Court Opinion

ID: 9693299
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:35:42.157379+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:04:35.821455
License: Public Domain

N. J. Kaufman, J.
(dissenting). I believe summary judgment was improper on the issue of the police officers’ liability. A police officer is generally immune when performing discretionary acts. The plaintiffs alleged that the officers here sat back *358and watched an altercation, preferring not to "intervene” until after Mr. Zavala was shot. The question becomes whether police officers have the discretion to sit back while an assault of this nature occurs. I believe there is a ministerial duty to perform some minimum acts to preserve the peace. The Detroit City Charter creates such a duty:
"The police department shall preserve the public peace, prevent crime, arrest offenders, protect the rights of persons and property, guard the public health, preserve order, and enforce the laws of the State and the Nation and the ordinances of the City.” Detroit Charter, ch 11, § 7-1101.
Statutes of this state create a duty:
"It shall be the duty of the police and nightwatchmen and officers of the force under the direction of the mayor and chief of police, and in conformity with the ordinances of the city, and laws of the state, to suppress all riots, disturbances and breaches of the peace and to pursue and arrest any person fleeing from justice in any part of the state; to apprehend any and all persons in the act of committing any offense against the laws of the state, or the ordinances of the city, involving a breach of the peace, and to take the offender forthwith before the proper court or magistrate, to be dealt with for the offense; to make complaints to the proper officers and magistrates of any person known or believed by them to be guilty of the violation of the ordinances of the city, or the penal laws of the state; and at all times diligently and faithfully to enforce all such laws, ordinances and regulations for the preservation of good order and the public welfare as the council may ordain; and to serve all process directed or delivered to them for service, and for such purposes the chief of police, and every policeman and nightwatchman, shall have all the powers of constables, and may arrest upon view and without process, any person in the act of violating any *359ordinance of the city involving a breach of the peace, or of committing any crime against the laws d&the state. The chief of police and any policeman may serve and execute all process in suits and proceedings for violations of the ordinances of the city, and also any other process which, by law, a constable may serve.” MCL 92.4; MSA 5.1752.
One of the basic rights contained in Detroit’s Declaration of Rights is that:
"City government is a service institution.
"The City shall provide for the public peace and health and for the safety of persons and property in the City.” Detroit Charter, Declaration of Rights, § 1.
A ministerial duty may also be shown by police department policy. If the departmental policy supports the general Declaration of Rights and the more specific charter and statutory provisions, an easier case for presence of duty is shown.1 Regardless of the department’s policy, though, the officers have a general duty to enforce laws and prevent breaches of the peace. It is not enough to say that this duty extends only to the "public”. First, Mr. Zavala and others like him are the "public”. Second, what "public” good — different from Mr. Zava*360la’s "private” good — is served by police inaction? Third, if in breaching the "public” duty an individual is harmed, would the majority allow the individual a remedy? We are faced with the paradox of a "right” which cannot be enforced because no one member of the public would have standing to sue, yet the public as a whole would not be specifically injured. Cf. Valley Forge Christian College v Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc, 454 US 464, 493, fn 5; 102 S Ct 752; 70 L Ed 2d 700 (1982) (Brennan, J., dissenting). Interestingly, the majority cites decisions of the Connecticut courts for the proposition that the police owe only a general duty to the public. In Sestito v Groton, 178 Conn 520; 423 A2d 165 (1979), however, the Connecticut Supreme Court unanimously permitted an action by an individual on strikingly similar facts.
The plaintiffs also raised the issue of a "special relationship”. This would give rise to a duty of due care. Whether the officers acted reasonably is a question of fact which should go to the trier of fact. Summary judgment was improper.
Serious allegations are raised in this case. A police department forced into inaction — whether for budgetary reasons or otherwise — poses dangers to individual liberties. The police are duty-bound to act agáinst crime. That is the purpose behind having a police department. When police officers violate that duty, injured members of the public should be entitled to relief. Police officers must be permitted the discretion needed in the performance of their official duties, but breaches of their ministerial duties cannot go unremedied. Did these officers breach that ministerial duty? We do not know as a matter of law, and, therefore, summary judgment under a blanket application of governmental immunity was improper. I would reverse on these grounds.

 If, however, departmental policy dictates that officers should allow breaches of the peace in "rough” neighborhoods (a possibilty raised in this case by the plaintiffs) and the officers acted in conformity with that policy, a civil rights act violation may be shown, 42 USC Í983. I would liberally allow the plaintiffs an opportunity to amend their complaint to include this allegation. GCR 1963, 118.1; LaBar v Cooper, 376 Mich 401, 405; 137 NW2d 136 (1965); Foman v Davis, 371 US 178, 182; 83 S Ct 227, 230; 9 L Ed 2d 222, 226 (1962).
The plaintiffs alleged in their proposed amended complaint that the officers did not intervene because Mr. Zavala and others involved in the altercation are male Mexican-Americans. The officers are both females, one white and one black. Thus, the plaintiffs alleged in Count VIII, ¶ 49, that the officers "failed to act and stop said fight on account of race and gender * * *”. Throughout their briefs and other supporting documents submitted to this Court and the trial court, the plaintiffs refer to the officers as “cowards”.