Court Opinion

ID: 9721486
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:00:35.683153+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:26.360600
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
dissenting.
Distinction is made in the Tort Claims Act between governmental entities and public employees. Claims against the State of Indiana, its agencies, and against political subdivisions are barred unless notice of them is given within one hundred eighty days after a loss occurs. Ind. Code §§ 34 — 4^16.5-6 and 34 — 4-16.5-7. However, the statute does not similarly bar claims against public employees for failure to give notice of them. The Act does, however, create a form of protection and assistance for public employees in the provision we are called upon to consider in this case. Those provisions state:
“(a) A judgment rendered with respect to or a settlement made by a governmental entity bars an action by the claimant against an employee whose conduct gave rise to the claim resulting in that judgment or settlement.
(b) Subject to the provisions of IC 34— 4-16.5 — 4, IC 34-4-16.5-13, IC 34-4-16.5-14, and IC 34r-4-16.5 — 15, the governmental entity shall pay any judgment, compromise, or settlement of a claim or suit against an employee when the act or omission causing the loss is within the scope of his employment, regardless of whether the employee can or cannot be held personally liable for the loss and when the governor, in the case of a claim or suit against a state employee, or the governing body of the political subdivision, in the case of a claim or suit against an employee of a political subdivision, determines that paying the judgment, compromise, or settlement is in the best interest of the governmental entity.
(c) The governmental entity shall pay all costs and fees incurred by or on behalf of an employee in defense of a claim or suit for a loss occurring because of acts or omissions within the scope of his employment, regardless of whether the employee can or cannot be held personally liable for the loss.”
The protection provided here is the bar to claims in subparagraph (a), the executive discretion to pay judgments and settlements in subparagraph (b) and the executive duty to pay costs and fees in subpara-graph (c).
I agree that the question posed by this appeal is whether a “judgment” within Ind. Code § 34 — 4-16.5-5(a) in favor of a governmental entity rendered on the basis of the failure to give it the one hundred eighty day notice of claim, bars a claim against the employee whose conduct was claimed tor-tious.
To give the preclusive or barring effect to a judgment in favor of the governmental entity based upon the failure of the claimant to have given the governmental entity the required notice of claim, as the majority opinion does, is to grant a protection to employees expressly reserved in the statute to governmental entities alone and distrib*891utes that protection among employees in an arbitrary and inequitable manner, based as it must be upon the choice of the injured claimant to press his claim against the governmental entity to judgment or settlement before moving against the employee. On the other hand, to include in those judgments to be accorded the special preclusive effect intended by subparagraph (a) only those resulting from a determination upon the merits of the underlying tort claim is consonant with the statute as a whole, and the protections thereby granted to employees is more fairly and rationally distributed.
Furthermore the generally accepted rule is that there is joint and several responsibility of an employer and an employee for the tort of the employee arising out of the conduct of the employee in the course of his duties. The employee is the active wrongdoer and his liability is direct and primary. The liability of the employer arises through the policy of the law underlying the doctrine of respondeat superior and is indirect and derivative. The person injured by the wrongful act of the employee may join the employer and the employee in a single action or may bring separate actions against each. If the injured party elects to bring separate actions, a judgment rendered against the employer in one is not binding upon the claimant or the employee in the other because the doctrines of res judicata and estoppel by judgment are inoperative since the parties to the two actions are not identical, there is no privity between the employer and the employee, and there is no mutuality of estoppel. State, Ind. State Highway Com’n v. Speidel, (1979) Ind., 392 N.E.2d 1172.
Subparagraph (a) may accurately be analyzed as eliminating the prerequisites noted above for the proper application of res judi-cata or estoppel by judgment and extending those doctrines where the employer is a governmental entity. The legislative choice to take this step carries with it the legislative sanction of the notions of fairness which justify res judicata and estoppel by judgment, namely, that issues once judicially resolved after full and fair opportunity has been afforded adversaries to litigate them, should be final and not relitigated. That legislative sanction is present here and further warrants the conclusion that a judgment to be accorded the preclusive effect mandated by subparagraph (a) is one in which the issues of whether there was a breach of duty by the government employee with resultant injury to the claimant, have been resolved on their merits. A judgment following a dismissal at the behest of the governmental entity for failure to give the required notice of claim has not followed a determination on the merits of the underlying tort claim, and therefore it should not bar a subsequent action against the employee.
For the above reasons I cannot agree with the position taken by the Court in its opinion, and respectfully dissent thereto.