Court Opinion

ID: 9718014
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:15:00.472192+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:56.808878
License: Public Domain

Justice ENOCH,
concurring and dissenting.
The Court, again, fails to adopt a critical piece of the good faith analysis. Also, the Court applies a factor from Wadewitz v. Montgomery1 that is irrelevant in police pursuit cases. Consequently, I concur in the Court’s judgment in University of Houston v. Clark, and I dissent from its judgment in Ener v. Thomas.
To begin, I note that in referring to police “response” cases, I’m referring to *589those cases where the police officer receives an emergency call and is requested to report to a crime scene. That is, the officer will be traveling from point A to point B. In referring to police “pursuit” cases, I’m referring to those cases where the police officer is chasing the suspect.
With respect to the Court’s opinion, the critical piece left out of the good faith analysis is that piece determining when an officer’s good faith should be assessed. As I said in my dissent in Wadewitz, “Our focus must be on the officer’s decision as she initiated her response rather than on each discrete circumstance that confronts her at each moment of her course of action.”2 To do otherwise, as I also said, eliminates “official immunity as a viable public policy protection....” 3 Thus, in an emergency response case like Wadewitz, a court should examine the officer’s good faith when the officer’s response begins. Taking into account the Wadewitz factors, the question should be, could a reasonably prudent officer have responded in the manner and by the route the officer chose? If the officer began the response in good faith, balancing the need to respond quickly against the clear risks of harm to the public, it is not for us to second guess that decision just because the risk contemplated is, in fact, encountered.
I would apply the same analysis in police pursuit cases like these the Court decides today. An officer’s good faith should be assessed at the moment pursuit begins, balancing need against clear risk, in light of the relevant Wadewitz factors. The officer acts in good faith if a reasonably prudent officer could have decided to pursue in the same manner under the same circumstances.
But, as the Court recognizes, there is an element to a pursuit case that differentiates it from a response case. In a pursuit case, the police officer can’t pick the route of travel. Rather the officer only knows the route at the point the pursuit begins; after that, the fleeing suspect dictates the route. Because of this, the risks can’t all be assessed at the beginning; consequently, as the risks change, so must the police officer reassess those risks in order to continue the pursuit in good faith. If we conclude that the initial decision to pursue was proper, the good faith analysis then requires us to determine that point along the way at which we reevaluate good faith. At a minimum, the reassessment should begin only after the risks have changed, certainly not just because the very risk already weighed is encountered. The Court fails to recognize the significance of this analytical framework.
For official immunity to have any teeth at all in police response and pursuit cases, we must not re-examine an officer’s good faith each time the officer encounters the risks the officer considered in the beginning. That also means that only if the risks in a pursuit case change significantly must the officer reevaluate the situation to determine whether the need to immediately apprehend the suspect continues to outweigh a clear risk of harm to the public. If a reasonably prudent officer could have continued the pursuit in the manner the officer did under the changed risks, the officer continues acting in good faith.
Importantly, we said in City of Lancaster v. Chambers4 that the risk the officer must weigh is the “clear risk of harm to the public in continuing the pursuit.”5 I again emphasize that when we assess good faith we must look at whether a reasonably prudent officer could have continued the pursuit, and not, for example, whether a reasonably prudent officer could have entered a particular intersection, or made a particular U-turn. To look incrementally at each piece of activity along the chase route and reassess the officer’s decision to *590pursue at each intersection or cross-street along the way reduces the good faith standard to nothing more than negligence. Negligence, therefore, becomes the standard for liability, when good faith is supposed to protect an officer even if the officer is negligent.6
To prove my point, I don’t need to look any further than the example posited by the Court: an officer approaching a busy intersection with a red light and intersecting traffic approaching quickly on a green light.7 I can’t conceive of any risk, however slight in relation to the officer’s need to apprehend, that would not grow to overwhelm significantly any need to respond as the officer comes closer and closer to that intersection. The Court’s example describes nothing different than what people ordinarily understand to be negligence— that is, whether the officer’s continuing through a busy intersection was reasonable. No matter how the Court keeps trying to dress its reasoning, the courts of appeals have seen the attack for what it is: simple negligence.8 We have not given “official immunity” any meaning.
I turn now to the cases at hand. In University of Houston v. Clark, we first focus on Sergeant Williams’ and Officer Stewart’s initial decision to pursue Kevin Thomas. Because the chase was short, lasting less than a mile and following along the route on which the pursuit began, we do not move to the reassessment of good faith which would be required had there been a significant change in the clear risks before the collision. Therefore, the only question is whether Stewart and Williams conclusively established that they initiated the pursuit in good faith. I agree with the Court that they did.
Similarly, in Ener v. Thomas, our focus should first be on Deputy Constable Ener’s initial decision to pursue the speeder. Ener’s affidavit described the conditions that he assessed when he decided to pursue. Again, considering the short distance, about a quarter of a mile, and that the route remained the same, we do not move to reassessing good faith. Therefore, the only question is whether he began the pursuit in good faith. In my opinion, he established conclusively that he did.
The Court, however, concludes that he did not because his affidavit fails to show that he assessed any alternatives to pursuit. And this is where I disagree with the Court about its application of the Wa-dewitz factors. Wadewitz advises an officer to consider “what alternative courses of action, if any, are available to achieve a comparable result.”9 That factor may be appropriate in a response case in which an officer is moving from point A to point B, and can consider, for example, whether other officers who may be closer to point B could respond more quickly, or which of a variety of routes would be safer or faster. But it is not necessarily appropriate for a pursuit case, where it seems to me that an officer has only two alternatives — pursue or don’t pursue. I question whether there are any alternative courses of action in a pursuit case short of simply deciding not to apprehend the suspect — an “alternative” that an officer who decides to pursue will necessarily have considered.
Aside from the fact that, as a practical matter, an officer’s alternative responses are limited in a pursuit case, as a policy matter I doubt that requiring an officer to assess alternatives makes sense in pursuit cases. We assign police officers the task of apprehending those who break the law because we recognize an important societal benefit in doing so. On the other hand, having assigned this task, we don’t give officers unfettered discretion. We insist *591that they balance the need to apprehend a particular suspect with any clear risks posed to the public under the particular circumstances.10 In concrete terms, this means that when an officer sees a violator, we want that officer to apprehend that violator, but without creating an unreasonable risk to the public. And that necessarily means the officer will have to make that decision quickly. I cannot support a rule of law that relieves an officer of the duty to apprehend, not because the clear risks to the public outweigh the need to apprehend, but simply because someone else may be able to catch the suspect farther down the road.
I would hold that, based upon the facts in his affidavit, Ener established that a reasonably prudent officer might have believed that his pursuit of the speeder was proper.11 I would further hold that Thomas failed to show that “‘no reasonable person in [Ener’s] position could have thought the facts were such that they justified [his] acts.’”12 Thomas offered no affidavits of his own to controvert Ener’s; rather, he pointed to evidence about Ener’s conduct as he entered the intersection where the accident occurred. This evidence, while it may be relevant to negligence, is not relevant to Ener’s good faith. For reasons I have already explained, it has nothing to do with his decision to pursue the speeder, and everything to do with his conduct as he encountered a risk already considered.
Thomas also suggests that Ener violated departmental regulations by engaging in an emergency pursuit with a civilian in the car. While this evidence may indicate that some reasonably prudent officers might not have continued the pursuit, it falls short of showing that no reasonable officer could have.
Accordingly, I concur with the Court’s judgment in Clark, but in Ener, I dissent.

. 951 S.W.2d 464 (Tex.1997).

. Id. at 468 (Enoch, J., dissenting).

. Id.

. 883 S.W.2d 650 (Tex. 1994).

. Id. at 656 (emphasis added).

. See id. at 655.

. See 22 S.W.3d at 921.

. See, e.g., Clark, 979 S.W.2d 707, 712; see also Brown v. Ener, 987 S.W.2d 66, 70-71 (Tex.App.-Houston [14 th Dist.] 1998, no pet.); State v. Saenz, 967 S.W.2d 910, 915 (Tex.App.-Corpus Christi 1998, writ denied).

.Wadewitz, 951 S.W.2d at 467.

. Chambers, 8B3 S.W.2d at 656.

. Id. at 656-57.

. Id. at 657 (quoting Post v. City of Fort Lauderdale, 7 F.3d 1552, 1557 (11 th Cir.1993)).