Court Opinion

ID: 9632806
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:25:23.241798+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:00:10.652292
License: Public Domain

DURHAM, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. I would follow the reasoning of a minority of courts which have held that actions by police officers carried out by virtue of their status may constitute acts “under color of state law” for purposes of the federal Civil Rights Act. In York v. Story, 324 F.2d 450 (9th Cir.1963), the court held that a complaint alleging *129that police officers ordered a complaining witness to strip, photographed her in the nude, and circulated the photographs to other officers should not have been dismissed for failure to state a cause of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The court said:
The facts alleged in a complaint are sufficient ... if they lay a groundwork for proof that, at the time in question, the defendant was clothed with the authority of state or local government and was purporting to act thereunder.
324 F.2d at 453 (emphasis added).
Furthermore, I would extend similar reasoning to the question of vicarious liability on the part of government for police misconduct accomplished by means of the authority with which government clothes law enforcement officers. The California Court of Appeal held that a police officer was acting within the scope of his employment when he stopped a motorist, placed her in his patrol car, threatened her with rape and murder, and sexually assaulted her. White v. County of Orange, 166 Cal.App.3d 566, 212 Cal.Rptr. 493 (1985). The court held that the foregoing actions were “incident to” the officer’s official duties:
A police officer is entrusted with a great deal of authority.... [T]he police officer carries the authority of the law with him into the community. The officer is supplied with a conspicuous automobile, a badge and a gun to ensure immediate compliance with his directions. The officer’s method of dealing with this authority is certainly incidental to his duties; indeed, it is an integral part of them....
It follows that the employer/government must be responsible for acts done during the exercise of this authority.
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The use of authority is incidental to the duties of a police officer. The County enjoys tremendous benefits from the public’s respect for that authority. Therefore, it must suffer the consequences when the authority is abused.
Id. 212 Cal.Rptr. at 496.
The Louisiana Court of Appeal reached the same conclusion in Applewhite v. City of Baton Rouge, 380 So.2d 119 (La.Ct.App.1979):
A police officer is a public servant given considerable public trust and authority. Our review of the jurisprudence indicates that, almost uniformly, where excesses are committed by such officers, their employers are held to be responsible for their actions even though those actions may be somewhat removed from their usual duties.
Id. at 121. The police officers in Apple-white had picked up a young woman in their patrol car and sexually assaulted her.
Police officers are different from other government employees. Government gives them badges, uniforms, specially marked vehicles, and the authority to use force to ensure compliance with their directions. Further, and more significantly, it represents to the public that trust may be safely reposed in these particular government representatives.1 Government depends on the cooperation and acquiescence of the citizenry in law enforcement activities. In order to further its own ends in that regard, government must be able to represent that officers are trustworthy and should be obeyed in all circumstances in which they purport to be exercising police authority. The price government should pay for such representations is responsibility for the abuse of the special relationship between officer and citizen that it itself has established and . encouraged.
The concept that government should bear the risk of harm to citizens that occurs because of something government itself has done (i.e., holding out police officers as worthy of trust and obedience when they purport to be acting as officers) is akin to principles of apparent authority *130summarized in section 267 of the Restatement (Second) of Agency (1957):
One who represents that another is his servant or other agent and thereby causes a third person justifiably to rely upon the care or skill of such apparent agent is subject to liability to the third person for harm caused by the lack of care or skill of the one appearing to be a servant or other agent as if he were such.
The majority opinion’s description of the facts in this case makes clear that Officer Lyday molested plaintiff in Lyday’s capacity as a police officer: “J.H. was informed that it was imperative that he give strict obedience to all police officers working with the program.... Lyday committed the acts after telling J.H. that he was teaching him standard and accepted relaxation techniques which police officers relied upon to deal with stress in the occupation.” Lyday was able to accomplish his assault on plaintiff specifically because o/the authority that West Valley City had given him and the trust and obedience that West Valley City had deliberately encouraged (in fact, demanded as a condition of participation in its program) from plaintiff. The authority by which Lyday committed this offense was not his personally; it was governmental authority conferred upon him by the City.
I have emphasized that police officers are different, even unique, in the degree of power and authority they exercise on behalf of their employer, because I wish to anticipate concerns that the principle of vicarious liability I advocate might extend to others in positions of public authority. I note that the California Supreme Court recently rejected the argument that school teachers are like police officers in that context, saying:
Furthermore, invoking respondeat superior here would raise an entirely different specter of untoward consequences, or interference with the purposes for which authority was conferred in the first place, than might result from the imposition of vicarious liability in the limited context of a police officer’s abuse of authority.
John R. v. Oakland Unified School Dist., 48 Cal.3d 438, 256 Cal.Rptr. 766, 775, 769 P.2d 948, 957 (1989). I would likewise limit the principle.
The police officer in this case was exercising authority pursuant to his employment assignment from West Valley City. Because of that authority and employment, plaintiff was harmed; I would hold that the City may be held liable for that harm.

. I note, for example, the widespread public relations program operated in the community and the public schools by the Salt Lake City Police Department on behalf of "Officer Friendly,” in which children are encouraged to regard police officers as "community helpers” and protectors.