Court Opinion

ID: 9688048
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:58:24.431188+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:34.629688
License: Public Domain

Cavanagh, J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part). I agree with the lead opinion that the public-duty doctrine serves a useful function and should be continued. However, I dissent from the lead opinion’s definition of the special-relationship exception to the public-duty doctrine. I would also limit the scope of this opinion to only those cases in which liability is alleged on the basis of the police officer’s failure to protect an individual from the actions of a third party. This case should have no bearing in . a case involving an injury caused by the police officer’s own actions.
The “duty to provide police protection ... is vested in the government by constitution and statute.” Williams v Cunningham Drug Stores, Inc, 429 Mich 495, 501; 418 NW2d 381 (1988). The Legislature has provided that government officers and employees are immune from tort liability while engaged in governmental functions if they are acting or reasonably believe they are acting within the scope of their authority and their conduct falls short of gross negligence. MCL 691.1407(2); MSA 3.996(107)(2). However, before reaching any issue of breach, causation, or damages, the first question in any negligence action *331involves duty. “Duty exists because the relationship between the parties gives rise to a legal obligation.” Bertrand v Alan Ford, Inc, 449 Mich 606, 614; 537 NW2d 185 (1995), citing Moning v Alfono, 400 Mich 425, 438-439; 254 NW2d 759 (1977).
The public-duty doctrine begins with the premise that police officers1 owe a duty to the public to investigate crime and to protect the citizenry because they are police officers. Further, the public-duty doctrine recognizes that police officers and their departments must make discretionary or policy decisions in order to carry out the duties imposed on them.2 For instance, a police station may receive several distress calls at once, and, because of limited resources, must assign a priority to those calls. The legal tort system is ill-equipped to second-guess a discretionary decision to prioritize calls in order of perceived need and availability of officers to respond. Evaluations of the propriety of decisions such as budgetary items, training, equipment, procedures, and response techniques, are best left to the other branches of government. Cuffy v City of New York, 69 NY2d 255, 260; 513 NYS2d 372; 505 NE2d 937 (1987) (“a municipality’s provision of police protection to its citizenry has long been regarded as a resource-allocating function that is better left to the discretion of the policy makers”). Accordingly, the public-duty doctrine precludes bas*332ing tort liability solely on the obligations owed by police officers to the public at large.3
Nevertheless, the special-relationship exception to the public-duty doctrine is based on the recognition that there are situations in which discretionary or policy decisions are no longer at issue because the decision to assist a particular individual has already been made. The issue then becomes whether the police officer’s connection to a particular individual has created an actionable special and identifiable obligation to render assistance to that individual. Indeed, the common theme underlying all the various definitions of special relationship explored by the lead opinion is an attempt to test the validity of this connection. When the connection is strong enough so that a relationship between the police officer and the victim arises that is distinct from the relationship between the police officer and the public at large, the courts will impose a special duty.4 However, I believe that the Cuffy test adopted by the lead opinion places unfair obstacles before the potential plaintiffs who *333were the most helpless and the victims of crime most at risk.
The Cuffy test requires two primary elements: direct contact and justifiable reliance. I agree that the “contact” element serves a useful function in most situations. In order for tort liability to attach to a grossly negligent response to the plaintiff’s peril, the police officer first must have been made aware that the victim may have been in peril. This would normally be accomplished through a call for assistance. However, I would not require the victim himself to have placed the call. Such a rule results in a perverse sliding scale where the more helpless the victim, the more likely that the officer can act, or fail to act, with impunity. For instance, a kidnapping victim should not be denied tort damages solely because he could not personally dial 911. Accordingly, I would eliminate the adjective “direct.” I would hold that in order to establish the contact element of the special-relationship exception, the plaintiff would have to prove that he, or someone on his behalf, contacted the police.5
Here, the victim allegedly called out to her neighbors to call the police, and they did so, on her behalf I would hold that the contact element has been sufficiently established in the plaintiff’s pleadings to survive summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(8).
My more serious disagreement with the Cuffy test is with the “reliance” element. Although the “justifiable reliance” requirement may work satisfactorily with respect to an obligation to protect an individual *334from future harm, when strictly applied to crimes in progress, it can lead to harsh and seemingly unjust results. The Cuffy test leads to an odd unjust result where the victim least able to help himself, that is, least able to change the course of his actions, is the one least able to “rely” on the police officer’s obligation to help him.6 Instead, I believe that the special-relationship test should flow from the time-honored and fundamental tort principle that people owe a duty to foreseeable plaintiffs. I believe that a foreseeable-plaintiff requirement would make a more logical, flexible, and workable solution to situations where the crime was already in progress at the time the police were contacted.
In such circumstances, I would hold that the plaintiff would have to prove that he was an identifiable foreseeable victim of a crime in progress by establishing the following elements:
(1) the officer actually arrived on the scene;
(2) the officer knew or should have known that an identifiable crime was in progress and that the plaintiff was or would be an identifiable victim;
(3) the officer should have reasonably foreseen that the identifiable victim would suffer further bodily harm if the officer did not intervene;
(4) the officer had the resources available on the scene to render assistance; and
*335(5) the officer’s intervention could have changed the outcome.
In such a case, the officer should owe a duty actionable in tort to the identifiable foreseeable victim.7
The justifiable reliance requirement is not all that different, and I would not oppose its use as an alternative theory. “Justifiable” implies that the police officer made a promise to the individual to protect him from some harm, which the police officer should reasonably have foreseen would have led to reliance. Reliance in turn means that the individual altered his course of action.8 The promise that led to justifiable reliance was no longer a policy or discretionary consideration whether or when to respond to the individual’s request for assistance because the decision to respond to the individual had already been made. At that point, it became an actionable special duty to the individual.
Similarly, when the police officer arrives at the scene of a crime in progress, there is no longer at issue a generalized discretionary or policy decision whether or when to respond to a call for assistance. The police officer has responded. At that point, the police officer faces a ministerial obligation to perform his police officer’s duty to protect this victim, who is in peril from this crime in progress, by using the specialized training and resources available to him as a *336police officer. If intervention could alter the outcome and prevent further bodily harm to the victim, then I believe that the police officer should have a special duty to this foreseeable identifiable victim that is actionable in tort.
Here, the plaintiff has alleged that Officer Beasley arrived at the scene and was informed by neighbors that they had seen and heard Phoebe Obleton being attacked by her husband. The plaintiff has further alleged that, as a result of Officer Beasley’s failure to perform his duties, the victim sustained severe stab wounds that caused her death more than three hours later. I would hold that the plaintiff has pleaded sufficient facts to establish that defendant Beasley owed a special duty to the plaintiff to survive the MCR 2.116(C)(8) motion for summary disposition.
I note that in order to succeed at trial, the plaintiff would still have to prove all these allegations and further would have to prove that the police officer’s actions were grossly negligent.
I would affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals.
Mallett, J., concurred with Cavanagh, J.

 Although I am limiting the focus of my opinion to police officers, I believe that it would similarly apply to fire fighters, life guards, and similar governmental safety professionals.

 The Legislature has disregarded any distinction between discretionary or ministerial acts with respect to the tort liability of governmental individuals. MCL 691.1407(2); MSA 3.996(107)(2). However, the distinction remains useful for explaining the policy reasons behind the public-duty doctrine.

 See Verity v Danti, 585 A2d 65, 66 (RI, 1991):
The public duty doctrine encourages “the effective administration of governmental operations by removing the threat of potential litigation.” It creates immunity for the government regarding certain activities performed by government agents that are discretionary in nature. [Citations omitted.]

 This special duty is the duty of due care to perform' the police officer’s governmental function of providing police protection to the individual with whom a special relationship has been established. See Ross v Consumers Power Co (On Rehearing), 420 Mich 567, 635; 363 NW2d 641 (1984), an officer may be personally liable for “tortiously executing” his police officer duties. See also Pike v State of New York, 214 AD2d 934, 935; 625 NYS2d 712 (1995), recognizing that there is generally no liability for a failure to provide police protection, but that a special relationship may give rise “to a special duty of protection.”

 I would save for another day whether a police officer’s actual knowledge of the crime victim’s peril would be sufficient in the absence of contact.

 See Cuffy, 69 NY2d 261 (reliance is found when “a municipality’s voluntary undertaking has lulled the injured party into a false sense of security and has thereby Induced him either to relax his own vigilance or to forego other available avenues of protection”).

 Compare with Quality Court Condominium Ass’n v Quality Hill Development Corp, 641 A2d 746, 750 (El, 1994), and Knudsen v Hall, 490 A2d 976, 978 (El, 1985): A special duty may arise if the plaintiffs “have otherwise specifically come within the knowledge of the officials so that the injury to that particularly identified plaintiff can be or should have been foreseen.”

 Cuffy, 69 NY2d 261.