Court Opinion

ID: 9543903
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:50:18.995678+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:11:26.396382
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Judge,
concurring.
I concur because by judicial decision as cited in the majority opinion, the "loss ... from the ... enforcement of ... a law ..." immunity has been transformed into an immunity which attaches to a police officer acting within the scope of his employment so long as the loss is occasioned by that act.
I have no quarrel with the policy rationale which underlies that subtle transformation. But a transformation has occurred and we should not continue to afford immunity: under the guise of the older "enforcement of a law" test.
*810I recognize, as I must, that the portion of the majority opinion which justifies immunity upon the discretionary-ministerial function distinction is based upon legislative provision. I.C. 34-4-16.5-8(6) (Burns Code Ed. Supp.1987). Nevertheless, the factual variances which place an act in one category or the other are so subtle and ethereal as to render the test incapable of application. See Mills v. American Playground Device Co. (1980) 2d Dist.Ind.App., 405 N.E.2d 621, reh. denied 427 N.E.2d 1130.
Our General Assembly might well re-examine the artificial discretionary-ministerial basis for determining liability. If immunity is to be retained, as it must, for truly governmental activity, that immunity should rest upon a foundation more defensible-more reasoned.