Court Opinion

ID: 9850169
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:52:58.670739+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:32.763842
License: Public Domain

PHIPPS, Judge,
dissenting.
The question in this appeal is whether Fulton County Police Officer Sean Hanse was entitled to summary judgment on grounds of official immunity in this wrongful death and personal injury suit against him and others, arising from a collision that occurred when a vehicle driven by fleeing suspect Tonialo Dennis struck a car during a high-speed chase. The car was being driven by plaintiff Shamonda Phillips’s husband, and their three children were passengers. Phillips’s husband was killed in the collision, and the children were injured.
Under the official or qualified immunity doctrine, police officers may be personally liable for actions taken in the performance of ministerial functions, but are immune from personal liability for discretionary actions taken within the scope of their official authority and performed without wilfulness, malice, or corruption.3
Dennis claimed that his vehicle crashed into Phillips’s car because he lost control of it after it was struck and pushed by a Fulton County police vehicle which, the evidence shows, would have been operated by Hanse. Hanse denies having made contact with Dennis’s vehicle. Hanse moved for summary judgment, arguing that he is immune from suit because the acts in which he engaged were discretionary and lacked wilfulness, malice, or corruption. The trial court denied Hanse’s motion, on grounds that Hanse did not have discretion to intentionally ram a fleeing vehicle and that there is an issue of fact on the question of whether Hanse did so.
“The question of whether a government official is entitled to qualified immunity is a question of law for the court to decide.”4 Where, however, there is a material issue of fact on the question of whether the government official has engaged in conduct for which there is no immunity, a jury must resolve the facts.5
*565Fulton County has a written manual setting forth policies, procedures, and practices to be followed by police officers engaged in hot-pursuit vehicular chases. One of the procedures states that “[djeliberate physical contact between any two vehicles at any time will not be justified, except as necessitated at roadblocks and under the order pertaining thereto.” Additionally, the “prohibited practices” part of the manual states that an “[o]fficer will not bump or ram a fleeing vehicle.”
Hanse’s entitlement to summary judgment depends upon whether he would have violated a ministerial duty if he had intentionally rammed Dennis’s vehicle. In reliance on Cameron v. Lang,6 Smith v. Chatham County,7 and Standard v. Hobbs,8 the majority answers this question in the negative, thereby concluding that Hanse was entitled to summary judgment.
Cameron involved two suits for damages arising from high speed chases of fleeing suspects by police. A City of Savannah police officer was a defendant in one of the suits; he was charged with recklessness by running a stop sign and failing to use his car’s siren and emergency lights. A Peach County deputy sheriff was a defendant in the other suit; he was charged with recklessness in deciding to continue the high speed pursuit. Our Supreme Court held that both officers were exercising discretion in deciding to engage in the high speed pursuits, and that the Savannah officer did not breach a ministerial duty by running a stop sign without turning on his blue lights or siren.
Standard was a suit against a McDuffie County sheriffs deputy engaged in a high speed pursuit of a fleeing suspect. At the time, the McDuffie County Sheriffs Department had a written standard operating procedure governing high speed pursuit. It contained a directive requiring an officer to terminate a high speed pursuit upon obtaining “additional information . . . that would allow for the later apprehension of the violator.”9 The plaintiff in Standard argued that the McDuffie County sheriffs deputy obtained such information after being made aware that a Georgia State Patrol helicopter had been dispatched to the scene and had spotted the fleeing car. We refused to *566hold that, under the circumstances, a ministerial duty was thereby imposed on the deputy to discontinue the chase.
Decided November 29, 2005
Paula A. Morgan, Rory K. Starkey, Robert D. Ware, for appellant.
In Smith, Chatham County police officers were sued. In that case, the county had a general order regarding vehicle pursuits. The order stated that “ ‘vehicle pursuit is justified only when a Chatham County police officer has reasonable grounds to believe the offender has committed or is attempting to commit a forcible felony or when the necessity of immediate apprehension outweighs the level of danger created by the pursuit.’ ”10 Whether the officers in Standard had reasonable grounds to believe that the driver of the vehicle they were pursuing was attempting to commit a forcible felony was arguable. We held that under the Chatham County departmental policy, the officers’ decision to pursue the suspect was not so “clear, definite and certain as merely to require the execution of a relatively simple, specific duty,”11 so that the officers were performing discretionary acts in deciding to engage in a pursuit.
I find this case distinguishable from Cameron, Smith, and Standard. Both the deputy sheriff and the police officer in Cameron were charged with recklessness, which does not abrogate official immunity. The departmental directives in Smith and Standard did not give rise to ministerial duties. The police officer in Smith was required to exercise judgment and discretion in deciding whether “the necessity of immediate apprehension outweigh[ed] the level of danger created by the pursuit.” The sheriffs deputy in Standard was required to do likewise in deciding whether the state patrol helicopter’s appearance on the scene would have “allow[ed] for later apprehension of the violator.” Here, discretionary decisions about whether to initiate and continue the chase were made by Hanse’s superior officers. Hanse, in contrast, was required to follow a simple, clear-cut directive that absolutely prohibited him from deliberately bumping or ramming a fleeing vehicle. In my opinion, the officer was therefore under a ministerial duty not to do just that. Whether he did so is a question of fact to be decided by a jury. Therefore, I respectfully dissent to the majority’s reversal of the trial court’s denial of the officer’s motion for summary judgment.
I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge Blackburn and Judge Barnes join in this dissent.
*567Cathey & Strain, Edward E. Strain III, David A. Sleppy, Lisa J. Bucko, Matthew T. Allen, for appellees.

 Cameron v. Lang, 274 Ga. 122, 123 (1) (549 SE2d 341) (2001).

 Conley v. Dawson, 257 Ga. App. 665, 668 (2) (572 SE2d 34) (2002) (punctuation and footnote omitted).

 See Clark v. Prison Health Svcs., 257 Ga. App. 787, 792 (2) (572 SE2d 342) (2002) and cit. *565(reversing grant of government official’s motion for summary judgment, where trial court erroneously determined that his allegedly negligent actions were discretionary rather than ministerial (and presumptively remanding the case for jury trial on question of liability and damages)); see also Outlaw v. Nasworthy, 250 Ga. App. 362 (551 SE2d 785) (2001) (reversing trial court’s grant of government official’s motion for summary judgment on ground of qualified immunity from a 42 USC § 1983 claim and remanding case for submission of a special verdict form to jury to resolve factual conflicts).

 Supra at 124-125 (2).

 264 Ga. App. 566, 569-570 (2) (591 SE2d 388) (2003).

 263 Ga. App. 873, 875-878 (1) (589 SE2d 634) (2003).

 Id. at 877 (1) (punctuation omitted).

 264 Ga. App. at 569 (2) (footnote and emphasis omitted).

 Id. at 570 (2) (punctuation and footnote omitted).