Court Opinion

ID: 9526269
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:14:52.229649+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:19:15.057590
License: Public Domain

*1214BAKER, Judge,
concurring.
I agree with the result Judge Chezem reaches. Florence Lackey was enforcing a law and is entitled to summary judgment based upon her immunity under the Indiana Tort Claims Act.1
A police officer acting within the scope of her employment is not liable for losses resulting from the enforcement of a law. IND.CODE 8$4-4-16.5-8(7). Our supreme court has interpreted the term "enforcement of a law" to include only a narrow category of police activity. Specifically, "the activities included within the term 'enforcement of a law' [are] limited to those activities attendant to effecting the arrest of those who may have broken the law." Tittle v. Mahan (1991), Ind., 582 N.E.2d 796, 801 (enphasis added).
"Attendant to effecting the arrest" is not the only phrase the supreme court has used to describe what it meant by "enforcement of a law" in the Tort Claims Act context, however. In Tittle's companion case, City of Wakarusa v. Holdeman (1991), Ind., 582 N.E.2d 802, 803, our supreme court wrote "unless the injuries for which a plaintiff seeks recovery arose out of the actual attempts to effect an arrest of one who may have broken the law, there is no immunity to be found in Section 8(7)." (Emphasis added.)
There are other variations, too. In addition to the "attendant to effecting the arrest" phrase, Tittle also uses the words "surrounding the effecting of an arrest," 582 N.E.2d at 800 (emphasis added), and approves of its earlier conclusion in Seymour National Bank v. State (1981), Ind., 422 N.E.2d 1223, mod. on reh'g, 428 N.E.2d 203, appeal dismissed, 457 U.S. 1127, 102 S.Ct. 2951, 73 L.Ed.2d 1344 (1982), "that the plain meaning of 'enforcement of a law' included activities of a law enforcement officer in the course of apprehending a suspect, which activity required split second timing and decision-making." Tittle, supra, at 801 (emphasis added). Although all four variations appear to be of equal significance, our supreme court seems to favor the "activity attendant to effecting the arrest" phrase. Unlike the others, which appear only once, the "attendant to" phrase appears again in City of Wakarusa and still again in City of Valparaiso.
Judge Chezem and Judge Miller both concentrate on the "actual attempts" language of City of Wakarusa. This strikes me as inappropriate for two reasons. First, it ignores the supreme court's other variations; the task of interpreting "enforcement of a law" is difficult enough without limiting ourselves to just the "actual attempts" language. We have been told that "activities attendant to effecting an arrest," "activities surrounding the effecting of an arrest," and "activities in the course of apprehending a suspect" are also correct interpretations of "enforcement of a law"-why ignore them? Second, "actual attempts to effect an arrest" strikes me as being the most limiting of the four variations. When the phraseology is considered as a whole, a clearer picture emerges of which police activities will be subject to immunity.
We cannot-or at least ought not-consider the language without also considering the context in which each phrase arose, because ultimately we have to decide whether Florence Lackey was "enforcing a law" when she collided with the Quacken-bush car. In Tittle, our supreme court held "enforcement of a law" does not include activities associated with the administration of pre-trial detainees at a county jail. In City of Wakarusa, it decided that an officer whose vehicle collided with another while the officer was looking for recreational vehicles without the required license plates and registration was not enforcing a law. In City of Valparaiso, it concluded that an officer leading a funeral procession was not engaged in enforcing a law.
These three cases illustrate police activity that is not "enforcement of a law." *1215There is one case, however, in which our supreme court did, in fact, find immunity based on law enforcement. In Seymour National Bank, a state trooper operating his cruiser during a high speed chase of a criminal suspect was found to be immune from liability because he was effecting an arrest.
Here, a husband was beating his wife in a parking lot.2 Officer Lackey was summoned. While responding to the call of duty, she collided with the Quackenbush vehicle. She was not merely performing a routine and generic police function, as was the case in Tittle, City of Wakarusa, and City of Valparaiso. Instead, her situation is much more akin to the high speed chase of Seymour National Bank, where an officer had notice of a crime and was responding. If the trooper in Seymour was effecting an arrest while chasing a suspect, as the supreme court held, surely Officer Lackey, at a minimum, was engaged in activity attendant to the effecting an arrest, surrounding an arrest, in the course of apprehending an arrest, and, yes, even actually attempting to effect an arrest when she sped to the victim's rescue.
Under each of these phrases, Officer Lackey was plainly enforcing the law. The result is even clearer if we favor the "attendant to" phrase, because "attendant" means "an accompanying thing or circumstance; a consequence or concomitant." AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 85 (4th printing 1969). Officer Lackey was required to drive her vehicle to the scene before she could stop the beating; although her driving was not the effecting of an arrest, it certainly was concomitant to effecting an arrest. I simply cannot escape the conclusion that an officer driving to the scene of a beating is engaged in activity attendant to effecting an arrest. Because Officer Lackey was acting within the scope of her employment and was enforcing the law, she is immune from liability under the Act. For this reason, I concur with the result Judge Chezem has reached.

. IND.CODE 34-4-16.5-1 et seq.

. I must also register my disapproval of the dissent's reference to the beating as a "domestic disturbance." My colleague is, unfortunately, merely reciting the moniker used by counsel at trial. Officer Lackey was responding to a man physically attacking a woman, a reprehensible yet all too common crime in our society. There can be no question the report of this crime warranted an immediate police response.