Court Opinion

ID: 9719278
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:47:31.210391+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:05.694330
License: Public Domain

REYNOSO, J.
I concur in the result but vigorously dissent from the majority’s characterization of the principal issue. The facts of this case *523give rise to an issue of governmental immunity, not to an issue of whether or not the law enforcement officers have a duty to anticipate civil litigation and “preserve” evidence to support or defeat that litigation. If we resolve the issue of governmental immunity we need not resolve what the parties refer to as a “mis-steak;” we need not perpetuate that mistake.
Plaintiff has characterized the issue in his appellate brief as has the majority; is there a duty on the part of the police to “preserve” the evidence in question? However, such a characterization is mistaken in light of the facts pleaded; an appellate court has no duty to accept a mistaken characterization of the issue. In my view, we deal with this: Was this (1) a ministerial act, or (2) an act which calls upon the use of discretion when the police decline to take perishable evidence into custody during an investigation. I do not believe it can be seriously argued that the police enjoy no discretion as to how to conduct an investigation. That discretion, in turn, cloaks the- police with the immunity of Government Code section 820.2 which reads: “Except as otherwise provided by statute, a public employee is not liable for an injury resulting from his act or omission where the act or omission was the result of the exercise of the discretion vested in him, whether or not such discretion be abused.” End of matter.
While I believe the foregoing resolves the true issue presented I need to add a word about my discomfort with the majority opinion. Under some peculiar circumstances there may in fact be the duty on the part of police officers to gather and preserve evidence. Such duty would lie either as an exception to the statutory immunity, or because no discretion was involved. A peculiar relationship may produce an exception to the general rule. At hand we have two police officers who were called by a restaurant operator because of a controversy with a patron. Unlike the majority, I see the controversy as a legitimate one. The record reflects that we deal with a plaintiff who had 19 years experience in the meat industry who knew when he got a mislabled steak. The record does not indicate that he consumed the steak. Whether or not an experienced steak man should have been on notice that when he goes to a nonspecialty restaurant like Sambo’s he may not receive what he orders is a question we do not face; we do not deal with a fine restaurant specializing in steaks. The police officers, who did not see the alleged misdemeanor committed, advised the restaurant operator exactly what he had to do to seek the arrest of the plaintiff and exactly what Penal Code sections he should charge. That is, the police officers were more than innocent bystanders responding to a citizen who wanted to make an arrest. *524Whether a peculiar relationship was thereby established with the plaintiff giving rise to a duty on their part is another matter. The police, certainly, should not be penal enforcers of civil disputes. That the police officers arrested the patron (rather than cited him) when the incident arose from a legitimate “beef” leaves much to be desired. Whether they had reason to know that the restaurant operator would in fact not follow up on the citizen’s arrest is not shown by the record. Nor does the record tell us whether the police had a place (i.e., refrigerator, deep freeze) in which to keep their valued evidence. The record, in short, does not lend itself to the broad conclusion reached by the majority. Nor, as I have indicated, do we need to reach such a conclusion. Better to leave such decisional lawmaking to factual circumstances that truly present those issues and not, as here, when they are presented only by the entertaining imagination of the attorneys. Nature, not judges, should be in charge of making mountains out of mole hills.