Opinion ID: 1627664
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Statutory Compliance and Immunity Protections

Text: In addition to the immunity provided to public employees under Missouri common law, the legislature has also adopted statutes that provide complete or qualified immunity in certain cases. These statutes provide statutory immunity that is distinct from common law immunity and raise the issue of whether these statutes alter the common law immunity protections available to public employees. As to some statutes, this Court has previously held that the statutory language makes evident that the immunity protections are modified. For example, section 190.307 provides that emergency system operators should be protected by immunity unless they act with willful or wanton misconduct or gross negligence. [15] This Court has held that section 190.307 was clearly intended to supersede common law official immunity and provide emergency system workers a qualified immunity that applies in all cases except those involving gross negligence. State ex rel. Golden v. Crawford, 165 S.W.3d 147, 149 (Mo. banc 2005). Similarly, section 331.100.5 provides that members of the Missouri Board of Chiropractic Examiners shall not be personally liable either jointly or separately for any act or acts committed in the performance of their official duties as board members except gross negligence. This Court has held that section 331.100.5 provides qualified immunity that supplants common law quasi-judicial immunity. Edwards v. Gerstein, 237 S.W.3d 580, 582 (Mo. banc 2007). [16] In Davis, this Court specifically addressed whether the language of the emergency vehicle statute, section 304.022, RSMo Supp.2007, [17] modified the immunity protections available to a police officer involved in a pursuit-related collision. 193 S.W.3d at 763-64. Davis held that the language of section 304.022 did not show a legislative intent to supplant common law official immunity. Id. at 764 (holding that the requirements of section 304.022 did not abolish, abrogate, or in any way modify official immunity). [18] Davis found that [s]ection 304.022, by its terms, does not provide official immunity and overruled past cases that required section 304.022 compliance as a prerequisite to application of official immunity. [19] Id. at 764 & n. 3. Plaintiffs' allegations in this case include that Officer Ratliff is not entitled to immunity because his conduct was contrary to section 304.022. Davis, however, makes clear that that failure to comply with the requirements of section 304.022 is not a bar to immunity protections. [20] Plaintiffs further argue that the defendant officers should be denied immunity protections because they failed to follow local departmental policies. Nothing in the departmental policies at issue, however, supplants the common law immunity protections available to the defendant officers and, as such, their potential immunity is unaffected by the allegations of policy violations. Public employees' conduct that is contrary to applicable statutes or policies can constitute evidence that their conduct was negligent, but that conduct does not remove their negligence from the protections of the official immunity or public duty doctrines where the provisions at issue indicate no intent to modify or supersede these common law immunity protections.