Court Opinion

ID: 9674927
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:37:25.011385+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:30.258574
License: Public Domain

Ryan, J.
I concur in the Court’s judgment that the Court of Appeals erred in concluding that the defendants City of Ann Arbor and Officers Miller and Lunsford were entitled, as a matter of law, to a judgment dismissing the plaintiffs complaint against them.
The statute which excepts "governmental agencies” from the immunity otherwise extant precludes the necessity of considering whether the individual defendants’ decision to pursue the fleeing vehicle and the actual pursuit of the fleeing *477vehicle were discretionary or ministerial acts. If the police officers’ behavior proximately caused "bodily injury [or] property damage resulting from the negligent operation * * * of a motor vehicle of which the governmental agency is owner”,1 it is immaterial whether the decision to pursue and the actual pursuit were discretionary or ministerial acts because if the city has no immunity defense, neither do the police officers. See Lockaby v Wayne County, 406 Mich 65; 276 NW2d 1 (1979).
I agree with my brother that the provisions of MCL 257.603; MSA 9.2303, concerning the operation of emergency motor vehicles, does not insulate any of the defendants from liability for the careless operation of the police cars because that statute requires that emergency vehicles be operated in such a way as "not [to] endanger life or property”. The well-pleaded facts of the plaintiff’s complaint establish a jury-submissible question whether Officers Miller and Lunsford operated their police vehicles in a manner which endangered life or property and without due regard for the safety of the plaintiff.
The trial court in this case was of the view that, as a matter of law, the negligent acts, if any, of Officers Miller, Terry, and Lunsford were not proximate causes of the plaintiff’s injury. In that connection, my brother declares:
"The question of proximate cause is generally held to be one for the jury. [Comstock v General Motors Corp, 358 Mich 163, 180; 99 NW2d 627 (1959).] Any doubts about the relations between the causes and effects should be resolved by the jury. The determination of remoteness should seldom, if ever, be summarily determined. [Davis v Thornton, 384 Mich 138, 145, 147; 180 NW2d 11 (1970).]”
*478While my colleague’s statement is correct as a generalized observation, in the context of this case it says too much.
Proximate cause, in the first instance, is a question of law in the sense that it is for the court and not the jury to determine, especially upon a motion for summary judgment, whether the facts alleged (GCR 1963, 117.2[1]) and not controverted (GCR 1963, 117.2[3]), if proved, could establish liability in the party charged. In Moning v Alfono, 400 Mich 425; 254 NW2d 759 (1977), Justice Levin, writing for the Court, stated:
"The question of proximate cause, like the question of duty, is 'essentially a problem of law’.” Id., 440, citing Prosser, Torts (4th ed), § 42, p 244.
"While the court decides questions of duty, general standard of care and proximate cause, the jury decides whether there is cause in fact and the specific standard of care: whether defendants’ conduct in the particular case is below the general standard of care, including— unless the court is of the opinion that all reasonable persons would agree or there is an overriding legislatively or judicially declared public policy — whether in the particular case the risk of harm created by the defendants’ conduct is or is not reasonable.” Id., 438.
While it is true, therefore, that proximate cause is generally conceptualized as a factual determination for the jury, whether the behavior with which an actor is charged, if proved, would in law establish liability in the actor is a question for the court.2 It is my view, therefore, that the trial court’s error was not in treating the proximate cause issue as a question of law, but in concluding *479that the negligence attributed to the third party, Lehman, was a superseding intervening cause which, combined with the fact that the vehicles operated by Officers Miller and Lunsford never made contact with the plaintiffs vehicle, precluded the plaintiff, as a matter of law, from proving that the actions of the defendants proximately caused, that is, were the cause in fact, of the plaintiffs injuries. Neither the statute which excepts the City of Ann Arbor, and consequently the individual defendant officers, from the protection of the immunity statute for motor vehicle-related negligence, nor the common law, requires that to establish liability it must be shown that the police cars made actual contact with the plaintiffs vehicle or were directly involved in the collision.
I would hold as a matter of law that in this case, on the facts alleged, the high-speed pursuit of the Lehman vehicle by the police vehicles, in the densely populated residential and commercial area of downtown Ann Arbor, may have proximately caused or proximately contributed to the injuries allegedly suffered by the plaintiff whose vehicle was struck by the vehicle being pursued. It is for the factfinder to determine whether the actions of the operators of the pursuing vehicles were causes in fact of the plaintiffs injuries. The reason the actions of the pursuing police officers may be proximate causes, and surely cannot be said as a matter of law not to be proximate causes, is:
"The fact that an intervening act of a third person [Lehman] is negligent in itself or is done in a negligent manner does not make it a superseding cause of harm to another which the actor’s [Officers Miller and Lunsford] negligent conduct is a substantial factor in bringing about, if
"(a) the actor [Miller or Lunsford] at the time of his *480negligent conduct should have realized that a third person [Lehman] might so act, or
"(b) a reasonable man knowing the situation existing when the act of the third person [Lehman] was done would not regard it as highly extraordinary that the third person [Lehman] had so acted, or
"(c) the intervening act is a normal consequence of a situation created by the actor’s [Miller or Lunsford] conduct and the manner in which it is done is not extraordinarily negligent.” 2 Restatement Torts, 2d, § 447, p 478.
I agree that, as a matter of law, Officer Terry’s conduct cannot, on the facts alleged and as developed in the pretrial exhibits, affidavits, and testimony, result in liability for the plaintiffs injuries because Terry was not an "operator” of either of the emergency vehicles within the meaning of MCL 257.36; MSA 9.1836, and because, as a matter of law, his role in operating the radio communications equipment was too remote from the injury-causing events to amount in law to a proximate cause of the plaintiffs injuries.
Because the plaintiff has pleaded facts sufficient to state an actionable claim, including facts in avoidance of immunity, and because there exists a genuine issue concerning the material facts whether the actions of Officers Miller and Lunsford were negligent and, if negligent, proximately caused the plaintiffs injuries, I concur in the reversal of the judgment of the Court of Appeals as to those defendants and the City of Ann Arbor, and join in the judgment remanding this case for trial.
Brickley and Cavanagh, JJ., concurred with Ryan, J.
Boyle, J., took no part in the decision of this case.

 MCL 691.1405; MSA 3.996(105).

 My colleague apparently agrees, since he appears to conclude, although he does not say, that, as a matter of law, Officer Terry’s acts were not a proximate cause of the plaintiffs injuries "because [Terry] did not operate either of the vehicles involved in the pursuit”.