Opinion ID: 1597684
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: WHETHER THE CIRCUIT COURT ERRED IN DISMISSING THE COMPLAINT UNDER M.R.C.P. 12(b)(6).

Text: ¶ 2. A motion to dismiss under M.R.C.P. 12(b)(6) raises an issue of law. L.W. v. McComb Separate Mun. Sch. Dist., 754 So.2d 1136, 1138 (Miss.1999) (collecting authorities). We conduct a de novo review of questions of law. Id. (citing UHS-Qualicare, Inc. v. Gulf Coast Cmty. Hosp., Inc., 525 So.2d 746, 754 (Miss.1987)). When considering a motion to dismiss, the allegations in the complaint must be taken as true, and the motion should not be granted unless it appears beyond a reasonable doubt that the plaintiff will be unable to prove any set of facts in support of his claim. T.M. v. Noblitt, 650 So.2d 1340, 1342 (Miss.1995). ¶ 3. The circuit court adopted the firefighter's rule, which prohibits recovery by a firefighter, or, in this case, a police officer, injured as a result of a risk inherent in, and foreseeable as a part of their duties as police officers. 62 Am.Jur.2d Premises Liability § 431 (1990). The circuit court determined that Farmer did not allege that Taco Bell failed to warn him of any risk not reasonably expected under the circumstances. ¶ 4. The firefighter's rule is an issue of first impression in Mississippi. While it appears most jurisdictions still follow some version of the firefighter's rule, Minnesota, Florida, and New Jersey have abrogated the rule by statute, and Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Colorado have abolished the rule by decision. See Hopkins v. Medeiros, 48 Mass.App.Ct. 600, 724 N.E.2d 336, 341-43 (2000). While Michigan seems to have abandoned the rule by statute ( see Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. § 6000.2965), it appears other Michigan statutes retain the traditional common law doctrine of the firefighter's rule. See Harris-Fields v. Syze, 461 Mich. 188, 600 N.W.2d 611, 616-17 (1999).
¶ 5. The firefighter's rule originated over one hundred years ago and classified a firefighter as a licensee, with the property owner owing a duty to refrain from engaging in wilful, wanton or intentional conduct: In Gibson v. Leonard, 143 Ill. 182, 32 N.E. 182 (1892), as well as most of the early cases involving fire fighters, the court analyzed the issue of liability on the basis of the traditional status categories of entrants upon the property of anotherinvitee, licensee, or trespasser. The Gibson court determined that the plaintiff fireman was a licensee, and, therefore, the property owner only owed him a duty to avoid inflicting wilful, wanton, or intentional injuries. Kreski v. Modern Wholesale Elec. Supply Co., 429 Mich. 347, 415 N.W.2d 178, 183 (1987) (citing Gibson v. Leonard, 143 Ill. 182, 32 N.E. 182 (1892)). ¶ 6. The Restatement (Second) of Torts treats a public officer entering a part of the land open to the public in the performance of public duty to hold the status of an invitee. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 345 & comments (1965). (Note that § 345(2) would be applicable to the instant case, because the policeman suffered harm because of a condition of a part of the land held open to the public. ) Thus, Farmer, under the Restatement (Second) of Torts, would enjoy invitee status, which under Mississippi premises law raises the duty of Taco Bell to Farmer to that of reasonable care. Clark v. Moore Mem. United Methodist Church, 538 So.2d 760, 764 (Miss.1989) (The duty owed by an invitor to an invitee is to exercise reasonable care to keep the premises in a reasonably safe condition and, if the invitor knows of, or by the exercise of reasonable care should have known of, a dangerous condition, which is not readily apparent to the invitee, the invitor is under a duty to warn the invitee of such condition.). ¶ 7. Twenty years after the Restatement was written, Professor Prosser stated that Restatement § 345(2) is followed only by a small number of courts. Regardless, Prosser expressed some approval for it. See Prosser & Keeton, The Law of Torts § 61, at 432 (1984). Most states that have addressed the issue continue to treat police officers and firefighters as licensees either expressly or as a practical effect by basing the doctrine on public policy.
¶ 8. The inherent limitations in accurately fitting firefighters into the traditional landowner liability context have caused courts to look beyond the concept of the entrant's status as a rationale for the firefighter's rule, and instead adopt the rule on the basis of assumption of risk and public policy. See Kreski, 415 N.W.2d at 184. Many states, including Mississippi, [2] have abandoned or merged the doctrine of assumption of risk into other negligence schemes. Despite this trend, nearly all of those states choosing to abandon the assumption of risk doctrine retained the firefighter's rule, instead relying on public policy as the sole basis for reaffirming the utility and viability of the rule. See Carson v. Headrick, 900 S.W.2d 685, 689-90 (Tenn.1995) (citing decisions in California, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, and New Mexico). ¶ 9. The rationale for adopting the firefighter's rule as public policy is tied to the nature of the public service police officers and firefighters provide as public servants. The policy arguments for adopting a fireman's rule stem from the nature of the service provided by firefighters and police officers, as well as the relationship between these safety officers and the public they are employed to protect. It is beyond peradventure that the maintenance of organized society requires the presence and protection of firefighters and police officers. The fact is that situations requiring their presence are as inevitable as anything in life can be. It is apparent that these officers are employed for the benefit of society in general, and for people involved in circumstances requiring their presence in particular. The court in Calvert v. Garvey Elevators, Inc., 236 Kan. 570, 694 P.2d 433 (1985) noted that [f]irefighters enter on the premises to discharge their duties. Fire fighters are present upon the premises, not because of any private duty owed the occupant, but because of the duty owed to the public as a whole. Calvert, supra, 236 Kan. 570, 694 P.2d 433. The public hires, trains, and compensates firefighters and police officers to deal with dangerous, but inevitable situations. Usually, especially with fires, negligence causes the occasion for the safety officer's presence. Kreski, 415 N.W.2d at 186-87. See also Carson, 900 S.W.2d at 690. ¶ 10. Rescue personnel are uniquely situated and thus call for a special rule. As noted by one commentator, A firefighter may not decline to enter onto premises to fight a fire because a porch which he must cross appears rickety. A police officer may not decline to enter an office building to apprehend a suspected thief, simply because the approach to the office building may be slippery with snow and ice. On the contrary, police officers and firefighters simply act differently from ordinary citizens in encountering the obligations of their occupations and the manner in which they do so must be considered when assessing the applicability of the fireman's rule. Ordinary citizens do not, for instance, alight from their cars and attempt to traverse unknown premises, in the pitch dark of night, without some effort to illuminate their path. These are actions which no landowner should reasonably anticipate or foresee that a citizen will take. These are actions which the firefighter or police officer must take, at his sole judgment and discretion, without any notice or warning to the landowner of the unusual use which will be made of the property. Margaret Fonshell Ward, Clearing the Smoke Around the Fireman's Rule, 34 M.B.J. 48, 53 (June 2001). ¶ 11. Minnesota and Oregon, two jurisdictions that have refused to recognize the firefighter's rule, would ignore premises liability standards and public policy and frame the issue on the basis of negligence and reasonable necessity. In Christensen v. Murphy, 296 Or. 610, 678 P.2d 1210, 1218 (1984), the Oregon Supreme Court determined that [a]s a result of the statutory abolition of the implied assumption of risk, the `[policeman and] fireman's rule could no longer be used to prevent recovery by a public safety officer who suffered an injury as a result of the defendant's negligent conduct. Instead of relying on public policy arguments to retain the rule, the Christensen court determined the so-called public policy reasons are merely redraped arguments drawn from premises liability or implied assumption of risk, neither of which are now available as legal foundations in [Oregon]. Id. at 1217. [3]
¶ 12. An interesting and persuasive deviation of the firefighter's rule is illustrated by the Wisconsin rule, which holds that the firefighter's rule applies only if the initial act of negligence caused the injury to the policeman or fireman. This rule bars a cause of action only when the sole negligent act is the same negligent act that necessitated rescue and therefore brought the police officer/firefighter to the scene of the emergency. If the cause of action is based on any other negligent act (such as negligent failure to warn, negligent violation of an ordinance designed to protect the injured party, or negligent manufacture of a dangerous product), public policy does not bar recovery. The rule is based on public policy and is not rooted in premises liability. Fundamentally, th[is rule] is an expression of public policy because it prohibits a firefighter from `complaining about the negligence that creates the very need for his or her employment.' Pinter v. American Family Mut. Ins. Co., 236 Wis.2d 137, 613 N.W.2d 110, 117 (2000).
¶ 13. While certain policy considerations and societal expectations supporting the firefighter's rule turn on the fact that the public hires, trains, and compensates... police officers to deal with dangerous, but inevitable situations, Kreski, 415 N.W.2d at 187, the rule is also justified in matching costs and benefits. The benefit of the performance of the [firefighter's] duty is shared by all citizens of the community, likewise the burden of loss caused by injury should be shared by all citizens of the community through taxes. Carpenter v. O'Day, 562 A.2d 595, 601 (Del.Super.Ct.1988) (citations omitted), aff'd mem., 553 A.2d 638 (Del.1988). New Jersey retains the firefighter's rule to prevent taxpayers from the possibility of paying double recoveries: Both [firefighters and police officers] are paid to confront crises and allay dangers created by an uncircumspect citizenry, a circumstance that serves to distinguish firefighters and police from most other public employees. Citizens summon police and firefighters to confront danger. Governmental entities maintain police and fire departments in anticipation of those inevitable physical perils that burden the human condition, whereas most public employment posts are created not to confront dangers that will arise but to perform some other public function that may incidentally involve risk.    This fundamental concept rests on the assumption that governmental entities employ firefighters and police officers, at least in part, to deal with the hazards that may result from the taxpayer's own future acts of negligence.    [T]he taxpayer who pays the fire and police departments to confront the risks occasioned by his own future acts of negligence does not expect to pay again when the officer is injured while exposed to those risks. Otherwise, individual citizens would compensate police officers twice: once for risking injury, once for sustaining it. Kiernan v. Miller, 259 N.J.Super. 320, 612 A.2d 1344, 1346 (1992). ¶ 14. The Michigan Supreme Court in Kreski noted, worker's compensation benefits are available to police officers ... in the course of their employment. This fairly spreads the cost of these injuries to the public as a whole rather than individual property owners. 415 N.W.2d at 188. ¶ 15. Based on these public policy considerations and societal expectations, we are persuaded that the Wisconsin version of the firefighter's rule is the best expression of this legal principle, and we adopt it. We hold that an action brought by a firefighter or a police officer for an injury sustained as the result of a negligent act by another party and sustained in the course of his employment is barred only when the sole negligent act is the same negligent act that necessitated rescue and therefore brought the firefighter or police officer to the scene of the emergency. If, however, the cause of action is based on any other negligent act (such as negligent failure to warn, negligent violation of an ordinance designed to protect the injured party, or negligent manufacture of a dangerous product), public policy does not bar recovery. See, e.g., Pinter, 613 N.W.2d at 115. ¶ 16. The licensee/invitee distinction does not come into play when the injured party is a person (such as a firefighter or a police officer) who has been specially trained and who is paid by a governmental entity to enter into dangerous situations and perform a public duty. Such a person is obligated to enter upon another's property to perform the duty. This fact causes a firefighter to be sui generis, and therefore a firefighter cannot be fairly characterized as a licensee or invitee. Hass v. Chicago & N.W. Ry., 48 Wis.2d 321, 179 N.W.2d 885, 886-87 (1970). Furthermore, public policy is the basis of our adoption of the firefighter's rule, not negligence. See, e.g., Clark v. Corby, 75 Wis.2d 292, 249 N.W.2d 567, 569 (1977).
¶ 17. We hold that Farmer's cause of action against Taco Bell is barred by the application of the firefighter's rule and that the circuit court was correct in dismissing the complaint. The police were summoned to respond to a disturbance (a fight) at the Taco Bell. When Farmer, a police officer, arrived on the scene, the two men were still fighting. In an attempt to break up the fight, Farmer was injured. Farmer's injury was sustained as the result of the same negligent act that necessitated the call for police assistance and that brought Farmer to the Taco Bell.