Opinion ID: 1177028
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The county's failure to release plaintiff after dismissal of all charges against him, as mandated by Penal Code section 1384, renders it directly liable under Government Code section 815.6.

Text: Government Code section 815.6 provides: Where a public entity is under a mandatory duty imposed by an enactment that is designed to protect against the risk of a particular kind of injury, the public entity is liable for an injury of that kind proximately caused by its failure to discharge the duty unless the public entity establishes that it exercised reasonable diligence to discharge the duty. (2) In this case plaintiff alleges injury due to defendant's failure to release him from jail after dismissal of all charges against him. Penal Code section 1384 speaks precisely to this situation: If the court directs the action to be dismissed, the defendant must, if in custody, be discharged therefrom; ... (Italics added.) Two Court of Appeal cases have applied section 815.6 [4] in situations very similar to the instant case. In Shakespeare v. City of Pasadena (1964) 230 Cal. App.2d 375 [40 Cal. Rptr. 863], plaintiff was kept in jail after sufficient bail had been posted for his release in disregard of the mandatory duty to release on posting of bail provided in Penal Code section 1295. The Court of Appeal held that failure of the city to perform its statutorily imposed mandatory duty to release plaintiff rendered it directly liable for damages under section 815.6. The mandatory duty to release on bail was designed to protect against the very injury which occurred. Similarly in Bradford v. State of California (1973) 36 Cal. App.3d 16 [111 Cal. Rptr. 852], employees of the State of California failed to record the fact that charges had been dismissed against the plaintiff; as a result he was rearrested. The Court of Appeal held that Penal Code sections 11116 and 11116.6 imposing a mandatory duty upon the state to record such dismissals, were intended to avoid the danger of possible future illegal arrest and incarceration. The state could not claim immunity from liability for damages arising out of its failure to perform a mandatory duty imposed by statute. In the case before us plaintiff alleges that county employees retained him in jail after all charges against him had been dismissed despite the mandatory duty of Penal Code section 1384. Plaintiff alleges that he suffered precisely the kind of injury that section 1384 purports to prevent: continued incarceration. Therefore, assuming the truth of the allegations of imprisonment, Government Code section 815.6 imposes direct liability upon the county for plaintiff's damages unless the county can demonstrate that it exercised reasonable diligence to discharge the duty. The county contends, however, that, assuming the applicability of section 815.6, section 844.6, subdivision (a)(2) bars the present action. That section provides: Notwithstanding any other provision of this part, ... a public entity is not liable for:... (2) An injury to any prisoner. In our opinion the county mistakenly argues that because plaintiff was a prisoner [5] at the time he was allegedly falsely imprisoned, the section bars recovery for any injury [6] resulting from the false imprisonment. (3) In a false imprisonment case, the injury suffered by an individual is the illegal confinement itself rather than any detriment occurring after imprisonment; in other words, false imprisonment is not an injury to a prisoner but instead is an injury to a non-prisoner which converts him into a prisoner. Although the county emphasizes that plaintiff had already been confined in jail at the time of the alleged false imprisonment, the Legislature surely did not intend to distinguish between an individual who is wrongfully deprived of his liberty before his jail term starts and one wrongfully deprived of his liberty after his jail term ends. Continued confinement cannot legally make him a prisoner when the jail term has expired; in the eyes of the law plaintiff is no longer a prisoner. (4) In short, we conclude that section 844.6's reference to an injury to any prisoner does not apply to a case of false imprisonment; the section accordingly, in the instant case, does not immunize the county.