Court Opinion

ID: 9777603
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:16:36.106537+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:57.275299
License: Public Domain

LAMBERT, Justice,
dissenting in part and concurring in part.
In my view the majority has erred in exonerating trooper Stockton of liability. I believe sufficient evidence was presented to go to a jury on Stockton’s negligence.
It is important to recall that Stockton had arrested the decedent for an alleged sex crime against his minor stepdaughter. Stockton was informed that the decedent had threatened suicide and that he usually carried a knife. If ever there were facts and circumstances known to a police officer which dictated a high degree of care, these were they. There is no doubt that Stockton recognized some danger of suicide for he brought to the attention of the jail employee and pretrial release officer that there had been a threat of suicide. Whether he was negligent in searching the prisoner and whether his negligence, if any, was a substantial factor in the death of the decedent was for the jury.
Contrary to this Court’s opinion in University of Louisville v. O’Bannon, Ky., 770 S.W.2d 215 (1989), and contrary to our venerable decision in Happy v. Erwin, Ky., 330 S.W.2d 412 (1959), the majority has conferred immunity upon an employee of the Commonwealth. In O’Bannon, we held that a legislative attempt to confer such immunity upon a state employee was unconstitutional. In O’Bannon the issue was whether a physician employed by the University of Louisville, and thus the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and engaging in medical practice in such capacity, was entitled to sovereign immunity for his negligence. We held he was not. Here, the issue is whether Trooper Stockton, an employee of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, engaged in the performance of his duties, is entitled to the immunity of the Commonwealth. Our decision that he has *206such immunity cannot be harmonized with the authority cited hereinabove.
Except as stated herein, I concur.
STUMBO, J., joins this opinion dissenting in part and concurring in part.