Opinion ID: 1343601
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the scope of the public duty

Text: 1. In City of Rome v. Jordan , [1] this court addressed whether city police officers owed a duty to a sexual assault victim to respond to an emergency request for help. Adopting the public duty doctrine, we held that a municipality may not be liable for its failure to provide police protection based on a general duty to protect the public. Instead, a special relationship between the injured party and the governmental tortfeasor must exist that sets the individual apart and engenders a special duty owed to that individual by the municipality. To establish a special relationship, the plaintiff must show (1) an explicit assurance by the municipality, through promises or actions, that it would act on behalf of the injured party; (2) knowledge on the part of the municipality that inaction could lead to harm; and (3) justifiable and detrimental reliance by the injured party on the municipality's affirmative undertaking. [2] Applying the special relationship test to the facts in Jordan, we concluded that the City of Rome was entitled to summary judgment because Patricia Jordan failed to show that she relied on police to dispatch a vehicle to her home in response to telephone calls that others made from another house. The decision in Jordan gave two reasons for adopting the public duty doctrine. First, the special relationship requirement restricted the government's liability for the actions of third parties in a way similar to the restriction of a private party's liability for the actions of a third party. [3] Second, providing police protection is `a resource-allocating function that is better left to the discretion of the policy makers.' [4] Thus, we adopted the doctrine to protect public employees from unreasonable liability and to protect governments from unreasonable interference with policy decisions. [5] The majority opinion today ignores both reasons for adopting the public duty doctrine. Unlike other states that have adopted the public duty doctrine, this court limits it to the police protection context. This result excludes other public employees who are charged with protecting the general public from the actions of third persons in emergency situations, such as firefighters. It also exposes police officers to liability when their actions fall outside the police protection context, whatever that term means. It apparently does not cover many routine actions that police officers undertake to protect the public, including the deputy sheriff's exercise of crowd control in this case. Moreover, the majority's reliance on Department of Transportation v. Brown [6] as its sole authority is unpersuasive. In a one-paragraph discussion, this court declined in Brown to apply the public duty doctrine to allegations that the Georgia Department of Transportation was negligent in designing and operating a highway. Although there were myriad ways to distinguish Jordan, this court stated that the essential difference in Jordan was the involvement of third parties whose behavior may be unpredictable. [7] In a cursory analysis, the decision concluded that the difference in duties warrants limitation of the public duty doctrine adopted in Jordan to the situation involved there, the provision of police services. [8] In retrospect, this distinction makes no sense since both police departments in responding to reports of crime and DOT planners in designing highways have to deal with the unpredictable behavior of human beings. Moreover, neither police nor DOT have more than a general duty to control the conduct of third persons. Not only is the analysis in Brown unsound, but its holding is ambiguous on whether the public duty doctrine applies to police protection or to police services. Thus, nothing in the Brown decision conclusively answered the first certified question on the scope of the public duty doctrine. Based on the dangerous nature of police work and our reasons for adopting the public duty doctrine, I disagree with the majority's holding that the doctrine is limited to police protection. Instead, consistent with both Jordan and Brown, I would hold that the public duty doctrine applies to police and other public employees who provide police services. [9] These services include preserving public order; promoting public health, safety, and morals; and preventing, detecting and punishing crime. [10] This definition protects public employees who provide police services from unreasonable liability and protects local governments from unreasonable interference with their decisions on allocating limited community resources.