Court Opinion

ID: 9718115
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:17:17.61338+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:57.402734
License: Public Domain

SCHWELB, Associate Judge,
concurring in the judgment:
I concur in the judgment, as well as in much of Chief Judge ROGERS’ opinion. I write separately, however, to explain my view that the public duty doctrine has not previously been applied, and ought not be applied, to the type of situation here presented.
Chief Judge ROGERS describes the public duty doctrine as being somewhat akin to the defense of sovereign immunity. Ante at 1126. Sovereign immunity, as she observes, stems from the historical maxim that “the King can do no wrong.” The problem is, however, that he can do wrong and often does. The divine right of kings would make sense if kings (or govem-*1133ments) always conformed their conduct to divine or angelic norms. Unfortunately, they do not. For this reason, and because, as the majority points out, “the doctrine of sovereign immunity often led to unfair results,” ante at 3, that doctrine has been abolished for tort actions in this jurisdiction, at least to the extent that “ministerial” (as distinguished from discretionary) functions of the District government are involved.1 See District of Columbia v. Pace, 498 A.2d 226, 228-29 (D.C.1985); Chandler, supra note 1, 404 A.2d at 965; Wagshal v. District of Columbia, 216 A.2d 172, 173 (D.C.1966).2
Absent sovereign immunity or some other compelling reason, conventional principles of the law of negligence presumptively do and should apply, no matter whether the defendant is the District or one of its citizens. See, e.g., District of Columbia v. White, 442 A.2d 159, 162-63 (D.C.1982). The elements of negligence are (1) the existence of a duty owed by the defendant to the plaintiff, (2) a negligent breach of that duty by the defendant, and (3) an injury to the plaintiff (4) proximately caused by the defendant’s breach. See, e.g., District of Columbia v. Fowler, 497 A.2d 456, 462 n. 13 (D.C.1985); Morrison v. MacNamara, 407 A.2d 555, 560 (D.C.1979); PROSSER, supra note 2, § 30. The District has conceded the second element, and Ms. Powell has indisputably alleged facts in her complaint which, if proved, would establish the third and fourth. The only remaining question is whether the District owed a duty to Ms. Powell to process her automobile registration properly.
Ordinarily, a defendant must exercise reasonable care to avoid unreasonable risk of injury to others. Munson v. Otis, 396 A.2d 994, 996 (D.C.1979); Donoghue v. Stevenson, 1932 App.Cas. 562, 580 (appeal taken from Scot.); PROSSER, supra note 2, § 53, at 358. In determining whether a defendant owes a duty to a particular individual, the dispositive question is generally whether injury to that individual was reasonably foreseeable to the defendant. Kline v. 1500 Mass. Ave. Apt. Corp., 141 U.S.App.D.C. 370, 375-78, 439 F.2d 477, 482-85 (1970); Palsgraf v. Long Island R.R., 248 N.Y. 339,-, 162 N.E. 99, 101, (1928); Prosser, supra note 2, § 43, at 284-290. That, however, is as far as the defendant’s duty extends. He is not obliged to rescue others from peril or to aid them in time of need, at least in the absence of proof of a special relationship between him and the plaintiff. In re A.C., 573 A.2d 1235, 1244 (D.C.1990) (en banc); Rieser v. District of Columbia, 184 U.S.App.D.C. 375, 393, 563 F.2d 462, 480 (1977); Yania v. Bigan, 397 Pa. 316, 322, 155 A.2d 343, 346 (1959); Prosser, supra note 2, § 56, at 375-77.
There is no allegation in the present case that the District owed Ms. Powell a duty to rescue or protect her from some pre-exist-ing peril. Rather, the harm which Ms. Powell claims to have suffered was caused solely by the District. When municipal employees entered Ms. Powell’s registration data into the WALES system under a number which had already been issued to someone else, it was reasonably foreseeable that, if the error were to be discovered by the gendarmerie at some inopportune time, Ms. Powell could find herself in an unanticipated quandary. Since tortfeasors generally owe a duty of reasonable care to foreseeable plaintiffs, this would have been the *1134end of the matter if the suit had been against a non-governmental defendant. No showing of a special relationship of the kind required in “rescue” cases would then have been necessary if the defendant had been a private party.
The majority presumes, however, that because the defendant in this case is the District of Columbia, these familiar principles of the law of negligence do not apply. Chief Judge ROGERS would effectively require Ms. Powell, in order to recover, to prove the existence of a special relationship between the District and herself {e.g., an affirmative representation by the District upon which Ms. Powell reasonably relied to her detriment), which would not be an element of her case if she were suing a private corporation. I disagree with this approach. Unlike the majority, I would start with the presumption that, except in carrying out its discretionary functions, the District, like any other party, must exercise reasonable care to avoid injury to a foreseeable plaintiff. If the District fails to do so, and if the proximate result of its failure is injury to the plaintiff, then the District should presumptively be required to compensate her for those injuries. “There is perhaps no doctrine more firmly established than the principle that liability follows tortious wrongdoing; that where negligence is the proximate cause of injury, the rule is liability and immunity is the exception_” Stone v. Arizona Highway Comm’n, 93 Ariz. 384, 392, 381 P.2d 107, 112 (1963).
The District claims exemption from liability to Ms. Powell for its negligence on the theory that relief is barred by the so-called public duty doctrine. Some courts have reasonably concluded, albeit without my metaphor, that even as heretofore applied, that doctrine is an albatross around the neck of justice.3 Whether or not it ought to be abolished in this jurisdiction, however, is not the question before us. Rather, we must decide whether the public duty doctrine should be extended to reach this case.
In our previous cases, the public duty doctrine has been applied exclusively to situations in which the District has allegedly failed to take affirmative steps to rescue or protect a plaintiff from an injury or a peril caused by someone or something other than the District itself.4 Application of the doctrine to that type of case does not carve out an unprincipled exception to the *1135general concept of municipal liability for negligence in carrying out ministerial functions, for it is basically consistent with the common law doctrine that there is no affirmative duty to rescue absent some special relationship. In fact, the public duty cases are in some measure the analytical cousins of the private rescue cases.5
Our public duty precedents stand for the proposition that a plaintiff seeking recovery against the District for failing to save him from an existing peril or protect him from harm must establish a special relationship with the government sufficient to trump the general rule that, even for a governmental defendant, there is no duty to any individual citizen to provide such protection. If liability were readily imposed against the government in such a situation, then just about any victim of crime or misadventure might be viewed as having an arguable claim against the District as well as against the wrongdoer. Requiring a plaintiff who claims that the District negligently failed to rescue him, or to prevent harm to him from a third party, to distinguish his own situation from that of the citizenry as a whole is therefore at least arguably reasonable. Accordingly, we held in Platt, supra note 4, 467 A.2d at 151, in the context of the District’s allegedly negligent failure adequately to carry out safety inspections of a movie theatre, and thus to prevent harm to patrons, that the plaintiffs must demonstrate: “1) a direct or continuing contact between the victim and the governmental agency or official; and 2) a justifiable reliance on the part of the victim.” Soon thereafter, in Morgan, supra, 468 A.2d at 1314, we adopted a two-part test which defined the requisites of a special relationship as being “(1) a specific undertaking to protect a particular individual, and (2) justifiable reliance by the plaintiff.” These rules, as elaborated in other public duty doctrine cases, roughly correspond to those applied to private actors pursuant to common law rescue principles.
So far as I am aware, however, the public duty doctrine has never before been applied to a situation such as this one, in which it was solely the District’s own lack of due care that actively and directly caused the plaintiff harm.6 If a negligently operated District police car were to strike and injure Ms. Powell, the District *1136would be required to compensate her for her injuries.7 The Corporation Counsel conceded at argument, moreover, that the District would likewise be liable if such an accident resulted from the failure on the part of an agent of the District adequately to inspect or maintain the car’s brakes, even though no particular individual would be a foreseeable plaintiff. I see no principled basis for differentiating between Ms. Powell’s situation and that of a victim of an automobile accident caused by the District’s lack of due care.
The harm allegedly suffered by Ms. Powell was not of some intangible or theoretical character. On the contrary, it was real. She maintains that as a result of the mismatch between her license plate and the information which the District's employees negligently entered into the WALES system, she and two companions found themselves stranded on a remote highway in Anne Arundel County, Maryland at 2:30 a.m. one cold December morning, her Ford Escort having just been impounded. When she became understandably upset at the police officer’s not-so-subtle accusation that she had stolen the vehicle, the officer told her that if she “didn’t be quiet, he was going to lock [her] up.” Frightened, lost, and unfamiliar with the surroundings in which they found themselves, the astonished and bewildered trio had to make their way some distance through the snow even to find a telephone. It was almost dawn when they managed to find a taxicab to drive them home.8. In the weeks following her misadventure, according to Ms. Powell, she had to go to the trouble of contesting the citation she had been so undeservedly given as a result of the District’s error, and of retrieving and re-registering her car and obtaining unimpeachable license plates for it. If Ms. Powell can prove by a preponderance of evidence that all of this travail was a proximate result of the District’s negligence, a doctrine which in my view was devised for entirely different circumstances should not stand in the way of her recovery.
None of the public policy considerations which Chief Judge ROGERS describes in footnote 5 to her opinion as supporting the public duty doctrine warrants application of that doctrine here. A decision in Ms. Powell’s favor is a far cry indeed from imposing judicial scrutiny over every act of the non-judicial branches of government. The need of public employees to retain “broad discretion” in the exercise of their functions does not extend to entering erroneous computer data or to issuing someone the wrong license plate. To the extent that the public fisc is diminished by holding the District liable in such a case as this, that consequence is not nearly as unjust as leaving Ms. Powell uncompensated for the harm which, if the allegations of her complaint are true, the District's negligence has surely caused her.
Arizona’s experience is instructive. In 1963, the defense of sovereign immunity was judicially abolished for all claims against the state. Stone, supra, 93 Ariz, at 392, 381 P.2d at 112. Six years later, the court adopted the public duty doctrine. Massengill v. Yuma County, 104 Ariz. 518, 521-523, 456 P.2d 376, 379-81 (1969). In 1982, the court overruled Massengill, holding that “the parameters of duty owed by the state will ordinarily be coextensive with those owed by others.” Ryan v. State, 134 Ariz. 308, 310, 656 P.2d 597, 599 (1982). Responding to ominous governmental warnings of impending doom, the court remarked:
We are also told that not only will the public treasury suffer but government will come to a standstill because its *1137agents will be afraid to act. We cant but recall the dire predictions attendant to the publication of the Stone decision. Arizona survived!
Id. 134 Ariz. at 309, 656 P.2d at 598. So, too, the demise of the District of Columbia is not yet around the comer, irrespective of the result of this case.
I am gratified that my colleagues recognize the improvidence of barring Ms. Powell from the courthouse door. I believe, however, that the eminently fair result which they have reached ought to be secured by a simpler and more straightforward route. I would favor the application of traditional doctrines of negligence, rather than embarking upon a search for exceptions to a public duty doctrine which, whatever its merits in some other situation, seems to me to have no bearing whatever on this one.

. In Elgin v. District of Columbia, 119 U.S.App. D.C. 116, 118-19, 337 F.2d 152, 154-55 (1964), ministerial functions were defined as those reflecting "the execution of policy as distinct from its formulation.” Discretionary functions, on the other hand, involve determinations of policy which often affect large numbers of people and "call for a delicate balancing of competing considerations.” Owen v. Independence, 445 U.S. 622, 648, 100 S.Ct. 1398, 1414, 63 L.Ed.2d 673 (1980); see also Chandler v. District of Columbia, 404 A.2d 964, 966 (D.C.1979). I do not think any serious argument can be made that entry of data regarding license plate applications into a computer system involves the formulation of policy or “delicate balancing.”

. Most American jurisdictions have likewise abolished or limited the doctrine of sovereign immunity in relation to the exercise by a governmental entity of ministerial functions; some have gone even further. See W. Page Keeton et al., Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts § 131, at 1044-54 (5th law. ed. 1984) (hereinafter Pros-ser).

. See, e.g., Adams v. State, 555 P.2d 235, 241-44 (Alaska 1976); Leake v. Cain, 720 P.2d 152, 155-60 (Colo. 1986) (en banc); Commercial Carrier Corp. v. Indiana River County, 371 So.2d 1010, 1015-17 (Fla.1979); Wilson v. Nepstad, 282 N.W.2d 664, 667-74 (Iowa 1979) (en banc); Stewart v. Schmieder, 386 So.2d 1351, 1357-58 (La. 1980); Maple v. City of Omaha, 222 Neb. 293, 299-301, 384 N.W.2d 254, 259-60 (1986); Schear v. Board of County Comm’rs, 101 N.M. 671, 673-674, 687 P.2d 728, 730-31 (1984); DeLong v. County of Erie, 60 N.Y.2d 296, 305-06, 457 N.E.2d 717, 721-22, 469 N.Y.S.2d 611, 616-17 (1983); Brennen v. City of Eugene, 285 Or. 401, 406-411, 591 P.2d 719, 723-25 (1979) (en banc); Coffey v. City of Milwaukee, 74 Wis.2d 526, 539-540, 247 N.W.2d 132, 139 (1976); DeWald v. State, 719 P.2d 643, 652-53 (Wyo.1986). In Chambers-Castanes v. King County, 100 Wash.2d 275, 286 n. 5, 669 P.2d 451, 458 n. 5 (1983), the Supreme Court of Washington, while upholding the public duty doctrine in principle, severely criticized case law in this jurisdiction for applying the doctrine too inflexibly.

. See, e.g., Wanzer v. District of Columbia, 580 A.2d 127, 131-32 (D.C.1990) (absent special relationship, District cannot be held liable for negligent failure promptly to respond to request for ambulance); Klahr v. District of Columbia, 576 A.2d 718, 719 (D.C.1990) (District owes no individually enforceable duty to protect victims allegedly murdered by escapee from negligently operated halfway house); Platt v. District of Columbia, 467 A.2d 149, 151 (D.C.1983) (District’s failure properly to inspect movie theater does not create liability to individual patrons of theater injured by conditions which proper inspection would have disclosed); Morgan v. District of Columbia, 468 A.2d 1306, 1310-11 (D.C. 1983) (en banc) (neither law enforcement officials nor the District may be held liable for failure to protect individual citizens from harm caused by criminal conduct); Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1, 3 (D.C.1981) (neither District nor police officials can be held liable for failure of police properly to respond to request from victims for protection from burglars); see also District of Columbia v. Forsman, 580 A.2d 1314, 1317-18 (D.C.1990) (District owes no individualized duty, in context of issuing building permits, to ensure that person to whom permit is issued secures liability insurance adequate to compensate neighbors for damage to their property caused by collapse of permittee’s structure).

. My colleagues dispute this analogy upon the ground that the public duty doctrine "is applied to determine whether a duty exists.” That, however, is also the essence of the rescue doctrine— there is no enforceable duty to rescue another individual. The only difference is that where the potential rescuer is the government, the argument for imposing such a duty to an individual is stronger because it is the government’s job to provide protection to the community at large.
Our public duty cases stand for the proposition that notwithstanding this difference, the existence of an obligation to protect "everyone" will not be treated as a duty to any particular individual. That is as far as our precedents have gone. See note 6, infra. For the reasons stated below in the text of this opinion, I do not think that we should now go further.

. Compare Warner, supra, note 4, 580 A.2d at 130-31, and Hines v. District of Columbia, 580 A.2d 133, 136-37 (D.C.1990) (holding that public duty doctrine barred suit against District for failure of ambulance service to respond promptly to calls for help), with Johnson v. District of Columbia, 580 A.2d 140, 142-43 (D.C.1990) (holding that District could be held liable if affirmative negligence of ambulance service actively worsens plaintiffs injuries).
My colleagues apparently contend that Nichol v. District of Columbia Metro. Police Dep’t, 444 A.2d 1, decided in Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C.1981) (en banc), is contrary to my view that the public duty doctrine is inapplicable where there was no prior peril from which the plaintiff needed rescue and where the harm to the plaintiff was the result solely of the District’s negligence. In Nichol, however, the plaintiff had been assaulted by third parties following an automohile accident, and the police had failed to obtain information about his assailants so that he could sue them— a classic rescue situation. The police had also instructed the plaintiff to discontinue his own efforts to identify the villains, but the court’s holding that this did not create liability went only to the question of what constitutes a special relationship, and had absolutely nothing to do with any notion that the public duty doctrine applies in non-rescue situations.
Chief Judge ROGERS also cites Johnson v. District of Columbia, 580 A.2d 140, 143 n. 4 (D.C.1990), for the same proposition as Nichol Johnson was another classic rescue case, involving the failure of an ambulance properly to respond to a call from the plaintiff’s decedent. The passage on which the majority relies cites Nichol and my discussion of Nichol applies to it as well.

. See Warren, supra note 4, 444 A.2d at 7. See also District of Columbia v. Woodbury, 136 U.S. 450, 10 S.Ct. 990, 34 L.Ed. 472 (1890) (District liable for negligent maintenance of public streets directly injuring plaintiffs); Booth v. District of Columbia, 100 U.S.App.D.C. 32, 241 F.2d 437 (1956) (same); Spencer v. General Hosp., 138 U.S.App.D.C. 48, 53, 425 F.2d 479, 484 (1969) (District liable for negligent provision of medical services worsening plaintiffs condition); Elgin v. District of Columbia, supra note 1, 119 U.S.App.D.C. at 120, 337 F.2d at 156 (District liable for negligent maintenance of schoolyard fence directly injuring child).

. Ms. Powell testified in her deposition that the taxicab driver "charged us 15 [dollars]. He only charged us $15 because that is all we had."