Court Opinion

ID: 9529547
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:51:53.350889+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:50.524768
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE TRAPP, dissenting: The duties of the local “fire chief” are stated in section 6 of “An Act relating to the State Fire Marshall” (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 127½, par. 6): “The chief of the fire department of every city or village in which a fire department is established 6 ” ° shall investigate the cause, origin and circumstances of every fire occurring in such city, village * 9 "by which property has been destroyed or damaged, and shall especially make investigation as to whether such fire was the result of carelessness or design. Such investigation shall be begun within two days, not including Sunday, of the occurrence of such fire, and the Office of the State Fire Marshall shall have the right to supervise and direct such investigation whenever it deems it expedient or necessary.” Illinois has adopted a legislative policy “that every fire, by which property has been destroyed or damaged, be investigated as to its cause, origin and circumstances.” Court v. Grzelinski (1978), 72 Ill. 2d 141, 150, 379 N.E.2d 281, 285. The majority opinion rejects the conclusion of the trial court that the authority of the fire chief to examine and investigate the fire ceased when the hoses were rolled up. It appears to agree that the opinion in Tyler would permit the fire chief to return following his 7 a.m. departure and perform his investigatory duties as an “actual continuation of the first” examination and says that: “The end result by the court was to sanction warrantless entries made by the same personnel who had commenced investigations at, or about, the time of the original emergency and further warrantless entries for a reasonable time thereafter in order to conclude the same matters. The court condemned further entries by other personnel in order to make investigations which were ‘detached from the initial exigency.’ ” Tyler does riot, in fact, condemn “further entries by other personnel” within the time span which the supreme court found to be reasonable. There, the fire began before midnight. See, the fire chief concerned, arrived at 2 a.m. when the crew was watering down a “few smoldering embers.” A police detective was called, and he arrived at 3:30 a.m. It can hardly be fairly said that See “had supervised the exigency of the fire,” and while one may assume, albeit, that the detective and See were compatible, it is not apparent that the police detective was “an investigator * ° * who was subject to the control or supervision of the chief.” Some four hours after leaving the scene of the fire, Chief See briefly returned with an assistant, Somerville, whose duty was to determine the origin of all fires. Nothing in Tyler suggests that Somerville had any prior association with the extinction of the fire or the investigation commenced by See in the early morning. An hour later Somerville returned with the police detective and the evidence was procured in due course through their joint efforts. The sequence of investigation described in Tyler does not actually support the conclusion concerning the same personnel and original emergency as stated in the language of the majority opinion. The majority opinion appears to agree that the Virden chief could have returned at 9:30 a.m. and at noon as “an actual continuation of the first” investigation (436 U.S. 499, 511, 56 L. Ed. 2d 486, 499, 98 S. Ct. 1942, 1951). Despite the fact that Tyler implicitly approves the delegation of investigative duties by Chief See and Somerville and Webb, this court holds that the Virden fire chief of a volunteer fire department cannot delegate the completion of the same “investigation” to Scott who is authorized by the cited statute to act in behalf of the State Fire Marshall, and who presumably has greater professional skill and training. By statute the State Fire Marshall is expressly authorized to supervise and direct the investigation required to be made by the chief of the Virden fire department. Tyler applies the standard of reasonableness of time for purposes of the official investigation, for it expressly rejected the determination of the Michigan Supreme Court and adopted by the trial judge that once the fire had been extinguished and the firemen had left, no one, including the chief, could return to investigate absent a warrant or consent. (436 U.S. 499, 503-09, 56 L. Ed. 2d 486, 494-98, 98 S. Ct. 1942, 1951.) On the contrary, Tyler determined that the firemen may remain a reasonable time or have “an actual continuation” of a reasonable time to seek the origin of the fire. A reasonably rational method of investigation should accompany a reasonable time for investigation. It is not a correct application of Tyler to hold that upon comparable and substantially identical facts the Virden fire chief cpuld not delegate his investigative duties to Scott, and I would reverse the order of the trial court.