Opinion ID: 2137310
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Law as Applied to the Facts

Text: Analysis begins with several undisputed propositions. Municipalities long ago surrendered common-law tort immunity for the negligence of their employees. A distinction is drawn, however, between discretionary and ministerial governmental acts. A public employee's discretionary actsmeaning conduct involving the exercise of reasoned judgmentmay not result in the municipality's liability even when the conduct is negligent. By contrast, ministerial actsmeaning conduct requiring adherence to a governing rule, with a compulsory resultmay subject the municipal employer to liability for negligence ( see, Tango v Tulevech, 61 NY2d 34, 40-41). No one disputes that the Medical Examiner's misconduct here in failing to correct the record and deliver it to the authorities was ministerial. There agreement ends. Plaintiff contends that the City should be liable for the Medical Examiner's ministerial negligence, while defendant urges that the complaint be dismissed. We do not agree with plaintiff that a ministerial breach by a governmental employee necessarily gives rise to municipal liability. Rather, a ministerial wrong merely removes the issue of governmental immunity from a given case ( supra, 258 AD2d, at 111 [Sullivan, J. P., dissenting in part]). Ministerial negligence may not be immunized, but it is not necessarily tortious ( see, Tango v Tulevech, supra, 61 NY2d, at 40 [recovery available only if ministerial action  is otherwise tortious and not justifiable pursuant to statutory command (emphasis added)]; see also, Robertson, Municipal Tort Liability: Special Duty Issues of Police, Fire, and Safety, 44 Syracuse L Rev 943, 945 [waiver-of-immunity statutes have not created new causes of action where none existed before; they have only removed the shield of governmental immunity where a cause of action would exist if the tort-feasor were a private person]). There must still be a basis to hold the municipality liable for negligence ( see, Florence v Goldberg, 44 NY2d 189, 195 [Absent the existence and breach of    a duty, the abrogation of governmental immunity, in itself, affords little aid to a plaintiff seeking to cast a municipality in damages]; see also, De Long v County of Erie, 60 NY2d 296 [liability for ministerial failure to process 911 call rested on County employee's affirmative assurances of assistance made to victim]; 18 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations § 53.04.25, at 165 [3d rev ed]). This brings us directly to an essential element of any negligence case: duty. Without a duty running directly to the injured person there can be no liability in damages, however careless the conduct or foreseeable the harm ( see, Pulka v Edelman, 40 NY2d 781, 785, rearg denied 41 NY2d 901; see also Prosser and Keeton, Torts § 53, at 357 [5th ed]; 3 Harper, James and Gray, Torts § 18.1, at 650 [2d ed]). While the Legislature can create a duty by statute, in most cases duty is defined by the courts, as a matter of policy. Fixing the orbit of duty may be a difficult task. Despite often sympathetic facts in a particular case before them, courts must be mindful of the precedential, and consequential, future effects of their rulings, and limit the legal consequences of wrongs to a controllable degree ( Tobin v Grossman, 24 NY2d 609, 619; Strauss v Belle Realty Co., 65 NY2d 399, 402). Time and again we have required that the equation be balanced; that the damaged plaintiff be able to point the finger of responsibility at a defendant owing, not a general duty to society, but a specific duty to him ( Johnson v Jamaica Hosp., 62 NY2d 523, 527; see also, Palsgraf v Long Is. R. R. Co., 248 NY 339, 341, rearg denied 249 NY 511). This is especially so where an individual seeks recovery out of the public purse. To sustain liability against a municipality, the duty breached must be more than that owed the public generally ( see, Florence v Goldberg, supra, 44 NY2d, at 195; Smullen v City of New York, 28 NY2d 66, 70; see also, 18 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations § 53.04.25, at 165, supra ). Indeed, we have consistently refused to impose liability for a municipality in performing a public function absent a duty to use due care for the benefit of particular persons or classes of persons ( Motyka v City of Amsterdam, 15 NY2d 134, 139). Here, because plaintiff cannot point to a duty owed to him by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, his negligence claim must fail. Pointing to New York City Charter § 557, plaintiff argues that the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner owed him a duty to communicate accurate information to authorities pertaining to his son's death. Section 557 charges the Chief Medical Examiner with examining bodies of persons dying from criminal violence or other suspicious circumstances, keeping full and complete records in such form as may be provided by law, and promptly delivering to the appropriate district attorney copies of all records relating to every death as to which there is, in the judgment of the medical examiner in charge, any indication of criminality. Violation of a statute resulting in injury gives rise to a tort action only if the intent of the statute is to protect an individual against an invasion of a property or personal interest ( Steitz v City of Beacon, 295 NY 51, 56; see also, O'Connor v City of New York, 58 NY2d 184, 189-190; Motyka v City of Amsterdam, supra, 15 NY2d, at 139). In Steitz v City of Beacon ( supra, 295 NY 51), for example, plaintiff sought to recover damages suffered as a result of a fire, relying on a City Charter provision requiring maintenance of a fire department. We concluded that liability could not be predicated on the Charter provision, which was not designed to protect the personal interest of any individual, but rather was designed to secure the benefits of well ordered municipal government enjoyed by all as members of the community ( id., at 55). We explained that: An intention to impose upon the city the crushing burden of such an obligation should not be imputed to the Legislature in the absence of language clearly designed to have that effect.    Such [City Charter] enactments do not import intention to protect the interests of any individual except as they secure to all members of the community the enjoyment of rights and privileges to which they are entitled only as members of the public. Neglect in the performance of such requirements creates no civil liability to individuals ( id., at 55-56). New York City Charter § 557 similarly defines one of the municipality's governmental functions. It establishes the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner as part of the City's Department of Health, and requires performance of autopsies and preparation of reports for the benefit of the public at large. Significantly, the only individual to whom the Medical Examiner must by statute report is the appropriate district attorney ( see, New York City Charter § 557 [g]). Neither plaintiff, nor other members of the general public who may become criminal suspects upon the death of a person, are persons for whose especial benefit the statute was enacted ( see, Motyka v City of Amsterdam, supra, 15 NY2d, at 139). Permitting recovery here would rewrite section 557, radically enlarging both the responsibility of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and the potential liability of the City. Nor do we find any duty to plaintiff derived from a special relationship with him. A special relationship requires: (1) an assumption by the municipality, through promises or actions, of an affirmative duty to act on behalf of the party who was injured; (2) knowledge on the part of the municipality's agents that inaction could lead to harm; (3) some form of direct contact between the municipality's agents and the injured party; and (4) that party's justifiable reliance on the municipality's affirmative undertaking ( Cuffy v City of New York, 69 NY2d 255, 260). The direct contact and reliance requirements are particularly important, as they rationally define and limit the class of persons to whom the municipality's special duty extends ( id., at 261). Those requirements are not met here. The Medical Examiner never undertook to act on plaintiff's behalf. He made no promises or assurances to plaintiff, and assumed no affirmative duty upon which plaintiff might have justifiably relied. Plaintiff alleges no personal contact with the Medical Examiner, and therefore also fails to satisfy the direct contact requirement of the test. There is, moreover, no indication that the Medical Examiner knew that plaintiff, or anyone else, had become a suspect in the case. Nor do Medical Examiners generally owe a special duty to potential homicide suspects. Their function in this context is not as a law enforcement agency but solely to impart objective information to the appropriate authorities for the benefit of the public at large ( see, People v Washington, 86 NY2d 189, 192-193). As we explained in De Angelis v Lutheran Med. Ctr. (58 NY2d 1053, 1055): A line must be drawn between the competing policy considerations of providing a remedy to everyone who is injured and of extending exposure to tort liability almost without limit. It is always tempting, especially when symmetry and sympathy would so seem to be best served, to impose new duties, and, concomitantly, liabilities, regardless of the economic and social burden. But, absent legislative intervention, the fixing of the `orbit' of duty, as here, in the end is the responsibility of the courts. Here, in order for plaintiff's claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress to be successful, we would have to impose a new duty on the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, which for the future would run to members of the public who may become subjects of a criminal investigation into a death. This we refuse to do. [1]