Court Opinion

ID: 9782593
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 18:59:26.156892+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:06.306641
License: Public Domain

BROWN, J.
I respectfully dissent.
Like the majority, I agree that a police officer owes a general duty of care to the passengers in a vehicle stopped by that officer. I, however, believe the majority errs in formulating the appropriate standard of care. Under the undisputed facts, Officer Hedgecock’s legal duty to plaintiffs did not include a duty to stop plaintiffs somewhere other than the center median of the freeway. Thus, Officer Hedgecock did not breach his legal duty to plaintiffs as a matter of law. Accordingly, I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal and affirm the trial court’s grant of summary judgment for defendants.
*727Like the existence of a legal duty, the scope of that duty is a question of law for the court. (Merrill v. Navegar, Inc. (2001) 26 Cal.4th 465, 477 (Merrill).) In discussing the scope of Officer Hedgecock’s duty, the majority characterizes the issue as whether an officer “always satisfies” the duty of care by stopping a traffic violator “at any location off of the travel lanes of a highway.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 718.) Relying exclusively on Ramirez v. Plough, Inc. (1993) 6 Cal.4th 539 [25 Cal.Rptr.2d 97, 863 P.2d 167, 27 A.L.R.5th 899] (Ramirez), the majority answers “no” because no legislative or administrative pronouncements support such a rule (maj. opn., ante, at pp. 718-721), and because the California Highway Patrol Officer Safety Manual (Safety Manual) indicates “a strong preference for stopping a vehicle on the right shoulder rather than in the center median” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 721). The majority, however, engages in faulty analysis, and, in doing so, misstates the issue before the court. The issue is not whether an officer satisfies his duty of care in every case by stopping a traffic violator off the lanes of a highway. Rather, the issue is whether an officer satisfies his duty of care to the passengers of a car under the uncontested circumstances of this case when he stops their car in the median area. The answer should be “yes.”
As an initial matter, the majority mistakenly assumes that the scope of a defendant’s duty cannot depend on the particular facts of a case. “In most cases, courts have fixed no standard of care for tort liability more precise than that of a reasonably prudent person under like circumstances.” (Ramirez, supra, 6 Cal.4th at p. 546.) “[Hjowever ... in particular situations a more specific standard may be established by judicial decision, statute or ordinance.” (Kentucky Fried Chicken of Cal., Inc. v. Superior Court (1997) 14 Cal.4th 814, 824 [59 Cal.Rptr.2d 756, 927 P.2d 1260].) Thus, “ ‘each case must be considered on its own facts to determine’ ” the scope of the legal duty owed by a defendant to a class of plaintiffs “ ‘to refrain from subjecting them to’ ” a given risk. (Dillon v. Legg (1968) 68 Cal.2d 728, 742 [69 Cal.Rptr. 72, 441 P.2d 912, 29 A.L.R.3d 1316] (Dillon), italics added, quoting Hergenrether v. East (1964) 61 Cal.2d 440, 445 [39 Cal.Rptr. 4, 393 P.2d 164].) Indeed, where the facts are undisputed, we have regularly affirmed summary judgment for a defendant even though the defendant owed a general duty of care to the plaintiff, because that general duty did not require the defendant to act any differently under the facts of the case. (See, e.g., Sharon P. v. Arman, Ltd. (1999) 21 Cal.4th 1181, 1189-1199 [91 Cal.Rptr.2d 35, 989 P.2d 121] (Sharon P.); Parsons v. Crown Disposal Co. (1997) 15 Cal.4th 456, 477-483 [63 Cal.Rptr.2d 291, 936 P.2d 70] (Parsons); Thompson v. County of Alameda (1980) 27 Cal.3d 741, 753-758 [167 Cal.Rptr. 70, 614 P.2d 728, 12 A.L.R.4th 701] (Thompson); cf. Artiglio v. Corning Inc. (1998) 18 Cal.4th 604, 616 [76 Cal.Rptr.2d 479, 957 P.2d 1313] [affirming summary judgment because there was “no triable issue of *728fact concerning the scope of defendant’s duty under Rest.2d Torts, § 324A].)
The majority’s second mistake lies in its exclusive focus on legislative or administrative pronouncements in formulating the standard of care. When determining the scope of a defendant’s legal duty under the particular facts of a case, courts do not always rely on legislative or administrative pronouncements, but weigh all relevant public policy considerations. (See Merrill, supra, 26 Cal.4th at p. 477.) As part of the weighing process, “ ‘foreseeability of risk [is] of . . . primary importance. . . .’” (Dillon, supra, 68 Cal.2d at p. 739, italics added, quoting Grafton v. Mollica (1965) 231 Cal.App.2d 860, 865 [42 Cal.Rptr. 306].) Foreseeability for purposes of the duty analysis, however, is different from foreseeability “in the fact-specific sense in which we allow juries to consider [the] question.” (Parsons, supra, 15 Cal.4th at p. 476.) “[A] court’s task—in determining ‘duty’—is not to decide whether a particular plaintiff’s injury was reasonably foreseeable in light of a particular defendant’s conduct, but rather to evaluate more generally whether the category of negligent conduct at issue is sufficiently likely to result in the kind of harm experienced that liability may appropriately be imposed.” (Ballard v. Uribe (1986) 41 Cal.3d 564, 573, fn. 6 [224 Cal.Rptr. 664, 715 P.2d 624].)
After determining the foreseeability of harm, courts typically balance' foreseeability against other relevant policy considerations to determine the scope of a defendant’s duty “within the factual context of a specific case.” (Lopez v. McDonald’s Corp. (1987) 193 Cal.App.3d 495, 506 [238 Cal.Rptr. 436] (Lopez); see also Parsons, supra, 15 Cal.4th at p. 476.) Relevant policy considerations include “the degree of certainty that the plaintiff suffered injury, the closeness of the connection between the defendant’s conduct and the injury suffered, the moral blame attached to the defendant’s conduct, the policy of preventing future harm, the extent of the burden to the defendant and consequences to the community of imposing a duty to exercise care with resulting liability for breach, and the availability, cost, and prevalence of insurance for the risk involved.” (Rowland v. Christian (1968) 69 Cal.2d 108, 113 [70 Cal.Rptr. 97, 443 P.2d 561, 32 A.L.R.3d 496].) “When public agencies are involved,” courts may also consider “ ‘the extent of [the agency’s] powers, the role imposed upon it by law and the limitations imposed upon it by budget.’ ” (Thompson, supra, 27 Cal.3d at p. 750, quoting Raymond v. Paradise Unified School Dist. (1963) 218 Cal.App.2d 1, 8 [31 Cal.Rptr. 847].) This lengthy list of policy considerations, however, is neither exhaustive (Lopez, at p. 506), nor mandatory (see, e.g., Sharon P., supra, 21 Cal.4th at pp. 1191-1199 [analyzing legal duty without considering all the Rowland factors]; Ann M. v. Pacific Plaza Shopping Center (1993) 6 Cal.4th 666, 678-680 [25 Cal.Rptr.2d 137, 863 P.2d 207] (Ann M.) [same]).
*729Thus, where the relevant facts are undisputed, a court may define a more specific standard of care than the reasonably prudent person standard if the public policy considerations warrant it. In such cases, the court may be able to decide the case on summary judgment because the definition of a more specific standard of care often resolves an interrelated issue; whether a defendant breached his legal duty of care. “ ‘[T]he question whether an act or omission will be considered a breach of duty . . . necessarily depends upon the scope of the duty imposed. . . .’ ” (Federico v. Superior Court (1997) 59 Cal.App.4th 1207, 1211 [69 Cal.Rptr.2d 370], quoting Wattenberger v. Cincinnati Reds, Inc. (1994) 28 Cal.App.4th 746, 751 [33 Cal.Rptr.2d 732].) If a defendant’s conduct satisfies the standard of care defined by the court as a matter of law under the undisputed facts of the case, then the defendant, by definition, has not breached any legal duty. Indeed, some of our early decisions rely on foreseeability of harm and other policy considerations to find no breach of a legal duty as a matter of law. (See, e.g., La Manna v. Stewart (1975) 13 Cal.3d 413, 428-429 [118 Cal.Rptr. 761, 530 P.2d 1073] [a pedestrian had no duty to continuously look “in the direction of potential oncoming traffic” under the facts and could not breach her legal duty because the imposition of such a duty would have placed her in even greater danger]; Schmitt v. Henderson (1969) 1 Cal.3d 460, 465-466 [82 Cal.Rptr. 502, 462 P.2d 30] [a pedestrian had no duty “to be alert to danger approaching him from behind” under the facts and could not breach his legal duty because there was no foreseeability of harm]; see also Putensen v. Clay Adams, Inc. (1970) 12 Cal.App.3d 1062, 1077-1078 [91 Cal.Rptr. 319] [balancing “the likelihood of harm, and the gravity of the harm if it happens . . . against the burden of precaution which would be effective to avoid the harm” under the facts of the case may lead to a finding that the defendant did not breach his duty of care as a matter of law (italics omitted)].)
A survey of our more recent negligence cases further illustrates these principles at work. In Thompson, the County of Alameda released a juvenile offender into a neighborhood without warning police, other parents in the neighborhood or the juvenile’s mother. The released offender later murdered the plaintiffs’ son. (Thompson, supra, 27 Cal.3d at p. 746.) Although we recognized that the county had a duty “to exercise reasonable care to protect all of its citizens” (id. at p. 753), we concluded that this duty did not include a duty to warn under the particular facts of the case (id. at pp. 756-758). We reached this conclusion “based in part on policy considerations and in part upon an analysis of ‘foreseeability’ within the context of this case.” (Id. at p. 753, italics added.) We further acknowledged that the county may have had a duty to warn under different facts, i.e., if there had been “a prior threat to a specific identifiable victim.” (Id. at p. 758.) Because the county lacked *730such a duty under the facts of this case and therefore could not, as a matter of law, breach its general duty of care, we dismissed the plaintiffs’ negligence claim. (See ibid.)
More recently, we affirmed summary judgment for a defendant after defining a more specific standard of care under the particular facts of that case based on public policy considerations. In Parsons, the plaintiff claimed that the defendant’s negligent operation of a garbage truck caused her to fall off her horse. (Parsons, supra, 15 Cal.4th at p. 463.) Although we held that the defendant owed certain common law duties to the plaintiff, we concluded that these duties did not include a duty to guard against frightening horses under the circumstances presented. (Id. at p. 477.) Thus, the defendant, as a matter of law, did not breach its duty of care to the plaintiff. (Id. at p. 485.) We reached this conclusion by balancing the foreseeability of harm against relevant public policy considerations, including “the social utility of the defendant’s conduct, and the consequences to the community of imposing a duty to guard against frightening [horses].” (Id. at p. 476.) We, however, acknowledged that the defendant could have been negligent for failing to guard against frightening horses under different factual circumstances. (See id. at pp. 477-478.)
We have also applied these same principles in affirming summary judgment for defendants in the premises liability context. In Sharon P., an assailant attacked the plaintiff in an underground parking garage. The plaintiff sued the owner of the premises and the operator of the parking garage, alleging, among other things, that the defendants negligently failed to provide adequate security. (Sharon P., supra, 21 Cal.4th at p. 1185.) Although we acknowledged that the defendants had a duty to protect the plaintiff “ ‘against foreseeable criminal acts of third parties’ ” (id. at p. 1189, quoting Ann. M., supra, 6 Cal.4th at p. 674), we affirmed summary judgment for the defendants (Sharon P., at p. 1199). To reach this result, we balanced the foreseeability of the attack against the efficacy of additional security measures and the resulting burden on the defendants. (See id. at pp. 1189-1199.) Based on this balancing, we concluded that the defendants had no duty to provide additional security measures under the undisputed facts. (Ibid.) Thus, the defendants, as a matter of law, did not breach their general duty of care to the plaintiff. (See id. at p. 1199.) We, however, implicitly recognized that a legal duty to provide additional security measures might exist under different facts, i.e., if there had been “prior similar incidents or other indications of a reasonably foreseeable risk of violent criminal assaults in that location.” (Ibid.; see also Ann M., supra, 6 Cal.4th at pp. 679-680 [the defendant had no duty to provide security guards absent notice of prior similar incidents].)
*731Thus, our case law establishes that public policy considerations may justify the definition of a more specific standard of care than the reasonably prudent person standard in certain cases where the relevant facts are undisputed. In such cases, a court may properly grant summary judgment for a defendant if the more specific standard establishes that the defendant could not have breached his legal duty as a matter of law. This is such a case.
I begin by considering the foreseeability of harm in the context of this case. Foreseeability must be analyzed “in terms of the totality of the circumstances facing the police officer at the scene.” (Dutton v. City of Pacifica (1995) 35 Cal.App.4th 1171, 1175 [41 Cal.Rptr.2d 816] (Dutton).) In the traffic enforcement context, any assessment of foreseeability must account for the inherent risk created by a routine stop because “neither police nor their employer [may] incur any liability by virtue of’ the “original police decision to stop ... a suspected wrongdoer.” (Sparks v. City of Compton (1976) 64 Cal.App.3d 592, 596 [134 Cal.Rptr. 684] (Sparks).) Any traffic enforcement stop “carries a risk of harm that a” negligent third party driver “will crash into the stopped vehicles.” (Whitton v. State of California (1979) 98 Cal.App.3d 235, 242 [159 Cal.Rptr. 405, 17 A.L.R.4th 886].) Thus, the foreseeability of harm created by an officer’s execution of a stop must be measured in relation to the foreseeability of harm inherent in a routine stop. Otherwise, officers may be held liable for their decision to stop a suspected traffic violator and become insurers of the motorists they stop. (Ibid. [holding officers liable for the risks inherent in any traffic enforcement stop would result in “a liability-extending doctrine of ‘risk in the air’ ”].)
These principles establish that the foreseeability of harm created by Officer Hedgecock’s decision to stop plaintiffs in the median area was minimal to nonexistent. The relevant facts are undisputed. The weather was dry and visibility was good. The car occupied by plaintiffs was parked well within the median area. The median area was wider than the right shoulder, and the right shoulder was adjacent to a downward slope. Contrary to the general pronouncements of plaintiffs’ expert, no admissible evidence in the record even suggests that a car parked in this particular median area was in fact less visible than a car parked on the right shoulder or that the driver of the truck that hit plaintiffs was in fact distracted by the presence of a vehicle in the median area. Although plaintiffs’ expert observed that traffic in the lane closest to the median generally travels faster than traffic in the lane closest to the right shoulder, the record establishes that traffic in the number one lane was travelling only minimally faster than traffic in the other two lanes. Moreover, traffic in all lanes was moderately heavy. Finally, Officer Hedgecock had stopped traffic violators in the median area on numerous occasions without incident, and there was no evidence that accidents were *732more likely in the median area than on the right shoulder. Under these facts, the risk of harm to plaintiffs was no different from the risk of harm inherent in any traffic stop. Indeed, stopping plaintiffs on the right shoulder as suggested by the Safety Manual arguably would have increased the likelihood of harm to plaintiffs because they would have had to cross two busy lanes of traffic to reach the right shoulder. Holding that Officer Hedgecock might have breached his legal duty to plaintiffs under these circumstances creates the type of “ ‘Monday-morning quarterbacking’ ” that negligence law should avoid. (See Dutton v. City of Pacifica, supra, 35 Cal.App.4th at p. 1175, quoting Williams v. State of California (1983) 34 Cal.3d 18, 30 [192 Cal.Rptr. 233, 664 P.2d 137] (conc, and dis. opn. of Mosk, J.).)
The countervailing policy considerations also strongly support such a conclusion. By enacting numerous statutes relating to traffic safety (see, e.g., Veh. Code, §§ 21000-23336), and by making police officers statutorily immune for their decision to stop a suspected traffic violator (Gov. Code, § 820.2; Sparks, supra, 64 Cal.App.3d at p. 596), the Legislature has established a strong public policy in favor of enforcing the rules of the road. Indeed, rigorous enforcement of our traffic laws serves a vital public function by making “automobile driving less dangerous.” (Breithaupt v. Abram (1957) 352 U.S. 432, 439 [77 S.Ct. 408, 412, 1 L.Ed.2d 448].) Where, as here, the location of the stop was no more dangerous than any other available location, holding that an officer could breach his legal duty by stopping a traffic violator in one of those locations would create a “Catch-22” situation. No matter where the officer stopped the violator, he would arguably create a risk of harm and open himself and his employer to liability. Indeed, the majority carefully avoids any suggestion that Officer Hedgecock could have escaped liability by stopping plaintiffs on the right shoulder and offers no alternative location for the stop. If officers may incur liability no matter where they stop a traffic violator, they have less incentive to make stops, resulting in the reduced enforcement of our traffic laws. Rather than impede such police work, I would conclude that Officer Hedgecock, as a matter of law, satisfied his duty of care to plaintiffs under the circumstances presented here. (See Parsons, supra, 15 Cal.4th at p. 476 [holding that the social utility of defendant’s conduct overrode the foreseeability of harm].)
The Safety Manual does not dictate a contrary conclusion. Although the manual states a preference for stopping traffic violators on the right shoulder, it allows for officer discretion. For example, the manual’s consistent use of the word “should”—rather than “shall”—implies that officers have discretion when deciding where to conduct a traffic enforcement stop. The manual also states that an officer, “if possible,” should “ensure a violator does not . . . park in the median divider.” Finally, the manual specifically *733addresses the situation where “a violator stops in the center divider” and states that the officer must decide whether the hazards of conducting the stop in the center median are greater than the hazards of moving the violator across multiple freeway lanes. Although this provision ostensibly covers situations where the violator stops in the median on his own volition, it implies that officers must do the same calculation when deciding where to stop a violator travelling in the lane farthest from the right shoulder. Because the manual does not conflict with my conclusions above, the admissibility of the manual as evidence of the standard of care (see Grudt v. City of Los Angeles (1970) 2 Cal.3d 575, 588 [86 Cal.Rptr. 465, 468 P.2d 825]), does not preclude us from affirming summary judgment in defendants’ favor on the uncontroverted facts.
Indeed, the majority’s contrary conclusion will likely cause more problems than it will solve. By holding that discretionary provisions in a manual preclude summary judgment under the facts of this case, the majority creates a huge incentive for government agencies to discard or sanitize their manuals in an effort to minimize the possibility of open-ended tort liability. Such a result will likely have deleterious effects by depriving government employees of useful guides for doing their jobs.
The majority’s reliance on the cited provisions of the Safety Manual may also have the perverse effect of increasing the number of accidents. (See Adams v. City of Fremont (1998) 68 Cal.App.4th 243, 273 [80 Cal.Rptr.2d 196] [declining to impose a duty that would “likely result in more deaths or injuries”].) By ignoring the undisputed facts and reversing summary judgment solely based on the manual’s suggestion to stop traffic violators on the right shoulder, the majority, in effect, creates a legal presumption for traffic stops on the right shoulder. As a result, officers will likely conduct all traffic stops on the right shoulder even though they are more familiar with the roads they patrol than this court. Where, as here, the right shoulder arguably creates a greater risk of accident than the median area, this judicially imposed limitation on officer discretion will likely increase the risk of harm. Consequently, the majority will likely cause more accidents than it prevents because its failure to provide officers with any meaningful guidance does nothing to reduce the possibility of such accidents.
The facts in this case are tragic, and I, like my colleagues, have great sympathy for plaintiffs, who suffered severe injuries through no apparent fault of their own. Nonetheless, I do not believe that Officer Hedgecock or the State of California should be held responsible for these injuries. Holding that a jury could find that Officer Hedgecock breached his legal duty under the facts of this case will not reduce the likelihood of such accidents in the *734future. Instead, such a holding will likely hinder enforcement of our traffic laws and may even increase the number of accidents. While I might conclude differently under another set of facts, I believe that Officer Hedgecock had no duty to stop plaintiffs in a different location under the undisputed facts presented here. Accordingly, he did not, as a matter of law, breach his legal duty to plaintiffs.
Baxter, J., concurred.