Opinion ID: 2200470
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Requirement of Gross Negligence.

Text: Banks, as we have noted, asked that liability be imposed against the District on two separate theories. His first claim involved Officer Hyder's alleged gross negligence in the pursuit of Webb. The second was based on Detective Scott's alleged ordinary negligence in supervising the chase. In this court, the parties have focused primarily on the sufficiency or insufficiency of the evidence to show gross negligence on the part of Hyder, and on the correctness or incorrectness of the judge's instruction permitting the jury to find gross negligence on the basis of a violation of the police general order standing alone. Because we are compelled to affirm the judgment on the basis of the jury's verdict as to Banks' negligent supervision claim, however, we do not reach the issues relating to Hyder's alleged gross negligence. The District of Columbia Employee Non-Liability Act precludes the District from asserting the defense of governmental immunity in cases arising from the negligent operation by a District employee, within the scope of his or her employment, of a vehicle owned or controlled by the District. D.C.Code § 1-1212 (1992). [3] Section 1-1212 further provides, however, that in the case of a claim arising out of the operation of an emergency vehicle on an emergency run the District shall be liable only for gross negligence. It is undisputed that the police cruiser operated by Officer Hyder during the pursuit of Webb was an emergency vehicle on an emergency run. See D.C.Code § 1-1211(4). While charging the jury, the trial judge defined, and differentiated between, gross negligence and ordinary negligence. In conformity with § 1-1212, he correctly instructed the jury that, in connection with the chase itself, Banks was required to show that Officer Hyder was grossly negligent. With respect to the negligent supervision claim, however, the judge told the jurors that negligent supervision, that goes to ordinary negligence.  (Emphasis added). He then defined ordinary negligence as the failure to exercise ordinary care. Thus, negligence is doing something a person who uses ordinary care wouldn't do or not doing something a person using ordinary care would do. The jurors were thus unambiguously told that the District could be liable on a negligent supervision theory even if no representative of the District was found to have been grossly negligent. The District contends that this was error, and we agree. Banks' claims in this case arose out of the operation of an emergency vehicle on an emergency run, within the meaning of § 1-1212. It was Hyder's pursuit of Webbthe prototypical activity to which § 1-1212 appliesthat Scott is alleged to have supervised in a negligent manner. By its unambiguous terms, § 1-1212 was designed to limit the District's liability in pursuit cases to those situations in which a representative of the District was grossly negligent. See generally Judge FARRELL'S concurring opinion, post at 983. It would surely be incongruous, in light of the statutory requirement of gross negligence, to suggest that a plaintiff injured solely as a result of ordinary negligence by a supervisor can recover against the District. The statute plainly requires a showing of gross negligence by someone acting for the District. To treat a supervisor's ordinary negligence as sufficient would cut the concept too fine and could significantly cripple the limitation expressly incorporated in the District's waiver of governmental immunity provided for in D.C.Code § 1-1212 (1987). Abney v. District of Columbia, 580 A.2d 1036, 1041 (D.C.1990). As we noted in Abney, generally ... waivers of immunity are to be read narrowly. Id. We therefore conclude that the trial judge's instruction to the jury, to the effect that Banks' negligent supervision claim could be made out by proving ordinary negligence on the part of Sergeant Scott, rather than gross negligence, was contrary to the statute and erroneous. [4]