Opinion ID: 2361058
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The police reports

Text: Appellant contends that the police reports filed in the wake of her physical injuries provided the District of Columbia with adequate notice, under section 12-309, of her claims against the District. We cannot agree. Although section 12-309 expressly provides that a written police report can be a sufficient notice, the police report must contain the same information that is required in any other notice given under the statute. Campbell v. District of Columbia, 568 A.2d 1076, 1078-1079 (D.C.1990). Thus, in order to be considered a sufficient notice, a police report must include, in the words of the statute, the approximate time, place, cause, and circumstances of the injury or damage. See, e.g., Miller v. Spencer, 330 A.2d 250, 252 (D.C.1974). A notice is sufficient if it recites facts from which it could be reasonably anticipated that a claim against the District might arise. Pitts v. District of Columbia, 391 A.2d 803, 809 (D.C.1978). Such notice would suffice, therefore, if it . . . described the injuring event with sufficient detail to reveal, in itself, a basis for the District's potential liability. Washington v. District of Columbia, 429 A.2d 1362, 1366 (D.C.1981) (en banc). The specificity requirement applicable to any form of notice, including police reports, is rooted in the notion that to require any less would place an intolerable investigative burden on the District. Miller v. Spencer, supra, 330 A.2d at 252. Although the police reports in this case recite the time, place, cause, and circumstances of Jane Doe's injuries, [6] they fail to disclose or suggest any basis for liability on the part of the District of Columbia. The relevant injury for purposes of this case is not the physical harm that Jane suffered from her burns; rather, it is the District's alleged failure to intervene and take custody of Jane before she received those burns. Because the police reports do not suggest any failure by DHS to intervene and take Jane out of what it suspected was an abusive or neglectful home environment, we conclude that they failed to meet the requirements of section 12-309. The content requirements of any notice under section 12-309 are to be interpreted liberally, and in close cases doubts are to be resolved in favor of compliance. See, e.g., Wharton v. District of Columbia, 666 A.2d 1227, 1230 (D.C.1995). But this is not a close case. Unlike Wharton, in which we had to decide whether a notice adequately recited the time and date of the claimant's injury, [7] our inquiry in this case must focus on whether the police reports adequately described the District's role in Jane's injuries. Since the purpose of section 12-309 is to allow the District to conduct a prompt investigation of the injured person's claim, it is reasonable to require specificity with respect to the cause and circumstances of the injury. Any uncertainty about the nature of the District's connection to the claimant's injury would surely hinder such an investigation. This case, in our view, is analogous to Braxton v. National Capital Housing Authority, 396 A.2d 215 (D.C.1978), in which a public housing tenant claimed that District employees had allowed thieves to steal a key which was under their control, in order to gain access to her apartment and steal her property. We held that a police report in that case was insufficient to constitute notice under section 12-309 because there was no indication in the report that District employees were involved in the events leading up to the burglary and theft. Id. at 217. As in Braxton, the police reports filed in the instant case do not refer to any direct involvement by the District in determining Jane's primary caretaker or residence. Appellant argues, and we agree, that section 12-309 does not require precise exactness with respect to the details of the police reports. See, e.g., Washington, supra, 429 A.2d at 1365. However, while the police reports in this case certainly suggest that Jane Doe's mother and godmother were incompetent caregivers, they do not establish any prior knowledge by the District that Jane had been abandoned, neglected, or abused. [8] The only suggestion in the police reports of any dereliction of duty by DHS is the statement in one of the reports that Jane's two siblings were living in foster care when Jane was burned. We reject appellant's assertion that this statement was sufficient to put the District on notice of its liability to Jane Doe based on DHS's alleged failure to comply with its statutory duty under D.C.Code §§ 6-2104(b)(5) and (6) (1995). Those provisions require the District to determine the living conditions of other children in the home whenever it investigates a report of abuse or neglect of a particular child. In this case, however, immediately after the notation that Jane's siblings were in foster care, the police report specifically stated that there had been no allegation of abuse. There is no indication in any of the police reports that Jane had been neglected before she suffered her injuries. That Jane's mother had sent her to live with her godmother is unremarkable in itself and is not sufficient, in our view, to suggest abuse or neglect within the contemplation of section 6-2104. Appellant relies on Rieser v. District of Columbia, 183 U.S.App. D.C. 375, 390, 563 F.2d 462, 476, vacated on grant of rehearing en banc, 183 U.S.App. D.C. 395, 563 F.2d 482 (1977), reinstated in part, 188 U.S.App. D.C. 384, 580 F.2d 647 (1978) (en banc), and Allen v. District of Columbia, 533 A.2d 1259, 1262 (D.C.1987), for the proposition that, to the extent that the police reports are deficient, they can be supplemented by information in other files at DHS, the Office of the Corporation Counsel, and the United States Attorney's Office. We disagree. Section 12-309 makes clear that police reports are the only acceptable alternatives to a formal notice. The court is not free to go beyond the express language of the statute and authorize any additional documents to meet its requirements. See Campbell, supra, 568 A.2d at 1078-1079 (refusing to consider fire department report as equivalent to police report); Washington, supra, 429 A.2d at 1367 (court held that letter from plaintiff's counsel gave sufficient notice, and stress[ed] that in arriving at this result we rely solely on the contents of the April 4 letter). Rieser and Allen can be distinguished on other grounds as well. In Rieser the court concluded that relevant police reports satisfied the statutory notice requirement because they detailed the rape and murder of a woman at her apartment complex and the fact that a District parolee who worked at the complex had been arrested for the crimes. Reasoning that section 12-309 requires police reports to set forth the causal connection between the injury and any negligent acts of [the District's] agents, the court held that the police reports conclusively show[ed] that the District had actual notice of the way in which all of these facts interacted to give rise to the District's potential liability. Rieser, supra, 183 U.S.App. D.C. at 389-390, 563 F.2d at 476-477 (emphasis in original). In Rieser the causal connection between the District's decision to release a prisoner on parole and the victim's death was sufficiently apparent from the police reports, without reference to any other document. In this case, by contrast, any connection between Jane Doe's injuries and the District's potential liability was far from obvious from the police reports. The Allen case is equally unhelpful to appellant. In Allen we rejected a claim that an arrest report put the District on notice of the arrestee's potential claims for false arrest, assault, and battery. Discussing the cause element required by section 12-309, we quoted the following language from the Washington case: [T]he written notice or police report must disclose both the factual cause of the injury and a reasonable basis for anticipating legal action as a consequence. Such notice would suffice, therefore, if it either characterized the injury and asserted the right to recovery, or  without asserting a claim  described the injuring event with sufficient detail to reveal, in itself, a basis for the District's potential liability. Washington, supra, 429 A.2d at 1366. We then observed that the circumstances of the injury must be detailed with sufficient particularity to allow the District to conduct a prompt, properly focused investigation of the claim. Allen, 533 A.2d at 1262 (citing Washington ). In Jane Doe's case, the police reports themselves did not reveal any basis for the District's liability, and any inference of potential liability was too remote to suggest the need for a focused investigation by the District. Appellant cites several cases from other jurisdictions for the proposition that her claim should be permitted to go forward, despite technical non-compliance with section 12-309, because the District had actual notice of her claim and therefore would not suffer any prejudice. Her reliance on those cases is misplaced. It is the unambiguous law of the District of Columbia that the requirements of the statute as to written notice are mandatory, and that for failure to give such written notice the claim . . . [cannot] be maintained. District of Columbia v. World Fire & Marine Insurance Co., 68 A.2d 222, 224 (D.C.1949). Whether the District had actual notice of Jane Doe's potential claim is not an appropriate consideration under section 12-309. See Campbell, supra, 568 A.2d at 1078. For these reasons we hold that the police reports in this case cannot meet the notice requirements of section 12-309.