Court Opinion

ID: 9522408
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:25:00.854615+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:02:43.381875
License: Public Domain

*268SCHUDSON, J.
(concurring in part; dissenting in part). Section 346.03(6), Stats., requires, in relevant part, that every law enforcement agency "shall provide written guidelines for its officers and employes regarding . . . pursuit." It also requires that "[t]he guidelines shall consider, among other factors,... severity of crime and necessity of pursuit." The City's guidelines do not comply.
C.2.a. specifies that police "shall only engage in a motor vehicle pursuit when ...." It then sets forth the guidelines governing the officer's discretionary decision to pursue. These guidelines, to be in compliance with § 346.03(6), STATS., would have to consider "severity of crime." These guidelines fail to do so. The guidelines of C.2.a. do not include any reference to the severity of crime. Instead, the City's policy explicitly postpones that consideration until C.2.b. and its criteria for "the deliberate striking of a pursued vehicle or the use of a Department or other vehicle(s) as a stationary barricade." That latter subsection, however, explicitly refers only to " [pjolice officers engaged in the motor vehicle pursuit" — i.e., only those officers already in pursuit — and further, only in situations involving potential deliberate vehicle striking or vehicle barricading.
Of course, striking and barricading occur in only a very small fraction of police pursuits. Clearly, by postponing consideration of "severity of crime" to the limited number of pursuits that may come to include striking or barricading, the City's policy has failed to comply with the statute.
I hasten to add that the inclusion of "severity of crime" in the guidelines would not reduce the discretion of police or the promptness of their response to a fleeing suspect. The law requires that, in deciding *269whether to pursue, an officer "consider" the severity of crime. The law does not, however, require that the officer know the severity of crime. The difference is important. After all, part of an officer's sound discretionary decision will depend, in some cases for example, on whether a radio dispatch has just alerted police to a suspected armed rapist or to an unarmed shoplifter. According to the law, the officer shall consider that. At other times, however, an officer will have no such knowledge and, therefore, will decide whether and how to pursue on the basis of the other required factors, in combination with the uncertainty about the severity of crime.
The City had a ministerial duty to comply with the law. The City's policy at issue in this case fails to comply. That failure vitiates the apparent legislative mandate to assure that all officers in all situations in which they must decide whether to engage in high speed pursuit — not just those officers involved in striking and barricading decisions — consider the severity of crime. Thus, the City failed its ministerial duty to provide a guideline under which Andrade was required to operate and, therefore, the City does not have immunity in this case. Accordingly, on this issue, I respectfully dissent.
Additionally, although I concur in the result, I write separately to express my concern about the failure to analyze the effect of § 803.03(2)(a), STATS., the mandatory joinder rule for subrogated parties, in relation to § 895.04(5), Stats., the wrongful death statute. Section 803.03(2)(a) states:
A party asserting a claim for affirmative relief shall join as parties to the action all persons who at the commencement of the action have claims based upon subrogation to the rights of the party assert*270ing the principal claim, derivation from the principal claim, or assignment of part of the principal claim.... Any public assistance recipient or any estate of such a recipient asserting a claim against a 3rd party for which the public assistance provider has a right of subrogation or assignment under s. 49.65(2) or (3) shall join the provider as a party to the claim. Any party asserting a claim based upon subrogation to part of the claim of another, derivation from the rights or claim of another, or assignment of part of the rights or claim of another shall join as a party to the action the person to whose rights the party is subrogated, from whose claim the party derives his or her rights or claim, or by whose assignment the party acquired his or her rights or claim.
(Emphasis added.) Although not at issue in this case, the statute requires joinder. Accordingly, it would be prudent for counsel in wrongful death cases to join subrogated parties.