Opinion ID: 1175611
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: (9) Defendant police officers are immune from liability for failing to confine Poddar in their custody.

Text: Confronting, finally, the question whether the defendant police officers are immune from liability for releasing Poddar after his brief confinement, we conclude that they are. The source of their immunity is section 5154 of the Welfare and Institutions Code, which declares that: [t]he professional person in charge of the facility providing 72-hour treatment and evaluation, his designee, and the peace officer responsible for the detainment of the person shall not be held civilly or criminally liable for any action by a person released at or before the end of 72 hours.... (Italics added.) Although defendant police officers technically were not peace officers as contemplated by the Welfare and Institutions Code, [25] plaintiffs' assertion that the officers incurred liability by failing to continue Poddar's confinement clearly contemplates that the officers were responsible for the detainment of [Poddar]. We could not impose a duty upon the officers to keep Poddar confined yet deny them the protection furnished by a statute immunizing those responsible for ... [confinement]. Because plaintiffs would have us treat defendant officers as persons who were capable of performing the functions of the peace officers contemplated by the Welfare and Institutions Code, we must accord defendant officers the protections which that code prescribed for such peace officers.