City of Richmond v. Maia

• Decision Date: 30 May 2017
• Docket Number: S16G1337
• Citation: 800 S.E.2d 573
• Parties: CITY OF RICHMOND HILL et al. v. MAIA.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

301 Ga. 257

800 S.E.2d 573

CITY OF RICHMOND HILL et al.

v.MAIA.

S16G1337

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: May 30, 2017

Benjamin Mason Perkins, Patrick T. O'Connor, OLIVER, MANER LLP, P.O. Box 10186, Savannah, Georgia 31412, Lauren Elizabeth Haburchak Meadows, Carlock, Copeland, & Stair LLP, 191 Peachtree Street NE, Suite 3600, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, Ray Chandlar Smith, 10153 Ford Avenue, Building 2A, Richmond Hill, Georgia 31324-0497, for Appellant.

Susan Janan Moore, Sam L. Brannen, Jr., GEORGIA MUNICIPAL ASSOCIATION, INC., 201 Pryor Street, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30303, James Richard Westbury, Jr., JAMES R. WESTBURY, JR., P.C., 1012 Memorial Drive, Suite 13, Griffin, Georgia 30224, Kelly Jean Long Pridgen, Assistant General Counsel, G. Joseph Scheuer, Association County Commissioners of Georgia, 191 Peachtree, N.E., Suite 700, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, for Amicus Appellant.

Billy N. Jones, JONES, OSTEEN & JONES, 206 E. Court Street, Hinesville, Georgia 31313, Carl Robert Varnedoe, JONES, OSTEEN & JONES, 608 E. Oglethorpe Highway, Hinesville, Georgia 31313, for Appellee.

Hunstein, Justice.

Following the suicide death of her 14-year-old daughter, Appellee Laura Lane Maia filed an action against the mayor and city council of the City of Richmond Hill (collectively, "the City") and Douglas Sahlberg, individually and in his capacity as an officer with the Richmond Hill Police Department (collectively "Appellants"), alleging wrongful death and associated claims.¹ In response, Appellants moved for summary judgment, asserting that Appellee could not prove proximate cause; the trial court denied the motion. The Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of summary judgment in a plurality decision. See Mayor of City of Richmond Hill et al. v. Maia , 336 Ga.App. 555 (2), 784 S.E.2d 894 (2016). We granted certiorari to review division (2) of the decision below; for the reasons discussed herein, we conclude that Appellee cannot demonstrate proximate cause and, therefore, reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals.

On February 14, 2011, Appellee's daughter, Sydney Sanders, attempted suicide by cutting herself in the neck, chest, and abdomen, and she was subsequently taken to the hospital for medical treatment. Officers with the Richmond Hill Police Department ("RHPD"), including Officer Douglas Sahlberg, responded to the hospital to investigate, and Sanders's injuries were photographed by the officers.² Later that month, Sahlberg accessed those photographs on his work computer and showed them to his daughter, K.S., who was a classmate of Sanders; shortly thereafter, K.S. was seen using her cell phone to show the images to other classmates, and Sanders was distraught and mortified to discover that the photographs had been shared. On April 5, 2011, the date on which Sanders would eventually take her life, RHPD responded to a "suspicious person" call at Sanders's home. Officers discovered Sanders—who had stayed at home from school that day—alone with her boyfriend without permission; officers also observed an unopened condom fall out of the boy's trousers. Later in the day, Sanders lamented to her mother how she felt humiliated and belittled by the responding officers and wondered, in light of the dissemination of the injury photos, what further information the officers would disclose. In a subsequent conversation with her softball coach, Sanders went on a "rampage," venting her frustration about the "photos going around the school," about school gossip, about disappointing her mother, and about her struggles with both her boyfriend and sister. Despite Appellee's attempt to keep Sanders supervised, Sanders was left at home alone that evening, and she took her own life.

In her subsequent complaint, Appellee averred, inter alia, that Sahlberg had a duty to keep the injury photographs confidential, that he had breached that duty, that Sahlberg should have known that the publication of the photographs created a reasonable apprehension that Sanders would further harm herself, and that Sanders's death was caused by Sahlberg's negligent conduct. Appellants subsequently moved for summary judgment, asserting that Appellee could not demonstrate causation because, under Georgia law, suicide is generally an independent act which breaks the chain of causation from the events preceding the death; Appellants also averred that the exceptions to the general rule regarding suicide are inapplicable in this case. In response, Appellee argued that the question of proximate cause, even in suicide cases, turns on the question of the foreseeability of harm and that such an issue is a jury question. The trial court denied the motion with a one-page order and granted a certificate of immediate review. A divided Court of Appeals affirmed, concluding that, because "Sanders's suicide was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of Sahlberg's negligent conduct, [Sanders's] act of suicide was not an intervening act that would preclude Sahlberg's breach of duty from constituting the proximate cause of that injury." Maia , 336 Ga.App. at 563, 784 S.E.2d 894. Appellants contend that the Court of Appeals misstated and misapplied the law; Appellee argues, however, that the foreseeability test adopted below is sound. Because Georgia law generally deems suicide an unforeseeable intervening cause that breaks any causal connection between alleged negligent conduct and the resulting death, and, because the narrow exceptions to that rule do not apply here, we agree with Appellants.

1. "It is well established that to recover for injuries caused by another's negligence, a plaintiff must show four elements: a duty, a breach of that duty, causation and damages." (Citations and punctuation omitted.) Johnson v. American Nat. Red Cross , 276 Ga. 270, 272, 578 S.E.2d 106 (2003). "[A] plaintiff must prove that the defendant's negligence was both the ‘cause in fact’ and the ‘proximate cause’ of the injury," Atlanta Obstetrics & Gynecology Group, P.A. v. Coleman , 260 Ga. 569, 569, 398 S.E.2d 16 (1990). "Inextricably entwined with concepts of negligence and proximate cause is a notion of foreseeability."

Brandvain v. Ridgeview Institute, Inc. , 188 Ga.App. 106, 115, 372 S.E.2d 265 (1988). To that end, the well-established doctrine of intervening causes states that

there can be no proximate cause where there has intervened between the act of the defendant and the injury to the plaintiff, an independent act or omission of someone other than the defendant, which was not foreseeable by defendant, was not triggered by defendant's act, and which was sufficient of itself to cause the injury.

(Emphasis added.) McQuaig v. McLaughlin , 211 Ga.App. 723, 726, 440 S.E.2d 499 (1994).

As the Court of Appeals correctly recognized below, it has long been the rule in Georgia that, generally speaking, suicide is deemed an unforeseeable intervening cause of death which absolves the tortfeasor of liability. Maia , 336 Ga.App. at 562, 784 S.E.2d 894 (quoting Dry Storage Corp. v. Piscopo , 249 Ga.App. 898, 900, 550 S.E.2d 419 (2001) ). See also Stevens v. Steadman , 140 Ga. 680, 79 S.E. 564 (1913) (concluding that threatening letter sent by business partners may have contributed to decedent's state of mind at the time of his suicide but that the suicide could not have been "said to be the legal and natural result of the acts of the defendants"); Appling v. Jones , 115 Ga.App. 301 (1), 154 S.E.2d 406 (1967) (physical precedent only) (recognizing the "practically unanimous rule" that suicide "is a new and independent agency which does not come within and complete a line of causation from the wrongful act to the death and therefore does not render defendant liable for the suicide"). Though it is true that, generally speaking, the foreseeability of an intervening cause maintains the causal connection between the original wrongful conduct and the subsequent injury, see, e.g., Williams v. Grier , 196 Ga. 327, 336, 26 S.E.2d 698 (1943), we stress that the usual foreseeability principle does not apply to cases involving suicide because suicide is generally deemed an unforeseeable intervening cause as a matter of law, and the Court of Appeals's apparent reliance on the general foreseeability principle in its decision below was error.³ Instead, Georgia law has carved out two deviations from the general rule that suicide breaks the causal connection between an alleged negligent act and the resulting death: the so called rage-or-frenzy exception and the special-relationship exception.⁴

Regarding the first exception, "[w]here the tortfeasor's wrongful act causes the injured party to kill himself during a rage or frenzy, or in response to an uncontrollable impulse, the wrongful act is considered to be the proximate cause of the suicide." Dry Storage Corp. v. Piscopo , 249 Ga.App. at 900, 550 S.E.2d 419.⁵ This is so because, in such circumstances, the resulting act of suicide "is not a voluntary one, but is involuntary, and is not an act which breaks the causal connection between the homicide and the act which caused the injury." Elliot t v. Stone Baking Co. , 49 Ga.App. 515, 515, 176 S.E. 112 (1934). In Elliot t , the Court of Appeals applied this rage-or-frenzy exception in a case where a decedent became "mentally irresponsible and insane" as a result of a head injury caused by a car accident, and, "while in this insane condition and as a result of this condition, he killed himself by shooting himself in the head." 49 Ga.App. at 516, 176 S.E. 112. The rage-or-frenzy exception sets a high bar, and is not met simply by evidence of depression or anger, see Dry Storage Corp. v. Piscopo , 249 Ga.App. at 900, 550 S.E.2d 419, or by evidence that a decedent was " ‘dazed,’ ‘stunned,’ ‘shocked,’ ‘extremely irrational’ and ‘violent.’ " Appling , 115 Ga.App. at 304, 154 S.E.2d 406. Instead, it requires a showing that the suicide was a product of insanity, delirium, an uncontrollable impulse, or was accomplished without conscious...