Court Opinion

ID: 9633973
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 12:10:28.613071+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:25:35.365743
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I dissent.
Government Code section 845.8 provides that public entities and employ- . ees are immune from liability for injuries “caused by” an escaping prisoner or arrestee. In the majority opinion he has authored for the court in this case Justice George adopts the view he expressed in his dissenting opinion in Thomas v. City of Richmond (1995) 9 Cal.4th 1154, 1169 [40 Cal.Rptr.2d 442, 892 P.2d 1185] (hereafter Thomas), i.e., that as used in section 845.81 the phrase “caused by” includes “caused to” (9 Cal.4th at pp. 1175-1176, fn. 5), and hence that the statute applies to self-inflicted injuries suffered by fugitives (id. at p. 1175).
I adhere, rather, to the view I expressed in my concurring opinion in the same case (9 Cal.4th at p. 1165), i.e., that as used in section 845.8 the phrase “caused by” does not include “caused to,” and hence that the Legislature did not intend the statute to apply to such self-inflicted injuries. I based that conclusion on the following reasoning (adapted here to the facts of this case):
“Our task is to determine the intent of the Legislature in enacting the statute. ‘To determine the intent of legislation, we first consult the words themselves, giving them their usual and ordinary meaning. [Citations.] When “ ‘statutory language is . . . clear and unambiguous there is no need for construction, and courts should not indulge in it.’ ” [Citations.]’ (DaFonte v. Up-Right, Inc. (1992) 2 Cal.4th 593, 601 [7 Cal.Rptr.2d 238, 828 P.2d 140].)
“Here the Legislature provided that section 845.8 applies to injuries caused by escapees or persons resisting arrest. Giving the emphasized words *927their usual and ordinary meaning, we see that the evident intent of the statute is to relieve the government of liability in the not infrequent situation in which an escapee or person resisting arrest negligently or intentionally injures a third party who gets in his way. (See, e.g., City of Sacramento v. Superior Court (1982) 131 Cal.App.3d 395 [182 Cal.Rptr. 443].) The case at bar, however, presents a different and more uncommon scenario: the complaint alleges that it was [plaintiff herself who was injured when she fell from the train]. Thus the injury was not ‘caused by’ the [escapee] but ‘caused to’ [her]; it is plaintiff, after all, [whose legs were amputated].
“Nor can it be argued that here the injury was somehow ‘caused by’ plaintiff because [s]he ran away [from the persons transporting her]. We cannot ascribe so strained a meaning to the Legislature. While it is true that occasionally an injury may be caused both by and to the same person (i.e., a self-inflicted wound), in the vast majority of cases an injury that is ‘caused by’ one person is ‘caused to’ another: the entire law of torts has developed in response to such injuries. The Legislature, of course, legislates for the generality of cases; if it intends its words to have a special meaning, it says so. Section 845.8 does not.2
“The argument also proves too much. In cases in which a public entity is held liable when a third party is wrongfully injured by a police officer in pursuit of a fleeing suspect (e.g., Brummett v. County of Sacramento (1978) 21 Cal.3d 880 [148 Cal.Rptr. 361, 582 P.2d 952, 4 A.L.R.4th 858]), that suspect could likewise be said to have ‘caused’ the pursuit by failing to submit to police authority. Yet no one contends that section 845.8 would apply to such cases.
“Most important, the Tort Claims Act shows on its face that the Legislature was well aware of the distinction between the ordinary meanings of ‘caused by’ and ‘caused to.’ It is ‘a cardinal rule of statutory construction’ that ‘ “every statute should be construed with reference to the whole system of law of which it is a part so that all may be harmonized and have effect.” ’ (Landrum v. Superior Court (1981) 30 Cal.3d 1, 14 [177 Cal.Rptr. 325, 634 P.2d 352]; accord, People v. Hull (1991) 1 Cal.4th 266, 272 [2 Cal.Rptr.2d 526, 820 P.2d 1036]; Nickelsberg v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd. (1991) 54 Cal.3d 288, 298 [285 Cal.Rptr. 86, 814 P.2d 1328].) ‘Where reasonably *928possible, we avoid statutory constructions that render particular provisions superfluous or unnecessary.’ (Dix v. Superior Court (1991) 53 Cal.3d 442, 459 [279 Cal.Rptr. 834, 807 P.2d 1063], and cases cited.)
“No less than three other statutes in the same chapter of the Tort Claims Act as section 845.8 (ch. 3, defining liabilities and immunities for ‘Police and Correctional Activities’) expressly speak of injuries that are both ‘caused by’ and ‘caused to’ the class of persons in question. Thus section 844.6, subdivision (a), declares that a public entity is not liable for ‘(1) An injury proximately caused by any prisoner. [QQ (2) An injury to any prisoner.’ Again, section 854.8, subdivision (a), declares that a public entity is not liable for ‘(1) An injury proximately caused by a patient of a mental institution. [H (2) An injury to an inpatient of a mental institution.’ Finally, section 856.2, subdivision (a), declares that neither a public entity nor a public employee is liable for ‘(1) An injury caused by an escaping or escaped person who has been confined for mental illness or addiction. [QQ (2) An injury to, or the wrongful death of, an escaping or escaped person who has been confined for mental illness or addiction.’ (All italics added.) The Legislature obviously knows how to draw this simple distinction.
“Indeed, when the Legislature amended the last-quoted statute to add the reference to injuries ‘caused to’ an escaping mental patient, it also amended in the same bill the statute now in issue (§ 845.8), but did not add similar language thereto. Thus as originally enacted in 1963 section 856.2 provided immunity only for injuries ‘caused by’ an escaping mental patient. In its 1970 recommendations to the Legislature the Law Revision Commission emphasized the discrepancy: ‘Government Code section 856.2 presently confers immunity only as to injuries caused by an escaping or escaped mental patient. Injuries sustained by the escapee are not covered.’ (Recommendations Relating to Sovereign Immunity, No. 10, Revisions of the Governmental Liability Act (Dec. 1969) 9 Cal. Law Revision Com. Rep. (1969) p. 827, italics in original.) The commission recommended that section 856.2 be amended to extend the immunity to injuries ‘caused to’ escaping mental patients, and the Legislature promptly did so. (Stats. 1970, ch. 1099, § 16, p. 1960.) In another section of the same bill, however, the Legislature also amended the statute now in issue, section 845.8, to immunize injuries ‘caused by’ escaping arrestees or persons resisting arrest, but did not similarly extend the immunity to injuries ‘caused to’ such persons.
“Applying the cardinal rule of statutory construction cited above, we see that in order to harmonize the wording of these closely related statutes we must infer that the Legislature did not intend section 845.8 to immunize public entities and employees for injuries ‘caused to’ escaping prisoners or *929arrestees or persons resisting arrest; to do otherwise would render superfluous the express references in the three companion statutes to injuries ‘caused to’ the classes of persons there in question.
“The distinctions thus drawn by the Legislature, moreover, are eminently reasonable. It makes sense for the Legislature to be concerned about public liability for injuries caused to prison inmates (§ 844.6) and to mental patients (§§ 854.8, 856.2), because the risk of such injuries is substantial. It is a fact of life that under contemporary prison conditions inmates run significant risks of suffering intentional injury at the hands of other inmates and unintentional injury by understaffed or overworked prison personnel. It is also a fact of life that because of their impaired faculties mental patients run significant risks of unintentionally hurting themselves or each other, and even of intentionally hurting themselves unless restrained. By contrast, escapees and persons resisting arrest do not run such risks, and injuries caused to them are a much smaller threat to public liability than injuries caused by them. It is therefore to be expected that the statute immunizing public entities for their acts—section 845.8—speaks only of the latter kind of injury, as distinguished from the statutes involving prison inmates and mental patients.” (Thomas, supra, 9 Cal.4th 1154, 1166-1169.)
The majority’s arguments to the contrary are not persuasive. First, whether it would have a “chilling effect” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 920) on custodial officers to deny immunity in these circumstances, and whether it would “make little sense” to deny recovery to an “innocent bystander” while allowing it to persons in the class of this plaintiff (ibid.), are essentially questions of policy respecting the proper scope of the immunity granted by statute. These are questions for the Legislature, not for this court. They do not undermine the plain meaning of the words that the Legislature used in section 845.8.
Equally unconvincing is the majority’s effort to explain away the stark fact that, as discussed above, in three closely related statutes the Legislature has expressly provided for immunity for injuries that are both “caused by” and “caused to” a specific class of persons. (§§ 844.6, subd. (a), 854.8, subd. (a), & 856.2, subd. (a).) The majority assert (maj. opn., ante, at p. 921) that the effect of these provisions is to broaden the immunity to apply to injuries caused to the escapee “by the government or a third party.” This is true, but it is not their only effect: they also extend the immunity to self-inflicted injuries. As explained above, in the case of at least two of these statutes the class of persons addressed by the Legislature—i.e., inpatients of mental institutions and persons otherwise confined for mental illness or addiction —is particularly susceptible to injuries that are intentionally or unintentionally self-inflicted. The majority go on to claim that the Legislature’s express *930reference in such statutes to injuries “caused to” such persons was “not necessary” to achieve immunity for self-inflicted injuries because such immunity “already is provided by the provision in each of these statutes concerning injuries ‘caused by’ the escaped person.” (Ibid., italics added.) This reasoning obviously begs the question at issue.
Nor is plaintiff’s position “inconsistent.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 921.) The majority do not identify where plaintiff “interprets the phrase ‘an injury to’ an escaped person to include an injury that is ‘caused by’ that person” (ibid.), and I find no such “interpretation” in the record. But even if plaintiff so “interprets” that phrase, the phrase is not in the statute that we are required to construe. The statute speaks only of injuries “caused by” escaped persons.
The majority (maj. opn., ante, at pp. 922-923) next dismiss two arguments from legislative history. I do not rely on the first (a quotation from a legislative “staff analysis”). But I found the second persuasive in Thomas, and I do so here as well. That argument proceeds from the fact—discussed in detail above—that when the Legislature amended section 856.2 in 1970 to add the reference to injuries “caused to” an escaping mental patient, it did not add similar language to section 845.8 even though it amended the same statute in other ways in the same bill. In reply, the majority say only that the Legislature’s decision not to similarly extend the immunity of section 845.8 injuries to “caused to” prisoners “does not reflect an intent to restrict the immunity already provided for injuries ‘caused by’ such prisoners, including injuries caused by escaping prisoners to themselves.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 922, italics added.) As the italicized words reveal, the argument again begs the question. It certainly does not explain this aspect of the legislative history.
As noted above in my quotation from Thomas, when the Legislature amended the immunity statutes in 1970 it was acting in direct compliance with a 1969 recommendation by the Law Revision Commission that emphasized the discrepancy between “caused by” and “caused to” in this context: to reiterate, the commission stressed that “Government Code section 856.2 presently confers immunity only as to injuries caused by an escaping or escaped mental patient. Injuries sustained by the escapee are not covered.” (Recommendations Relating to Sovereign Immunity, No. 10, Revisions of the Governmental Liability Act (Dec. 1969) 9 Cal. Law Revision Com. Rep. (1969) p. 827, italics in original (Recommendations).) The majority ignore this plain expression of the distinction by the very body that proposed the language in question.
Instead, the majority address only the portion of the cited recommendation in which the Law Revision Commission explains the purpose of its proposed *931amendment to section 856.2. But the majority's attempt to evade the impact of the commission’s reasoning is, at best, disingenuous. The stated purpose of the commission’s proposed amendment to section 856.2 was to extend the immunity of that statute to liability for injuries “sustained by an escaping or escaped mental patient.” (Recommendations, supra, p. 827.) The majority now assert (maj. opn., ante, at p. 923) that the same purpose “does not apply to injuries suffered by escaped prisoners.” But no one says it does. The relevance of the Law Revision Commission’s explanation is not to show that a similar amendment to section 845.8 was likewise intended to “avoid the result reached in other states” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 923) with respect to escaped prisoners, because the Legislature has never adopted such an amendment. And that is precisely the point: the relevance of the commission’s explanation is to show that in the view of the drafters of this entire legislative scheme—the Law Revision Commission—injuries that are “sustained by” a class of persons are “not covered” by a statute that confers immunity “only as to injuries caused by” that class, and hence that if such injuries are to be covered it will be necessary to “revise” the statute to expressly so provide. (Recommendations, supra, p. 827, italics deleted.)3 It follows that for the immunity of section 845.8 to cover injuries sustained by escaping prisoners it will likewise require an amendment of that statute by the Legislature, not by this court.
For all these reasons I conclude that section 845.8 is inapplicable to the case at bar and the Court of Appeal erred in affirming the summary judgment for defendants on the ground of the immunity provided in that statute.
Despite their holding that the immunity of section 845.8 applies to this case, the majority are compelled to address plaintiff’s contention that defendants are nevertheless liable under Vehicle Code section 17001, which imposes liability on a public entity for injuries caused by a negligent or wrongful act “in the operation of any motor vehicle” by an employee of the public entity in the scope of his employment. This is because, contrary to *932Justice George’s dissenting opinion in Thomas (9 Cal.4th at pp. 1169-1174), the majority in that case held that “. . . Government Code section 845.8 does not provide immunity to public entities for liability that is predicated on Vehicle Code section 17001.” (Id. at p. 1165, italics added.)
On this issue the majority now conclude as a matter of law (maj. opn., ante, at p. 925) that plaintiff’s injuries “were not caused by the negligent operation of a motor vehicle within the meaning of Vehicle Code section 17001.” But the majority’s discussion of the point is unpersuasive. They begin (id. at p. 923) by asserting conclusorily that the alleged negligent conduct of defendants—in failing to provide a secure vehicle, or to restrain plaintiff adequately, or to seat one of the employees next to plaintiff—“does not constitute” negligent conduct within the meaning of Vehicle Code section 17001. We look in vain for a reasoned analysis leading to that conclusion. Instead, the majority say only (maj. opn., ante, at p. 923.) that it is “not sufficient” that a motor vehicle somehow be involved in the events leading to the injury; rather, “The injury must be proximately caused by the negligent ‘operation of a motor vehicle.’ ” The latter assertion, however, merely restates the words of the statute. Repetition is not an explanation. Again the majority beg the question.
Next the majority review (maj. opn., ante, at pp. 923-925) a few selected cases applying Vehicle Code section 17001 or its predecessors; but each is distinguishable on its facts and its quoted reasoning is in effect no less conclusory than that of the majority here.
The only case in point is Duarte v. City of San Jose (1980) 100 Cal.App.3d 648 [161 Cal.Rptr. 140], which supports plaintiff. There a city police officer arrested a suspect for drunk driving and placed him, unhandcuffed and unattended, in the backseat of the police car with the motor running. While the officer assisted a fellow officer in moving the suspect’s car, the suspect entered the driver’s seat of the police car and sped away. Police cars followed in a high-speed chase that ended when the suspect struck and injured the plaintiff. In holding that the plaintiff could state a cause of action for city liability under Vehicle Code section 17001, the Court of Appeal reasoned in part (100 Cal.App.3d at pp. 657-658): “to be in operation within the meaning of section 17001, the vehicle must be in a ‘state of being at work’ or ‘in the active exercise of some specific function.’ (See Marshall v. County of Los Angeles (1955) 131 Cal.App.2d 812, 814 [281 P.2d 544] [construing Veh. Code, § 400, predecessor of § 17001].) However, a vehicle need not be moving to be in operation within the meaning of the statute. (See e.g., Reed v. City of San Diego (1947) 77 Cal.App.2d 860, 863 [177 P.2d 21] *933[police car temporarily parked at night partially on highway with headlights dimmed].)
“One function of a police vehicle is to transport arrested persons to jail. Here the arrested man had been placed in the rear of the car. Its motor was apparently running, which suggests that the officer was about to transport [the suspect] when he was interrupted by his colleague’s difficulty with [the suspect’s] car. Under the circumstances, we conclude that the car was ‘in a state of being at work’ and therefore in operation within the meaning of the statute.”
In the case at bar it is undisputed that the car in question was an official San Mateo County vehicle being operated by San Mateo County juvenile hall employees for the sole purpose of transporting a ward of the San Mateo juvenile court who was being returned to custody. Although the car was not moving at the time that the ward fled, its motor was running and it was only momentarily stopped at a red traffic signal. As in Duarte, accordingly, “the car was ‘in a state of being at work’ and therefore in operation within the meaning of the statute.” (100 Cal.App.3d at p. 658.)
Rather than meeting Duarte on its own terms, the majority simply disapprove the decision “For the reasons reflected in the foregoing discussion” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 925). As we have seen, however, the majority in fact give no such reasons. The majority thus disapprove Duarte not because they must, but simply because they can. A published, unanimous decision of the Court of Appeal that has been followed by other courts deserves more. Indeed, in Thomas the majority of this court held after a lengthy analysis that we have no power to disapprove Duarte to the extent it holds that liability under Vehicle Code section 17001 trumps immunity under section 845.8: we concluded that if Duarte and its progeny are to be overruled in that regard, “it is up to the Legislature, and not the courts, to do so.” (9 Cal.4th at p. 1165.)
On the issue now before us Duarte squarely supports plaintiff’s construction of Vehicle Code section 17001. Because the majority have failed to demonstrate by a reasoned analysis that Duarte is wrong—by focusing, for example, on the history and purpose of the statute, the evil sought to be remedied, and the role of the section in the overall statutory scheme (see People v. Woodhead (1987) 43 Cal.3d 1002, 1008 [239 Cal.Rptr. 656, 741 P.2d 154], and cases cited)—we should follow Duarte on this point as well.
Finally, the Court of Appeal declined to reach the issue whether the summary judgment should also be affirmed on the ground of the immunity *934provided in section 846, and I would therefore remand the matter with directions to address that issue.

All unlabeled statutory references are to the Government Code.

In any event, there appears to have been no need for the Legislature to provide a special statutory immunity for cases like the present. If an escapee or person resisting arrest were so negligent that he could be found to be a proximate cause of his own injury, ordinary principles of comparative fault would be sufficient to absolve the public entity from liability for that part of the injury ‘caused by’ his conduct.” [Proximate cause and apportionment of damages, however, are factual questions to be resolved by trial, not as here by motion for summary judgment.]

To dispel any doubts about the matter I quote the Law Revision Commission's recommendation in its entirety: “Government Code Section 856.2 presently confers immunity only as to injuries caused by an escaping or escaped mental patient. Injuries sustained by the escapee are not covered. Although certain other jurisdictions imposed liability where a mental patient escapes and is injured because of his inability to cope with ordinary risks, the Commission believes that such liability is inconsistent with the California scheme. Accordingly, Section 856.2 should be extended to confer immunity for injuries—fatal or nonfatal— sustained by an escaping or escaped mental patient. This revision would be consistent with the rationale of Section 856.2 that the public entity should not be responsible for the conduct of a mental patient who has escaped or is attempting to escape and with the policies behind Section 854.8." (Recommendations, supra, p. 827, italics in original, fn. omitted.)