Opinion ID: 1277454
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: City's Other Immunity Defenses

Text: ¶ 33 City invoked several other GTCA provisions in support of its immunity defense. According to City's answer, Salazar's claims are limited (or barred) by §§ 155(2-6), (9), (13), (16-18), (20), (24) and (29) of the GTCA. City argues that the GTCA exempts it from legal responsibility for (a) any unintentional misrepresentations incident to the arrest and detention of Salazar (§ 155(17)), (b) for negligence in the service of process (§ 155(3)) and (c) any negligence incident to the operation of the jail facilities (§ 155(24)). [62] Any intentional actions of its officers, City asserts, would be outside the scope of employment and hence not covered by the GTCA. Moreover, City urges, because it does not own or operate the facility where Salazar was held, he should have pressed his claim for wrongful detention against the county sheriff's department. ¶ 34 As we measure Salazar's claim by the probative support in the record, its center core is wrongful detention  i.e., confinement for a period longer than that which, absent negligence, would have disclosed his mistaken identity. Because that core claim is fact-intensive and not within the purview of City's invoked immunity, we need not comment on any other elements that are revealed by the evidentiary materials before us. Moreover, many of the invoked immunity elements that relate to Salazar's false arrest claim are interconnected with City's issue-preclusion defense. Since we cannot today pass on that defense, neither can we address any of its interconnected facets. ¶ 35 Moreover, the probative materials in the record give no foundational support for many of these immunity defenses. Because it seems highly doubtful that any of the interposed statutory exemptions from liability were individually passed on by the trial judge, we decline to make first-instance determinations. [63] We leave it to the court of first instance to undertake, on remand, an inquiry and determination of the separately interposed immunity defenses that will stand supported by probative material.