Opinion ID: 1318702
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: introduction

Text: I fully concur with and join in the scholarly and thorough opinion of the majority. That opinion was exhaustively reviewed and contributed to by each concurring justice. This Court long and carefully considered the applicable law and the arguments of counsel and of our dissenting brother Bakes before rendering its decision. Ultimately, the unambiguous message of the Idaho Tort Claims Act's language and of the relevant case law compelled our decision. In that sense, this is a judicially conservative decision; it adheres closely to the law as the legislature wrote it and to the federal case law to which the legislature looked. This decision changes nothing in the Act; rather, it restores the Act to what the legislature intended in 1971. With this case and henceforth the Act will function as it should, imposing on the government the same baseline accountability for acts of wrongdoing as private individuals bear, while at the same time sheltering the government from liability for discretionary policy decisions as well as for conduct involving the other enumerated exceptions to liability. I write separately only to answer the arguments advanced by the dissent. In contrast with the majority opinion, the dissent's desired activist result would cast aside the legislature's clear intent as expressed in the statutory language and in the pre-1971 federal case law in favor of a perceived policy need to limit the government's potential liability more than the government itself considered necessary. It hardly need be said that this is not our proper role. In order to reach a result contravening the dictates of law, the dissent of a necessity fundamentally misconceives (1) the import of I.C. § 6-903(a) and related state and federal case law, (2) the import of the discretionary function exception found in I.C. § 6-904(1) and of related case law, (3) well-established tort law concerning (a) an alleged tort-feasor's duty to supervise a person with which the alleged tort-feasor has a special relationship and (b) respondeat superior liability, and (4) the appropriate circumstances for making decisions prospective-only in effect. I will address these arguments in the order the dissent makes them.