Opinion ID: 1128151
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Individual Capacity

Text: ¶ 31. When officers or agents of the State of Mississippi are sued in a civil action, they enjoy qualified public official immunity. This Court has said that an official has no immunity to a civil action for damages if his breach of a legal duty causes injury and (1) that duty is ministerial in nature, or (2) that duty involves the use of discretion and the governmental actor greatly or substantially exceeds his authority and in the course thereof causes harm, or (3) the governmental actor commits an intentional tort. Beyond that, a government official has no immunity when sued upon a tort that has nothing to do with his official position or decision-making function and has been committed outside the course and scope of his office. Barrett v. Miller, 599 So.2d 559, 567 (Miss. 1992)(quoting McFadden v. State, 542 So.2d 871, 877 (Miss. 1989)). ¶ 32. In the second suit, Mosby sued the officers in their individual capacities. She first argues that the officers were not protected by qualified immunity because they were performing ministerial duties. This Court in Barrett, distinguished between ministerial and discretionary duties. We said: While there is no flexible rule to distinguish whether an act is ministerial or discretionary, the most important criteria is if the duty is one which has been positively imposed by law and in a manner or upon conditions which are specifically designated, the duty to perform under the condition specified, not being dependent upon the officer's judgment or discretion, the act and discharge thereof is ministerial. Id. ¶ 33. Mosby argues that the officers in this case were simply following the established pursuit policy of the City of Oxford, and that therefore their duty was ministerial. She argues that this case is similar to the situation in Davis v. Little, 362 So.2d 642, 644 (Miss. 1978), where this Court held that a county supervisor, while driving a county truck on county business which struck the plaintiff, was not entitled to qualified immunity because the act of driving in a reasonable manner did not involve a discretionary decision-making process. Id. The case sub judice is obviously a different situation than that in Davis. The act of driving for police officers is a major part of their jobs. It is something that they must do in order to fulfill their duties. They do not drive simply to get from one place to another, instead they patrol. This type of driving does involve a discretionary, decision-making process and is distinguished by facts and job and duty requirement from Davis. ¶ 34. Furthermore, the pursuit policy under which these officers were operating did not specifically delineate how they should drive, but left much to the officers' discretion. Specifically, the act of continuing pursuit was dependent on the officer's judgment as the policy directs that he must continually question whether he should continue the pursuit. In fact, Mosby's own expert stated in his deposition that the officers had total discretion under the pursuit policy. We find that the officers in this case were operating under a discretionary, not ministerial duty at the time of the accident.