Court Opinion

ID: 9741523
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:57:17.388018+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:24.510851
License: Public Domain

SHEPARD, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
While I have concurred in result in today’s cases concerning immunity for jail operations, I dissent in this case because I think it is fairly plain that a police officer patrolling the highways in search of unlawfully licensed recreational vehicles is “enforcing a law” and thus immune under the Indiana Tort Claims Act.
The legislative history of the Act suggests that officer Miller and the City of Wakarusa were entitled to immunity under Ind.Code § 34-4-16.5-3(7). The earliest version of the ITCA would have established a system whereby the State reinstituted the doctrine of sovereign immunity after Campbell v. State (1972), 259 Ind. 55, 284 N.E.2d 733, and waived immunity only in specific instances. See Judicial Study Commission minutes (September 7, 1972); 1973 Ind. Senate J. 203-10 (Committee Report, Senate Bill 130, February 13, 1973).
The early version of the ITCA, ultimately not passed into law, dictated that
[ijmmunity of all governmental entities from suit is waived for any injury resulting from the negligent operation or use of any motor vehicle or other motorized equipment by any employee while in the scope of his employment. This section shall not apply to the operation of an emergency vehicle as defined by law while being operated or used in response to an emergency call or an emergency situation.
1973 Ind. Senate J. at 205. This provision suggests that originally the legislature considered waiving immunity for accidents, like the one at bar, not occurring in an emergency situation. But see Note, Seymour National Bank v. State Interprets the Indiana Tort Claims Act: Can the Enforcers Do No Wrong?, 16 Ind.L.Rev. 705, 711-12 (1983) (suggesting that even this earliest version of ITCA would have protected emergency vehicles in non-emergency actions). That the legislature instead chose to reinstate general immunity for “the adoption and enforcement of or failure to adopt or enforce a law (including rules' and regulations), unless the act of enforcement constitutes false arrest or false imprisonment,” Ind.Code § 34-4-16.5-3(7), suggests that the General Assembly did not wish to waive immunity in cases like the one before us.