Opinion ID: 1363116
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Substantial Evidence to Support a Negligence Verdict

Text: Defendants do not dispute that an officer's lack of due care can give rise to negligence liability for the intentional shooting death of a suspect. In Grudt v. City of Los Angeles (1970) 2 Cal.3d 575 [86 Cal. Rptr. 465, 468 P.2d 825] this court expressly so held. Nor do they dispute that negligence and intentional tort theories both may be available to a plaintiff in such a case. ( Grudt at p. 586.) However, defendants argue that negligence instructions were erroneous in this case because no substantial evidence supported a negligence verdict. They maintain that the only theory of liability available on the evidence was intentional tort; on that theory, they claim, defendants were not liable because the evidence conclusively showed that Munoz was an arsonist about to escape apprehension, so the killing was justified. [1] Plaintiffs respond that their evidence showed that Munoz was not an arsonist and the defendants did not attempt to stop him in the alley but rather shot at him as he stood in his courtyard and as he ran from them through the walkway. They argue that it showed the officers' lack of care in identifying Munoz as an arsonist and in attempting to apprehend him. The evidence relevant to negligence and intentional tort overlaps here and presents a case similar to Grudt v. City of Los Angeles, supra, 2 Cal.3d 575. Grudt was driving in a high-crime area shortly after midnight. Two plainclothes officers in an unmarked car tried to stop him by pulling up next to him, shouting, and showing their badges; but he attempted to elude them by driving on. When they saw him lean forward and reach under the front seat they became alarmed and radioed for help. Two other plainclothes officers saw him stop at a red light, approached his car, and rapped on the window with a loaded shotgun. The evidence conflicted as to whether he then accelerated his car toward one of the officers, but in any case they both shot at him. At trial evidence indicated that he was slightly hard of hearing, had no crime record, and had hidden his wallet containing $5 under the front seat. This court held it was reversible error to exclude the negligence issue from the jury even though plaintiff also had pled intentional tort. The court pointed to the rule that a party may proceed on inconsistent causes of action unless a nonsuit is appropriate. Considered as a motion for nonsuit the exclusion motion failed in Grudt because there was evidence to support a verdict of negligence. At the very least, the evidence favorable to plaintiff raised a reasonable doubt whether [the officers] acted in a manner consistent with their duty of due care when they originally decided to apprehend Grudt, when they approached his vehicle with drawn weapons, and when they shot him to death.... Therefore, the trial judge should have instructed the jury on both negligence and intentional tort theories and left it to their judgment to decide which, if either, was factually established. ( Grudt, supra, 2 Cal.3d at p. 587.) (1a) We find that in this case, too, substantial evidence was presented to enable the jury to find negligence on the part of the officers. (2) In reviewing for substantial evidence, we look at the evidence in support of the successful party, disregarding the contrary showing. ( Nestle v. City of Santa Monica (1972) 6 Cal.3d 920, 925 [101 Cal. Rptr. 568, 496 P.2d 480]; 6 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (2d ed. 1971) § 249, p. 4241.) All conflicts must be resolved in favor of the respondent, and all legitimate and reasonable inferences indulged in to uphold the verdict if possible. ( Crawford v. Southern Pacific Co. (1935) 3 Cal.2d 427, 429 [45 P.2d 183]; 6 Witkin, supra, § 245, pp. 4236, 4237.) Weight of the evidence must be disregarded. ( Estate of Teel (1944) 25 Cal.2d 520, 527 [154 P.2d 384].) (1b) Considering the evidence in plaintiffs' favor to be true, the jury could have believed that Munoz spent the Friday evening in his usual manner with friends and went peacefully home along his usual alley route engaging in no criminal activity. Nothing in his background or in his activities that evening suggests an arsonist. After tapping on the window of his house on the walkway to awaken his wife, in his usual manner, he walked into the courtyard. The two investigators came down the quiet alley in an unmarked car. They stopped the car at the walkway where Munoz had turned and pursued him on foot. He was shot at in the courtyard. To escape the bullets he jumped over the gate and ran up the other walkway toward Alhambra. Olin followed and shot him as he ran into the street where he died almost instantly. A jury taking that view of the facts could have found that under the circumstances the officers were negligent in identifying Munoz, the first man they saw in their rush, as the arsonist they had seen. [2] Testimony and a jury visit to the scene indicated that Royal Upholstery was 300 feet down the alley from the investigators' observation point, with telephone poles and trash receptacles in between. The jury could have found negligence in the failure adequately to warn Munoz and to attempt other means to apprehend him, if they disbelieved the investigators' testimony regarding their lights, siren and shouts as they drove down the alley. Munoz' wife, who was dozing under a window very near to the walkway entrance where defendants stopped their car, heard nothing but her husband's tap and calm voice at the window, followed by shots. Neighbors also testified that they heard shots but no sirens or shouts. The jury also could have found negligence on Olin's part in interpreting the situation to require shooting at Munoz though Halstead could drive around to apprehend him on Alhambra, as indeed Halstead testified he did. They could have found Olin negligent in the way he used his weapon under the circumstances, particularly in view of plaintiffs' evidence that he fired not just three but several bullets. As the court repeated in the similar Grudt case, `[T]he actor's conduct must always be gauged in relation to all the other material circumstances surrounding it and if such other circumstances admit of a reasonable doubt as to whether such questioned conduct falls within or without the bounds of ordinary care then such doubt must be resolved as a matter of fact rather than of law.' ( Grudt v. City of Los Angeles, supra, 2 Cal.3d 575, 587, quoting Toschi v. Christian (1944) 24 Cal.2d 354, 360 [149 P.2d 848].) Because there is substantial evidence to support a finding of negligence, the trial court was correct in giving the negligence instructions and the jury's verdict will not be disturbed. In light of such a holding, we find no merit in defendants' other contentions. The judgment is affirmed.