Opinion ID: 2227497
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Heading: Cases Following the Indiana Tort Claims Act

Text: The Indiana General Assembly reacted to the above-cited judicial decisions by enacting the Indiana Tort Claims Act. The Act established limitations on the judicially-decreed rights to sue and recover from governmental entities and their employees. The Act did not create a right to sue a governmental entity or its employees, but, instead, regulated the common law right to bring such actions by enacting notice requirements, limitations on recovery, and immunity provisions. By enacting the immunity provisions, the Indiana General Assembly granted immunity for, among other things, the adoption and enforcement of or failure to adopt or enforce a law. It was not until 1981 that this Court first was presented with the question of what constitutes enforcement of a law as used in Section 3(7). In Seymour National Bank v. State, 422 N.E.2d 1223, we concluded that the State was immune from liability for the alleged negligence of a state trooper in operating his police car during a high speed chase of a criminal suspect. Rather than focusing, as the common law would have required, on what, if any, duty had been violated, the basis for the ruling was, simply, that an officer engaged in effecting an arrest is in fact enforcing a law. 422 N.E.2d at 1226. We continue to agree that, given the facts presented in Seymour, the result reached in that case was correct. However, the opinion on rehearing also contains dicta which suggests that any act within the scope of a law enforcement official's employment is immune. 428 N.E.2d at 204. We do not believe this reflects the legislature's intention. These two present consolidated cases, along with case of City of Wakarusa (1991), Ind., 582 N.E.2d 802, which we also decide today, present this Court with an opportunity to revisit Seymour and determine the extent of police conduct which remains immune under the umbrella of the Tort Claims Act law enforcement immunity. The dicta contained in Seymour appears to have been the basis for a variety of cases decided by the Court of Appeals extending law enforcement immunity to protect such acts as damaging a plaintiff's home by firing cannisters of tear gas into it in order to apprehend a fleeing murder suspect, Indiana State Police v. May (1984), Ind. App., 469 N.E.2d 1183, assisting another officer in the investigation of a personal injury accident, Weber v. City of Fort Wayne (1987), Ind. App., 511 N.E.2d 1074, failing to guard a prisoner who escaped and shot a bystander, City of Gary v. Cox (1987), Ind. App., 512 N.E.2d 452, and giving flares at the scene of an accident to a truck driver who was struck by a car while setting out the flares, McFarlin v. State (1988), Ind. App., 524 N.E.2d 807. In fact, the observation of Judge Sullivan in his concurring opinion in McFarlin, to the effect that any action taken by a law enforcement official within the scope of his employment is immune under the holdings of the Court of Appeals' decisions which followed Seymour, appears to be an accurate assessment of the direction taken by Indiana courts. We do not agree that this extension of the Seymour holding is warranted. In Seymour, we concluded that the term enforcement of the law was not ambiguous because an officer engaged in effecting an arrest was, in fact, enforcing the law. 422 N.E.2d at 1226. We continue to agree that effecting an arrest is enforcing the law and that the actions taken by a police officer in effecting an arrest cannot give rise to a claim because of the immunity provisions of Section 3(7). However, to extend the immunity granted by Section 3(7) to police activities beyond those actions surrounding the effecting of an arrest is tantamount to refusing to strictly construe the Tort Claims Act in abrogation of our rules of statutory construction. In fact, these consolidated cases make evident this point. Here, defendants essentially argue that placing and maintaining pre-trial detainees in a jail cell is intimately connected with the notion of law enforcement because the law requires the jail defendants to place and maintain a pre-trial detainee in jail. Under this analysis, arguably all acts of a law enforcement official would constitute enforcement of a law, because most acts of law enforcement officials are in response to a statutory mandate. Such a broad construction of Section 3(7) is not warranted. Two rules of statutory construction lead us to this conclusion. First, a statute (such as the Tort Claims Act) which is in derogation of the common law must be strictly construed against limitations on a claimant's right to bring suit. Collier v. Prater (1989), Ind., 544 N.E.2d 497, 498. Secondly, when the legislature enacts a statute in derogation of the common law, this Court presumes that the legislature is aware of the common law, and does not intend to make any change therein beyond what it declares either in express terms or by unmistakable implication. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co. v. Structo Div., King Seeley Thermos Co. (1989), Ind., 540 N.E.2d 597, 598. Simply stated, at the time the Tort Claims Act was enacted, the common law was such that private citizens injured by the negligent acts of law enforcement officials were free to seek relief from those at fault. Simpson Food Fair, supra . Thus, the question becomes to what extent the Legislature intended to alter this state of the common law. In Seymour we concluded that the plain meaning of enforcement of a law included activities of a law enforcement officer in the course of apprehending a suspect, which activity required split second timing and decision-making. Here, we conclude that the plain meaning of enforcement of a law does not include activities associated with the administration of pre-trial detainees at a county jail. We view a sheriff's compliance with the legal obligations established by statute, IND. CODE ANN. § 36-2-13-5(a)(7) (West, 1983), and case law, see e.g. Health and Hosp. Corp. v. Marion County (1984), Ind. App., 470 N.E.2d 1348, as constituting compliance with the law rather than enforcement of it. Many of the job functions of law enforcement officials involving operation of jails and maintenance of prisoners are administrative and custodial in nature, and cannot fairly be characterized as law enforcement within the meaning of the Tort Claims Act. We perceive the activities included within the term enforcement of a law to be limited to those activities attendant to effecting the arrest of those who may have broken the law. In these two cases, we hold that immunity does not extend past the arrest.