Opinion ID: 1388423
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The City's liability is governed by statute.

Text: The stated cornerstone of the majority opinion is its view that, The cost resulting from misuse of that [police] power should be borne by the community.... (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 217.) The question of the City's liability is not a matter of judicial preference. The Legislature has enacted a comprehensive statutory system regulating the liability of public entities. (Gov. Code, ง 810 et seq.) Under this scheme, [a] public entity is liable for injury proximately caused by [the actionable misconduct] of an employee ... within the scope of ... employment .... ( Id., ง 815.2, subd. (a), italics added.) Except as otherwise provided by statute[,] ... [ถ] [a] public entity is not liable for an injury.... ( Id., ง 815, subd. (a).) Government[al] tort liability in California is governed completely by statute. ( Swaner v. City of Santa Monica (1984) 150 Cal. App.3d 789, 797 [198 Cal. Rptr. 208].) [T]he practical effect of [Government Code section 815] is to eliminate any common law governmental liability for damages arising out of torts. (Sen. legis. committee com., 32 West's Ann. Gov. Code (1980 ed.) ง 815, p. 168 [Deering's Ann. Gov. Code (1982 ed.) ง 815, p. 134], italics added.) The Legislature's intent to circumscribe liability is clear. In Muskopf v. Corning Hospital Dist. (1961) 55 Cal.2d 211 [11 Cal. Rptr. 89, 359 P.2d 457], this court attempted to abrogate the entrenched doctrine of governmental tort immunity. The Legislature promptly responded by enacting the Moratorium Act of 1961 (former Civ. Code, ง 22.3), which suspended the effect of Muskopf and reinstated the immunity. (Stats. 1961, ch. 1404, pp. 3209-3210.) At the Legislature's request, the California Law Revision Commission submitted a comprehensive report in 1963, which gave rise to the statutory system that now governs the field of public entity tort liability. (Although not officially titled, the legislation is commonly referred to as the Tort Claims Act.) This history makes clear that the Legislature was unwilling to accept the judicial expansion of tort liability attempted by the Muskopf court. Professor Arno Van Alstyne was the California Law Revision Commission's chief consultant and much of his work gave rise to the present statutory system. He has explained that, These provisions were intended to ensure that applicable immunity provisions of the California Tort Claims Act will generally prevail over its liability provisions. (Van Alstyne, Cal. Government Tort Liability Practice (Cont.Ed.Bar 1980) ง 2.26, p. 67.) We have also noted the restrictive nature of the act. [T]he intent of the act is not to expand the rights of plaintiffs in suits against governmental entities, but to confine potential governmental liability to rigidly delineated circumstances: immunity is waived only if the various requirements of the act are satisfied. ( Williams v. Horvath (1976) 16 Cal.3d 834, 838 [129 Cal. Rptr. 453, 548 P.2d 1125] (opn. by Mosk, J.).) The plain language of the act supports a restrictive view. Government Code section 815 provides an immunity except as provided by statute.  ( Ibid., italics added.) The Legislature did not provide for exceptions as provided by law, which would have included court decisions. (Gov. Code, ง 811.) This limitation also reflects the Legislature's awareness that questions of public entity liability are policy and fiscal questions better left to the Legislature than to the courts. The Legislature's intent to restrain judicial expansion of liability is made even clearer by its observation that, The use of the word `tort' had been avoided, however, to prevent the imposition of liability by the courts by reclassifying the act causing the injury. (Sen. legis. committee com., 32 West's Ann. Gov. Code, supra, ง 815, p. 168 [Deering's Ann. Gov. Code, supra, ง 815, p. 134], italics added.) The California Law Revision Commission further explained the problem of undue judicial interference: Experience in states which have left the limits of liability to be determined by the courts has shown that liability insurance to protect the financial integrity of small public entities is at times prohibitively expensive or impossible to obtain when there is no defined limit to the potential extent of liability. (Recommendations Relating to Sovereign Immunity, No. 1, Tort Liability of Public Entities and Public Employees (Jan. 1963) 4 Cal. Law Revision Com. Rep. (1963) pp. 808-809 (hereafter Law Revision Commission Recommendations).) The majority asserts that the statutory phrase scope of employment imports general standards of respondeat superior law into the Tort Claims Act and has been construed as broadly as the similar test used in private tort litigation. (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 209-210.) Yet the majority applies to financially pressed local governments a startling and unwarranted expansion of the traditional respondeat superior doctrine. It is ancient law that [a] master is not liable for a crime or wilful injury, such as an assault, committed by the servant without his command or encouragement, though it may be in the course of, or in relation to, the service. (2 Stephen, New Commentaries on the Laws of England (1843) p. 278, italics added.) Moreover, under general tort law, an employee's injurious conduct arises in the scope of employment for purposes of vicarious liability where the conduct was typical, usual, broadly incidental, or inherent in the employer's enterprise, but not where the conduct was so unusual or startling, or constituted such a [substantial deviation] from [the employee's] duties for personal purposes, that `it would seem unfair to include the [resulting] loss ... among other costs of the employer's business....' ( Perez v. Van Groningen & Sons, Inc. (1986) 41 Cal.3d 962, 968 [227 Cal. Rptr. 106, 719 P.2d 676]; see Hinman v. Westinghouse Elec. Co. (1970) 2 Cal.3d 956, 960 [88 Cal. Rptr. 188, 471 P.2d 988].) Aside from his original detention of the intoxicated victim, Officer Schroyer's criminal attack had no relation whatever to the performance of his law enforcement duties. Rather, he deviated completely from his work assignment, in a manner all must concede was both startling and unusual, to commit a sexual assault for personal gratification. Absent supportive legislation, such an outrageous sexual attack cannot be deemed an inherent or broadly incidental risk of law enforcement which the taxpayers should absorb as a cost of government. I cannot square the majority's radical departure from traditional respondeat superior law with the purposes of the Tort Claims Act.