Court Opinion

ID: 9710695
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:15:24.229504+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:59.017385
License: Public Domain

Dooley, J.,
dissenting. In two of three of its general themes, I concur in Justice Johnson’s dissent. The governmental/proprietary distinction is neither appropriate nor workable and should be abandoned. This Court created the distinction and should now eliminate it, making it irrelevant to the negligence liability of a municipality whether a governmental or proprietary activity was involved. The Legislature has never endorsed this distinction, and we should not leave it to that body to eliminate it. We cannot, as the majority holds, refuse to endorse the distinction but leave it in place.
I do not concur, however, in the broader view that we should also eliminate general municipal immunity, leaving only the very limited protections proposed by Justice Johnson. Nor do I believe that our goal should be to expand municipal liability. Many of the reasons for municipal immunity have become archaic; many did not support the policy even when it was adopted. Our task should be to tailor our law on municipal immunity to the modern policy reasons for recognizing such immunity.
*277Justice Johnson has explained that one of the important goals of any modern municipal immunity policy is to preserve separation of powers and protect certain executive-branch decision-making from second-guessing in the judiciary. I agree that this is an important goal, but it is not the only goal.
Throughout this century, government at all levels has taken on new responsibilities to protect the health and safety of its citizens. Through inspection and regulation, government seeks to prevent activities that would impair the public health or degrade the environment. Through its law enforcement and corrections personnel, it seeks to prevent crime and incapacitate violent lawbreakers. Through its fire-fighters, it seeks to prevent property damage and loss of life from fires. Through proper design, construction and operation, it makes modern transportation systems safe and efficient. If the promise of these governmental programs were fully realized, the vast majority of personal injuries would be prevented and there would be few adverse public health consequences from pollution and environmental degradation. Conversely, it is possible to assign some of the blame for almost any serious personal injury or environmentally caused sickness to the failure of a governmental actor to intervene effectively and in a timely fashion.
There are other reasons that government becomes a tort-litigation target. Many of the standards under which government employees act are, and must be, embodied in statutes and regulations that become duties, the breach of which gives rise to tort liability. Judgments against governmental units are usually collectible.
I do not believe that our tort-liability rules should provide that whenever the appropriate response of a government agent could have prevented a personal injury or adverse health consequence, the responsible governmental unit is liable along with any primary tortfeasor. Not only were the governmental programs not designed to assume a personal duty to every potential beneficiary, particularly in an era of scarce public resources where need and demand are inevitably greater than the capacity to meet them, but the liability consequences of such a policy would be massive, threatening the ability of government to respond at all to health and safety threats. It would be wiser to spend any additional resources on making prevention programs work better for the benefit of all citizens rather than responding to tort claims.
Even in Vermont where most municipalities are small and are governed by volunteers, municipalities have responsibility in essential *278areas of public health and safety. For example, municipalities are generally responsible for law enforcement, fire protection, and housing and building codes. Thus, the abolition of municipal immunity would expose Vermont cities and towns to a great and unmeetable liability exposure.
One possible response to the issues before us is to point out the difficulties and deficiencies in possible approaches and leave it to the Legislature to act. Both the majority decision and the dissent of Justice Johnson propose this response. The majority resolution is not likely to induce any response since the Legislature can continue with the status quo no matter how irrational the status quo may be. Cities and towns, supported by insurance carriers, are likely to respond 'to Justice Johnson’s position by declaring a liability crisis, requiring immediate and emergency action by the Legislature to fix the problem. I do not think that we deal appropriately with a coequal branch of government by either action. I think our proper response is to create a new, workable municipal immunity rule. We can do so prospectively, as Justice Johnson suggests. If the Legislature is able to improve on any immunity rule we adopt, we should welcome its action.
The superior court proposed that we adopt, as an alternative to our current rule, the private-analog test, which is used to determine whether the state is immune from suit. See, e.g., Denis Bail Bonds, Inc. v. State, 159 Vt. 481, 486, 622 A.2d 495, 498 (1993). In addition, there are two main alternatives in use by courts which have abolished blanket municipal immunity and rejected the governmental/proprietary-responsibility rule: (1) immunity covering breaches of public duties; and (2) immunity for discretionary acts. I would adopt both of these alternatives. The public-duty rule is similar in effect and purpose to the private-analog test; its adoption would make it unnecessary to consider the private-analog test.
Under the public-duty rule, tort liability does not attach where the duty owed by the municipality runs to the public in general, rather than to any particular member of the public, in the absence of a special relationship between the municipality and the tort plaintiff. We have an interesting recent history with this rule. In Hudson v. Town of East Montpelier, 161 Vt. 168, 176-77, 638 A.2d 561, 566-67 (1993), we refused to adopt the doctrine as a defense to negligence cases against individual municipal employees. In doing so, we were quite critical of the rule: “it is confusing and leads to inequitable, unpredictable, and irreconcilable results.” Id. at 176, 638 A.2d at 566.
*279Nevertheless, one year later in Corbin v. Buchanan, 163 Vt. 141, 143, 657 A.2d 170, 172 (1994), we applied the doctrine to the question of whether a municipality could be liable for failure to conduct regular fire inspections of apartment buildings. In that case, a young boy died in a fire in a building that had been inspected by a town inspector in response to a complaint about wiring, plumbing and sewer problems. The inspector noticed that the building lacked smoke detectors, but did not pursue that issue because it was not part of the complaint. Plaintiff alleged that the fire code adopted by the town required regular periodic inspection and that such inspection would have turned up the absence of smoke detectors as a violation of the ordinance.
Without referring specifically to the public-duty doctrine, we held that the town could not be liable for failure to enforce the fire code because the duty was owed to “the public as a whole.” Id. We cited to public-duty-rule cases from other jurisdictions and quoted extensively from one. We recognized the apparent inconsistency of the holding with Hudson and attempted to distinguish that case on the ground that Hudson dealt with official immunity while Corbin dealt with whether a duty of care existed.
Justice Johnson would treat Corbin as sui generis, standing simply for the proposition that “government entities are not liable for their failure to enforce regulations adopted to protect the public at large.” 167 Vt. at 291-92, 706 A.2d at 458. While this statement covers part of the public-duty rule, it ignores other factual situations where the rationale will apply. I do not believe we can, or should, limit the application of the rationale.
I am reminded of the Massachusetts experience. In Dinsky v. Town of Framingham, 438 N.E.2d 51, 56 (Mass. 1982), the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court similarly held that a town was not liable for damages arising out of its failure to inspect pursuant to a building code because the building code created a duty only to the public at large. Over time, Dinsky was applied in other circumstances, and the court acknowledged in 1993 that it had adopted the “so-called public duty rule.” Jean W. v. Commonwealth, 610 N.E.2d 305, 308 (Mass. 1993). The court then reversed course, holding that the public-duty rule could not coexist with the comprehensive Massachusetts Tort Claims Act, which governed the liability of all units of government: See id. at 312. In-response, the Legislature amended the Act to specify the liability outcome in all the common circumstances covered by the public-duty rule. See Mass. Gen. Laws Ann. ch. 258, § 10 (West *280Supp. 1997). The law specifically provides immunity against claims based on issuance of or refusal to issue a license or permit, failure to inspect or negligent inspection, acts or omissions connected with fighting a fire, failure to provide adequate police protection or to arrest or detain suspects or enforce any law, and the release of persons in public custody. See generally Glannon, Liability for “Public Duties” Under the Tort Claims Act: The Legislature Reconsiders the Public Duty Rule, 79 Mass. L. Rev. 17 (1994).
Our Hudson decision criticized the public-duty rule for three reasons: (1) it resurrects governmental immunities; (2) “in recent years [it] has been rejected or abolished by most courts considering it”; and (3) “it is confusing and leads to inequitable, unpredictable, and irreconcilable results.” 161 Vt. at 176, 638 A.2d at 566. I agree generally with these criticisms if they are applied to the liability of individual government employees and we retain the governmental/ proprietary distinction to determine municipal liability. I think they are overstated when applied to municipal liability and should not deter us from adopting the public-duty rule as an alternative to our current policy.
If our goal is to eliminate municipal immunity, the public-duty rule is inconsistent with that goal. See, e.g., Note, Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 258, § 10: Slouching Toward Sovereign Immunity, 29 New Eng. L. Rev. 1079, 1080 (1995). But, I believe that our goal is different: to define where governmental assistance, designed to protect the health and safety of citizens generally, should give rise to a duty to protect individual citizens such that negligent breach of the duty should give rise to tort liability. The public-duty rule addresses that goal directly. Thus, the fact that it resurrects governmental immunities is its strength, not its weakness:
If there has been any trend to reject or abolish the public-duty rule, it has been a “slight trend.” Comment, Connecticut Tort Reform Act and Municipalities’ and Building Officials’ Liability, 20 Conn. L. Rev. 203, 216 (1987); see generally Annotation, Modern Status of Rule Excusing Governmental Unit from Tort Liability on Theory that Only General, Not Particular, Duty Was Owed Under Circumstances, 38 A.L.R.4th 1194 (1985 & Supp. 1997) (indicating that only a handful of states have rejected public-duty rule). In New England, only New Hampshire has abolished the rule. See Doucette v. Town of Bristol, 635 A.2d 1387, 1390 (N.H. 1993). The Massachusetts court abolished the rule, but, as discussed above, the legislature effectively reinstated it.
*281The most telling criticism of the public-duty rule is that it can be difficult to apply. I do not believe this is because the rule is inherently defective, but because the choices are often complex and hard. Any rule that attempts to determine instances where it is appropriate to impose municipal liability for governmental acts is necessarily complicated. The alternatives, however, are less acceptable. They are that we impose broad and unwarranted liability on municipalities because they have assumed responsibilities to protect the health and safety of their citizens, or that we, or the Legislature, adopt broad immunities that unnecessarily deny citizens a remedy. If the Legislature finds the applications of the rule inappropriate, it can, as in Massachusetts, legislate those results directly.
I would also immunize a municipality from acts of employees that are discretionary, rather than ministerial. Justice Johnson’s dissent states the rationale for this form of immunity. Although they differ on the scope of discretionary acts that are covered by immunity, all New England states extend municipal immunity to discretionary acts. See Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-557n(a)(2)(B) (Supp. 1997); Gordon v. Bridgeport Housing Auth, 544 A.2d 1185, 1189 (Conn. 1988); Me. Rev. Stat. Ann. tit. 14 § 8104-B(3) (West Supp. 1996); Adriance v. Town of Standish, 687 A.2d 238, 240 (Me. 1996); Mass. Gen. Laws Ann. ch. 258, § 10(b) (West 1988); Horta v. Sullivan, 638 N.E.2d 33, 36-37 (Mass. 1994); Merrill v. City of Manchester, 332 A.2d 378, 383 (N.H. 1974); Haley v. Town of Lincoln, 611 A.2d 845, 849 (R.I.1992).* Because this is a dissent, it is unnecessary to choose a detailed definition at this point.
The majority commits us to continue an artificial distinction that this Court created but cannot now endorse. I would understand our inaction if there were no alternatives that protect the legitimate interests of municipalities and yet provide relief for persons seriously injured by municipal negligence where tort liability is appropriate. We do a great injustice to this injured plaintiff, and others in similar situations, by not modernizing our law on municipal liability. I would let this action go to the jury, and dissent from the decision to terminate it prematurely.

 Rhode Island has merged the public-duty rule and the discretionary-function rule. Thus, political subdivisions are immune for “governmental actions that by their nature are not ordinarily performed by private persons.” Haley, 611 A.2d at 849.