Court Opinion

ID: 9667484
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:47:09.459592+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:38.419834
License: Public Domain

Bronson, J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part). I concur in the majority’s conclusion that plaintiff’s complaint fails to set forth a legally cognizable intentional tort claim. Rather, the intentional tort count really avers acts of gross negligence rather than intentional misconduct on the part of the 911 operators.
I do not agree, however, with the majority’s conclusion that the operation of a 911 emergency system constitutes a governmental function. Initially, I disagree with the majority’s characterization of the 911 system as somehow being part and parcel of the police department. The 911 emergency system handles emergency calls for police, fire, and medical assistance. The system is staffed by civilians employed by the City of Detroit. It is designed to make emergency assistance more effective by freeing up fire and police personnel for regular duty and by using one simple three-digit *516telephone number, enabling the citizenry to make immediate requests for assistance as needed. It is easier to remember "911” than separate seven-digit numbers for the local police precinct and firehouse. The 911 system is not the police department, however, but rather, serves a limited function as a clearinghouse for all emergency calls for assistance.
I agree with the majority that Justices Kavanagh, Fitzgerald, and Levin would hold that the operation of a 911 emergency system does not constitute a governmental function. The operation of a 911 system, like the operation of almost anything else, could be carried out by the private sector. See, the dissenting opinions in Thomas v Dep’t of State Highways, 398 Mich 1; 247 NW2d 530 (1976). I further agree with the majority’s statement that Chief Justice Coleman and Justices Ryan and Williams would use a common-law approach to determine if a particular activity constitutes a governmental function. Thomas, supra, pp 9-10. Under this approach, I also conclude that the management and operation of a publicly run emergency system which takes calls for police assistance would come within the scope of governmental immunity at common law as incident to the operation of the police department.
Thus, I also agree with the majority that analysis of Justice Moody’s position on governmental immunity is necessary to ascertain how the Supreme Court would resolve this issue. In Parker v Highland Park, 404 Mich 183; 273 NW2d 413 (1978), and Perry v Kalamazoo State Hospital, 404 Mich 205; 273 NW2d 421 (1978), Justice Moody accepted an "essence of government standard” for resolving governmental immunity issues. However, unlike Justices Kavanagh, Fitzgerald, and *517Levin, who essentially believed that "planning” and policy decisions constituted "the essence of government”, while operational aspects generally did not, Justice Moody proposed to resolve governmental immunity problems by asking whether the particular function can only be effectively accomplished by government. Thus, a general municipal hospital was not a governmental function, but, because of lack of competition from the private sector, state responsibility for placement of mentally ill persons, the need to segregate mentally ill patients, and the substantial financial commitment made by the state to combat mental illness, the operation of a publicly run mental health hospital was immune from tort liability.
The majority states that: "Operation of an emergency dispatch system is an indispensable part of the operation of a police department”. If the 911 system is "indispensable” to police operations, how did Detroit manage to muddle through the many decades in which no such system existed? How do the many communities which still do not have 911 systems cope without this "indispensable” service? That which is indispensable for any police department to be effective is some system for taking complaints and dispatching personnel. Before the institution of the 911 system, the Detroit Police Department was able to do this. I am sure that the police department could effectively do this now if it chose to do so.
All the 911 system really serves to do is to interpose another entity between the distressed citizen and the police. The complaint made by plaintiffs is that 911 operators, who are not police officers, assigned unjustifiably low priority ratings to plaintiff’s decedents’ calls for assistance. Had there been no 911 system, the decedents here *518could have directly phoned a police dispatcher, and the senseless tragedy which occurred here might very well have been averted. I have no quarrel with the decision to implement a 911 system, however, whether it is really more effective than the former practice of citizens calling their local police precincts, I cannot say. I do contend, however, that even if some benefits do flow from handling requests for police protection through a 911 system, this does not make the system "indispensable” or a governmental function.
Detroit could have declined to use city employees to maintain a 911 system and taken bids from private security firms or answering services to maintain an emergency system. Had this been done, the only significant differences between that system and the one Detroit now employs is that privately employed personnel would assign the priority numbers to calls instead of non-police city employees and that victims who have suffered injury as a proximate cause of a privately employed emergency operator’s negligence would undoubtedly have a cause of action. Moreover, but for the police department’s refusal to dispatch cars except through the 911 system, any number of security firms could contract with members of the public to provide the same service. The city emphasizes the need to have trained personnel as 911 operators, but one need not be a city employee to be trained, and this action does not involve a claim against the city based on negligent training in any case.
The majority distinguishes Berkowski v Hall, 91 Mich App 1; 282 NW2d 813 (1979), which held that a municipality’s operation of an emergency medical services (EMS) unit is not of essence to govern*519ing, by pointing out that the government receives substantial competition in the area of ambulance service while no common analogy to a police department is found in the private sector. By looking for a private sector police force, the majority really fails to focus on the purpose and function of the 911 system. Although the majority purports to distinguish, for purposes of governmental immunity, the overall operation of a police department from the specific activities involved here, it really fails to do so. After finding that the police function is governmental, the majority then states that "we must next determine whether the particular activity at issue is related to the governmental function”. I suggest that this sort of examination of a particular activity has nothing to do with the current state of the law. What activities conducted by the police are not "related” to the governmental function? Even such activities as police athletic leagues are "related” to the sound functioning of a police department. Police involvement in these athletic programs has the effect of promoting the department’s esteem with the public, and only when the public trusts, and works with, the police can they be truly effective. Under Justice Moody’s test, the important query is whether the activity can only be effectively accomplished by government, not whether the particular activity "relates” to some other function which is concededly within the ambit of governmental immunity. What we must determine is not whether there is a "common analogy to a police department in the private sector”, but whether the policing function can only be effectively carried out if a city-run 911 emergency system exists. In my opinion, a 911 system is simply unnecessary. It may or may not facilitate the police department’s dispatching function. In any case, the dispatching function could effectively *520be carried out by simply sending out patrol cars based on the distressed citizens’, or private security firms’, direct calls to the policing agency.
There is no governmental mandate that some third party or agency stand between the police and the public when it comes to requests for police assistance. There do exist private security firms which will obtain police assistance upon a signal from their customers. Admittedly, as things currently stand, these firms will merely call 911, and not the police directly, to report a distress call. However, this is because the police department will only dispatch cars based upon 911 priority reports. Thus, although the private sector does not compete with the 911 system, this is not because it could not in the abstract, but because the city and the police department have precluded such competition by refusing to respond to citizen calls not routed through the 911 system. In Perry, supra, Justice Moody found that publicly run state mental hospitals were entitled to the protection of the governmental immunity statute because, but for these hospitals, the legislatively mandated care and supervision of the mentally ill could not effectively be carried out. In this case, the police can easily carry out their policing function and dispatch their numbers without the existence of the 911 emergency system. By creating the 911 system, all the city has done is establish a new bureaucracy (without any negative connotations intended), separating the citizenry from the police, a bureaucracy which may be helpful, but is ultimately unnecessary to the police department’s ability to respond effectively to calls for aid. In light of my beliefs that the policing function can effectively be carried out without the 911 emergency system, and that such an emergency system *521effectively could be carried out through the private sector if necessary, I conclude that plaintiffs’ analogy to Berkowski, supra, is sound and that Justice Moody would not find the operation of a 911 emergency system to constitute a governmental function.11 would reverse._

 In this appeal, we are not dealing with a citizen’s direct call to a police officer dispatcher. No claim is made that plaintiffs decedents phoned the police directly, and the police dispatcher delayed sending out an officer to investigate. A city in which the public directly talks to a police dispatcher has a far more persuasive case for governmental immunity. In such a situation, the police department is really being left to determine on its own the best way in which to attack the new crisis and to resolve how to perform its policing function. The 911 system, however, is staffed by civilian city employees and said employees’ negligence in incorrectly assigning a priority status to a call is not the negligence' of the police department. Rather, it is the negligence of an intermediary, another city agency. A city agency which, in my opinion, is unnecessary and performs a function which could be fulfilled by the private sector. It is entirely possible that any benefits obtained by a 911 emergency system are outweighed by the fact that experienced police officers are not dispatching personnel directly, so that tragedies such as occurred here result.