Court Opinion

ID: 9730061
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:59:57.945208+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:03.742885
License: Public Domain

DEVINE, P. J.
I concur in affirmance of the judgment. I believe, however, that the judgment may be sustained on another ground.
As a matter of law, the actions of the police officers did not constitute the proximate cause of any damage to plaintiff, and plaintiff cannot make them do so simply by a general allegation in his complaint. As the matter is explained in 2 Chadbourn, Grossman & Van Alstyne, California Pleading, section 971, page 63, from a theoretical standpoint, it appears that the allegation that acts or omissions of a defendant are the proximate cause of damages to the plaintiff should be classified as a conclusion of law. As a practical matter, however, the distinction between conclusions of law and ultimate facts is not clear and involves, at most, a matter of degree. (Burks v. Poppy Construction Co., 57 Cal.2d 463, 473-474 [20 Cal.Rptr. 609, 370 P.2d 313].) Ordinarily, therefore, an allegation that an act negligently performed, or an omission to do something which ought with due care to have been done, proximately caused damages to the plaintiff is sufficient. But where, as in the complaint herein, facts are alleged by plaintiff himself which show that whatever damages were received by him were produced by an efficient intervening cause, a general demurrer on the ground that the complaint states no cause of action is properly sustained. Where matter which constitutes a defense appears from the face of the complaint, a general demurrer is sustainable. (Routh v. Quinn, 20 Cal.2d 488, 493 [127 P.2d 1, 149 A.L.R. 215]; Lingsch v. Savage, 213 Cal.App.2d 729, 740 [29 Cal.Rptr. 201, 8 A.L.R.3d 537].)
When a statement of facts is put before the district attorney, as it is alleged by plaintiff was done in this case, it becomes his duty to decide whether or not to prosecute. (Taliaferro v. City of San Pablo, 187 Cal.App.2d 153 [9 Cal.Rptr. 445].) He is the one who should ascertain whether the evidence submitted by the police officers is sufficient for the issuance of the complaint. If he chooses to do this by relying on the reports of peace officers, without testing the officers, for example by putting to them the inquiry whether they had made the tests which plaintiff says they should have made, this is an exercise of his, the district attorney’s, discretion. Even if he places his reliance on the officers’ reports because of pressure of business, or even because of insistence by the officers that their conclusions and observations are correct, nevertheless, he, the district attorney, exercises discretion in accepting these representations. He becomes the prime mover when he signs the complaint. His action constitutes the *89sole proximate cause of plaintiff’s damages. Of course, this bars .recovery-by plaintiff because the prosecutor is immune from liability for wrongful exercise of his discretion.