Opinion ID: 2160758
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: application of discretionary function exemption

Text: Accordingly, under the relevant statutes, the county board of health, and through it the county department, had the power to make bacterial meningitis a reportable disease (§ 71-503.01); had the power and duty to make and enforce regulations to prevent the spread of any infectious disease (or to enforce the rules and regulations of the state department) (§§ 71-501 and 71-1631); and had the obligation of keeping the identity of the person having the disease confidential (§ 71-503.01). A reading of the relevant statutes makes obvious that the duty of the county department to make and enforce regulations is painted in broad strokes and does not specify the manner in which investigations are to be conducted or the specific use to be made of the data collected. It is equally obvious that the significance of making a particular infectious disease reportable is so that data can be collected for the study of the disease and its distribution in order that proper regulations may be adopted to prevent its spread, in accordance with the requirement of § 71-501. Thus, the situation now before us differs markedly from that presented in Wickersham v. State, 218 Neb. 175, 354 N.W.2d 134 (1984). While in Wickersham there was a specific regulation requiring testing and notification of persons in the position of the plaintiff therein, here there is not. Nor is the situation presented here like that in Lemke v. Metropolitan Utilities Dist., 243 Neb. 633, 502 N.W.2d 80 (1993). Whereas in Lemke it was the subdivision that brought the injury-causing agent (the odorized gas) to its customers, the county department did not bring the injury-causing agent (the Haemophilus bacterium) to the population of which the girl and the minor were a part. In other words, while the subdivision in Lemke had dominion, and in that sense control, over the injury-causing agent, the county department did not. Rather, the situation at hand is analogous to those presented in Security Inv. Co. v. State, 231 Neb. 536, 437 N.W.2d 439 (1989), and Allen v. County of Lancaster, 218 Neb. 163, 352 N.W.2d 883 (1984). As in Security Inv. Co., how the State was to discharge its duties in supervising financial institutions was a matter of judgment, so, here, how the disease was to be contained was a matter of judgment. As noted in Allen, where a health officer must make a judgmental decision within a regulatory framework, the decision is not a ministerial act but a discretionary function. We have not been cited to, nor have we found, any statute which required that the county department ascertain that the girl attended West Omaha Day Care, that the county department contact West Omaha Day Care, or that the county department notify the parents of West Omaha Day Care's enrollees. Neither have we been cited to any such regulation. How the county department discharged its duty and how it allocated its resources in doing so was a matter of judgment based on considerations of public policy, including the allocation of resources. Thus, the county department's determination to discharge whatever duty it had through a program of educating day-care operators and offering such assistance as might be requested by such facilities was within the discretionary function exemption. However one may view the efficacy of the county department's policy and reaction to the onset of bacterial meningitis in the girl, the courts are not at liberty to second-guess the county department's policy decisions.