care to protect the Feise family from Kramer's immediate assault.
The trial court erred in granting summary judgment to defendants, either under the imposition of a duty to exercise reasonable care as held by the plurality in Jordan, or under the Jordan dissent, which relied upon a "special duty" analysis in the particular circumstances of that case. Jordan involved a call to police and an asserted promise by police to send assistance. The majority found evidence giving rise to a duty to exercise ordinary care, but the dissent believed the information relayed to the police by Jordan's sister was so exceedingly sparse that there was no basis to impose a duty to exercise ordinary care based on knowledge of a foreseeable risk of harm. The dissent also found that no "special duty" arose in that case on grounds that the plaintiff "justifiably relied" on the defendant's "affirmative undertaking" to protect or assist the plaintiff, because "[b]ased on the sparse information imparted to the police by phone, there is no basis to find the police had knowledge that the failure to send a car could lead to the harm incurred. There is no evidence that the police inaction made the situation worse or increased the danger to Jordan." Jordan at 673.
The element of "justifiable reliance" on an "affirmative undertaking" by the law enforcement agency under a special duty analysis arose because Jordan contended police promised to send assistance and she relied on that promise. A failure of affirmatively assumed duty to protect, and the plaintiff's reliance on it, may be the cause of damage in some cases (see Thomas v. Williams, 105 Ga. App. 321, 326 (124 SE2d 409)), but this "justifiable reliance" requirement should not be applied to cases which do not involve reliance on an affirmative undertaking to protect. See, e.g., Jordan at 665, fn. 1. Neither should plaintiffs confuse their chances by arguing that liability arose out of a "special duty" where, as here, there is no evidence the plaintiff's reliance on an affirmative police undertaking is what resulted in her harm.
The element of "justifiable reliance" based on a "special duty" does not arise under the causation evidence in this case. This obviously means the "special duty" analysis is not applicable to this case and we have not applied it in this case, as expressly stated above. Therefore, contrary to the special concurrence in this case, we have not applied to this case the "special duty" analysis, as we have expressly made clear. The facts in this case are far more compelling than those in Jordan toward a duty to exercise ordinary care where the law enforcement agency knew or should have known that its acts or omissions exposed an individual to the risk. The Feise family was so convinced Kramer intended an immediate assault that Mr. Feise stayed home from work and tried to fortify his family in their home with a gun; but defendants, having knowledge of the pertinent facts, left the family to their own devices and made no effort to guard against or draw out this attack which the Feises foresaw as an immediate danger.
That Mrs. Feise went outside her home without a gun does not as a matter of law bar recovery, nor does it relieve defendants of a duty which a jury may find existed. Citizens are not required to carry, and use, a gun as a matter of law. Mrs. Feise stated she could not shoot anyone; the victim of Kramer's attack could have been a child or a person incapable of understanding the danger of using a gun to protect herself. An element of plaintiffs' case is that Mrs. Feise should not have been forced to be imprisoned in her home or else shoot Scott Kramer, or more than her physical security would be at continuing risk as a result of the failure of defendants to protect her, assuming a jury finds they had such a duty in all the circumstances of the case.
The dissent clings to the principle outlined in the dissent in Jordan, supra, that is, that defendants may be liable only if they had a duty in terms of a "special relationship" which was created between the claimant and police sufficient to establish a specific duty for the police to protect the claimant from particular harm. The dissent asserts that whether there is a "special duty" is a question of law for the court in each case. However, when the very complaint is that defendants should have undertaken a duty in the circumstances, an analysis barring recovery if a court finds that no duty existed because the defendants undertook no such duty, is circular and self-defeating. This complaint is bottomed on defendants' failure to assume a duty to protect against reasonably foreseeable imminent danger from Kramer; if defendants' failure to undertake such duty bars recovery as a matter of law, this is the same as saying no duty exists unless defendants undertook a duty to protect. The result of this reasoning is that a police agency can always make itself immune from liability simply by failing to act, and only in cases of wilful or criminal dereliction by police could a court decide there was a duty on police to protect. Carried to its logical end, such "special duty" analysis is thus shown to be inappropriate to the circumstances of these cases, except where police did in fact indisputably undertake the duty to protect.
The dissent creates a form of police immunity, by making a finding of fact that should be made by a jury. The cases cited for the idea that the existence of a duty is an issue of law for a court (Bradley Center v. Wessner, 250 Ga. 199, 200 (296 SE2d 693) and First Fed. &c. Bank of Brunswick v. Fretthold, 195 Ga. App. 482, 485-486 (394 SE2d 128)) do not support that proposition. First Federal &c. Bank of Brunswick stems from Shockley v. Zayre of Atlanta, 118 Ga. App. 672 (165 SE2d 179), which actually held: " 'The [question of] duty is defined by the law; the breach of that duty is determined by the particular facts. . . . This is usually a question to be referred to the jury, and should always be so referred, unless the allegations (or evidence) show beyond controversy that there was no such breach of duty. . . .' [Cits.]" (Emphasis supplied.) Id. at 673. Therefore, Shockley cannot be used as the basis to allow the court to decide whether police had a duty in these cases. As said above, a "special duty" analysis is generally appropriate only where there was an affirmative undertaking to protect. It is not a term to be used to allow a court to decide at the threshold, in every case, whether a danger was reasonably foreseeable by police. A court may decide the issue only if the evidence shows "beyond controversy" (id.) that there was no reasonable foreseeability of danger giving rise to a duty, under general principles of negligence law and summary judgment procedure.
The dissent concedes the question is one of reasonable foreseeability, but, calling this a "special duty" question, contends that the trial court had the right to decide it. If a form of police immunity is desired, the legislature should enact it, and a peculiar judicial analysis should not be used to create police immunity by allowing a court at the threshold to decide the factual issue of what is reasonably foreseeable. Serious policy considerations abound in these cases, but the standard of reasonable foreseeability is generally sufficient to the query. The question what is "reasonable" necessarily asks what is reasonable to the police in all the circumstances and exigencies. The jury of peers is not unequipped to consider this question. If, to the reasonable minds of 12 jurors, all the circumstances in a particular case imposed a duty on police to "provide personal 24-hour protection to citizens under these or like circumstances" or some other proper form of surveillance (as the dissent fears), we will not hold this to be inappropriate, in view of the constitutional guarantee of "protection to person and property" noted in the special concurrence in Jordan v. City of Rome, supra at 669 (Ga. Const. 1983, Art. I, Sec. I, Par. II), in the absence of a legislatively enacted special police immunity.
Furthermore, in concluding that the circumstances were not sufficient to inform defendants of a "substantial likelihood" of immediate risk of danger from attack, the dissent attempts to create a higher standard of proof by which these cases should be judged. Making the issue one of "substantial likelihood" rather than "reasonable foreseeability" really adds nothing to the inquiry, since if a danger was reasonably foreseeable it must be concluded in legal terms that there was a "substantial likelihood" of it. But if "substantial likelihood" were used to supplant traditional negligence law and to require a sort of "certain foreknowledge," it will create police immunity except for wilful torts.
As to the dissent's conclusion that there was no duty because these factual circumstances did not inform defendants of the "substantial likelihood" of this particular imminent danger, obviously this cannot be said as a matter of law, for the issue is not "beyond controversy" (id.) inasmuch as the jury, like Mr. Feise on the day of the attack, may come to the opposite conclusion. Where reasonable minds may differ as to the foreseeability of Kramer's attack, the question is necessarily one for the jury.
A jury may find in this case that defendants had a duty to exercise ordinary care to protect plaintiffs from the criminal acts of Scott Kramer because it was reasonably foreseeable to defendants that this attack would occur and defendants knew or should have known their acts or failure to act exposed plaintiffs to the risk. The trial court erred in granting summary judgment to defendants.
Judgment reversed. McMurray, P. J., and Cooper, J., concur. Beasley, J., concurs in judgment only. Sognier, C. J., Carley, P. J., and Johnson, J., concur specially. Andrews, J., dissents. Pope, J., disqualified.