Opinion ID: 2241300
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Kovit v Estate of Hallums

Text: While driving her car, Katherine Hallums collided with a vehicle carrying security officers from the Kings County Hospital. According to witnesses, the accident left her shaken and so hysterical that the security officers tried to calm her down. When New York City police arrived on the scene, an officer told her to move her car forward and out of the middle of the intersection where it had stopped. Although plaintiff was standing directly behind Hallums's car, she moved the vehicle backward instead of forward, crushing plaintiff's legs between her car and the one behind her. In his suit against the City, plaintiff alleged that the police officer acted negligently when he told Hallums to move her car while she was unfit to drive. [1] A jury found the City 100% responsible for plaintiff's injuries, even though it found that Hallums was also negligent. The Appellate Division reversed, concluding that on the facts, it was impossible for Hallums to have been negligent but not in some degree responsible for plaintiff's injuries ( see 261 AD2d 442 [2d Dept 1999]). Upon retrial, another jury found the City 97% at fault. In a second appeal, the Appellate Division upheld the liability determination ( see 307 AD2d 336 [2d Dept 2003]). [2] We granted leave and now reverse. The police officer was exercising his discretion when he told Hallums to move her car. Even if we were to assume Hallums was unfit to drive and that the officer knew or should have known it, municipal liability to plaintiff would not follow. To hold the City liable for the negligent performance of a discretionary act, a plaintiff must establish a special relationship with the municipality. We made this point in Kenavan v City of New York (70 NY2d 558, 569 [1987]). There, the plaintiff was injured because fire-fighters had parked fire trucks improperly. The Court held that there is municipal immunity from suit when the conduct complained of involves the exercise of professional judgment, even if the judgment was poor in retrospect ( id. ; see also Balsam v Delma Eng'g Corp., 90 NY2d 966, 967 [1997]). We have municipal immunity because of what we demand from public officials in the performance of their duties. If liability flowed from every negligent action, officials would be trained to shrink from their responsibility so as to avoid possible costs to their municipal employers. We expect better of our government, and therefore protect the discretion of its agents so municipalities will encourage them to carry out their duties in the service of the public. The exception to the rule, as we noted in Pelaez (2 NY3d at 193), is when the plaintiff establishes a special relationship with the municipality. [3] Here, plaintiff fails to do so. Establishing a special relationship based on a municipality's assumption of a duty requires (1) an assumption by a municipality, through promises or actions, of an affirmative duty to act on behalf of the injured party; (2) knowledge on the part of a municipality's agents that inaction could lead to harm; (3) some form of direct contact between the municipality's agents and the injured party; and (4) that party's justifiable reliance on the municipality's affirmative undertaking ( see Pelaez, 2 NY3d at 202; Cuffy v City of New York, 69 NY2d 255, 260 [1987]). Plaintiff does not satisfy the third element of this test. [4] The police officer's contact was with Hallums, not plaintiff. Not only was there a lack of a special relationship between plaintiff and the police officer, there was no material communication or relationship at all. As we held in Lauer v City of New York (95 NY2d 95, 100 [2000]), [w]ithout a duty running directly to the injured person there can be no liability in damages, however careless the conduct or foreseeable the harm. Factually and legally, plaintiff and the police were strangers. Under those circumstances, the City cannot be held liable.