Court Opinion

ID: 9726978
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:15:09.428767+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:32.345117
License: Public Domain

ALEXANDER, J.,
with whom DANA, J. and CALKINS, J., join dissenting.
[¶ 25] I respectfully dissent. Prior to enactment of the Maine Tort Claims Act, governmental entities, though protected by sovereign immunity,5 accepted responsibility for injuries to others caused by negligent operation of their motor vehicles. See Russell v. Nadeau, 139 Me. 286, 29 A.2d 916 (1943) (affirming a finding of liability in a case where a plaintiffs injuries were caused by a fire truck, responding to an emergency call, which entered an intersection against a red light); Parker v. Knox, 147 Me. 396, 87 A.2d 663 (1952) (allowing a plaintiffs claim that a police officer’s negligent driving had caused his injuries); Blier v. Inhabitants of Town, of Fort Kent, 273 A.2d 732, 737 (Me.1971) (recognizing a statute waiving governmental immunity, to the extent of insurance coverage, for losses caused by negligent operation of a motor vehicle).
[¶ 26] The Maine Tort Claims Act continued this acceptance of responsibility for injuries caused by negligent operation of government motor vehicles in 14 M.R.S.A. § 8104(1)(A) (2003), quoted in the Court’s opinion. Today the Court’s opinion terminates that long-standing acceptance of responsibility for injuries caused by negligent driving of government employees on discretionary government business. The Court accomplishes this change in the law by holding that the discretionary function immunity provisions of the Act,6 mean that the discretionary decision “to respond to the emergency (the whether to respond) cannot be isolated from the response itself (the how to respond).” See supra ¶ 9 (emphasis in original). This view is directly contrary to our holding in Russell, where we stated that government drivers, doing their duty responding to an emergency, and consequently exempt from traffic regulations, were not relieved “from the duty of exercising due care to prevent injury to themselves and others lawfully upon the ways.” 139 Me. at 288, 29 A.2d at 917.
[¶ 27] The Court’s opinion is also contrary to interpretations of the discretionary function immunity provisions of the *936Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. §§ 2671-2680 (2000), although the wording of the Maine discretionary immunity provisions is very similar to their federal counterparts. Thus, 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a) states, in pertinent part, that the United States is not liable for any claim “based upon the exercise or performance or the failure to exercise or perform a discretionary function or duty on the part of a federal agency or an employee of the government, whether or not the discretion involved be abused.” In Maine, 14 M.R.S.A. § 8104(B)(3) exempts a government entity from liability for “[p]erforming or fading to perform a discretionary function or duty, whether or not the discretion is abused .... ” Separately, government employees are exempt from liability for “[pjerforming or failing to perform any discretionary function or duty, whether or not the discretion is abused .... ” 14 M.R.S.A. § 8111(1)(C). The liability exemption for employees extends to any discretionary act “reasonably encompassed by the duties of the governmental employee in question.” Id. § 8111(1).
[¶ 28] Under the FTCA, vehicle accidents have generally been treated as not involving discretionary function immunity. See Donald N. Zillman, Protecting Discretion: Judicial Interpretation of the Discretionary Function Exception to the Federal Tort Claims Act, 4!7 ME. L. REV. 365, 373 (1995). This acceptance of liability has extended to negligent operation of emergency vehicles. See Dag E. Ytre-berg, Annotation, Federal Tort Claims Act: Automobile Negligence Cases, 4 A.L.R. FED. 6 § 7[e] (1970), summarizing cases. Sometimes the federal emergency vehicle cases result in a finding of liability, sometimes they do not, but those findings occur after trial, not as a result of a summary judgment because of discretionary function immunity. See Stuuk v. United States, 129 F.Supp. 530 (D.N.H.1954); Anderson v. United States, 117 F.Supp. 438 (D.Fla.1954) (finding liability in emergency vehicle collision); Seaberg v. United States, 448 F.2d 391 (9th Cir.1971); Patterson v. United States, 204 F.Supp. 845 (E.D.N.Y.1961), aff'd, 303 F.2d 280 (2nd Cir.1962); State of Washington v. United States, 194 F.2d 38 (9th Cir.1952) (finding no liability in emergency vehicle collision).
[¶ 29] We recently examined the applicability of the discretionary function immunity provisions to emergency high-speed operations of county police vehicles in Selby v. Cumberland County, 2002 ME 80, 796 A.2d 678. We held that a deputy’s choice to engage in a high-speed chase was entitled to discretionary function immunity even if the discretion was abused. See id. ¶ 14. In Selby, the motor vehicle exception to immunity did not apply because the injury caused by the pursued vehicle arose not from the negligent operation of the county vehicle but the discretionary choice of a law enforcement officer to engage in a high-speed chase.7
[¶ 30] We also examined the relationship of the motor vehicle operation liability and the discretionary function immunity provisions in Brooks v. Augusta Mental Health Institute, 606 A.2d 789 (Me.1992). In Brooks, a voluntary patient at the Augusta Mental Health Institute (AMHI) died as a result of injuries received from jumping out the exit door of a moving bus while traveling with a group of patients under the supervision of three AMHI employees. Id. at 790. We determined that the basis *937of the complaint in Brooks was that the AMHI employees were negligent in their supervision of the decedent. We noted that the claimed negligence involved the exercise of the individual employee’s professional judgment with regard to supervision of patients “not the defendants’ negligent operation, use or maintenance of the bus.” Id. at 790. This professional judgment was entitled to discretionary function immunity because the use or operation of the motor vehicle in which the patients were traveling was not implicated in any alleged errors of supervision. Id. at 791.
[¶ 31] Neither Selby nor Brooks involved a collision with a negligently operated government vehicle. Therefore, liability under the motor vehicle operation exception to the Maine Tort Claims Act was not generated.
[¶ 82] We are reviewing a grant of a summary judgment. Accordingly, we must construe the evidence most favorably to the party against whom summary judgment was granted. Wentworth v. Sebra, 2003 ME 97, ¶ 9, 829 A.2d 520. Thus, for purposes of this analysis, we must presume that Hall’s choice to engage in an emergency high-speed response was an abuse of her discretion and that, at the time her vehicle collided with the Norton’s vehicle, Hall was operating her vehicle, in the course of her emergency response, in a negligent manner.
[¶ 33] In the quarter century that the Maine Tort Claims Act has been in effect, we have never held that negligent operation of a motor vehicle directly involved in a collision is subject to discretionary function immunity. The motor vehicle liability and discretionary immunity provisions of the Maine Tort Claims Act — just like the FTCA — can be read as part of a consistent body of law, reflecting the validity of both provisions. Even before the Maine Tort Claims Act, we distinguished the discretionary choice to initiate and maintain an emergency response from any negligent operation of a vehicle in the course of the emergency response. See Parker, 147 Me. at 401, 87 A.2d at 666.
[¶ 34] In Russell, 139 Me. at 288, 29 A.2d at 917, the case most analogous to this case, we held that while government vehicles responding to emergencies have the right of way and may be exempt from traffic regulations, these privileges:
do not relieve their operators from the duty of exercising due care to prevent injury to themselves and others lawfully upon the ways.... [t]hey must include in the care they are bound to exercise reasonable precautions against the extraordinary dangers of the situation which duty compels them to create.... Even if the driver of the other vehicle through negligence disregards their right of way they must still use due care to avoid a collision. The measure of their responsibility is due care under all the circumstances.

Id.

[¶ 35] While an individual’s actions in an emergency situation may be judged differently, a person engaged in or confronted with an emergency situation may be judged to have acted negligently in that situation. Hargrove v. McGinley, 2001 ME 36, ¶¶ 6-7, 766 A.2d 587, 589-90; Ames v. Dipietro-Kay Corp., 617 A.2d 559, 561-62 (Me.1992); Hoch v. Doughty, 224 A.2d 54, 56-57 (Me.1966); Russell, 139 Me. 286, 29 A.2d 916.8
*938[¶ 86] The facts in this case indicate — as Russell v. Nadeau indicates — that there is a distinction between a proper emergency-response and a negligent emergency response. Both at the Maine Criminal Justice Academy and later in an incident on the road, deficits, or negligence, had been noted in Hall’s high-speed emergency response driving capabilities. Because of those deficits, Hall’s emergency response authority had been limited.
[¶ 37] A claim of liability arising out of an accident with a government vehicle engaged in an emergency response involves two separate questions:
First, was the choice to engage in an emergency response and the consequent high-speed driving proper? and Second, was the vehicle operated in a negligent manner in the course of the emergency response, considering all the circumstances, including the exemption from traffic regulations permitted to an emergency response vehicle and the due care which the operator of the emergency response vehicle must observe, even while engaged in the emergency response?
[¶ 38] The discretionary function immunity provisions of sections 8104(B)(3) and 8111(1)(C) exempt the choice to engage in an emergency response from liability on judicial review, even if that choice is mistaken. But section 8104(A)(1), establishing liability for negligent operation of a motor vehicle, allows a cause of action for negligent operation in the course of an emergency response. Accordingly, the Superior Court’s judgment should be vacated and the matter remanded for trial on the questions of whether Hall negligently operated her motor vehicle in the course of her emergency response and whether any negligence or failure to exercise due care proximately caused any injury to the Nor-tons.

. The Maine Tort Claims Act was enacted by P.L.1977, ch. 2, after we "abrogated” the sovereign immunity defense in Davies v. City of Bath, 364 A.2d 1269 (Me. 1976).

. 14 M.R.S.A. §§ 8104(B)(3) and 8111(1)(C).

. Selby was a passenger in the vehicle pursued in a high-speed chase. He was injured when the vehicle in which he was riding collided with another vehicle. The county patrol cruiser was not directly involved in the collision which caused Selby’s injuries. Selby, 2002 ME 80, ¶ 2, 796 A.2d 678, 679.

. Roberts v. State, 1999 ME 89, 731 A.2d 855, on which the Court’s opinion so heavily rests, involved a claim of negligence in operation or maintenance of a building, not negligence in driving a motor vehicle. Notably, one of the negligence claims in Roberts had gone to trial, with a judgment for the State. Id. ¶ 5, 731 A.2d at 857. That trial was not the focus of *938the Court’s statements in Roberts regarding the law, but it does make Roberts an uncertain precedent for the proposition that in claims involving discretionary functions, the Court need not separately examine whether negligence occurred in the course of performing the discretionary function.