Fitzpatrick v. State

• Decision Date: 19 April 1989
• Docket Number: No. 88-657,88-657
• Parties: Michael F. FITZPATRICK, Connie Fitzpatrick, Michael Ryan Fitzpatrick, and Bryan Fitzpatrick, Appellants, v. STATE of Iowa; Iowa Board of Parole, An Agency of the State of Iowa; Tom J. Molamphy, Both Individually and as a Parole Officer of the State of Iowa; William L. Gillman, Both Individually and as Director of the Fourth Judicial District Department of Correctional Services, Appellees.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 663

439 N.W.2d 663

Michael F. FITZPATRICK, Connie Fitzpatrick, Michael Ryan Fitzpatrick, and Bryan Fitzpatrick, Appellants, v. STATE of Iowa; Iowa Board of Parole, An Agency of the State of Iowa; Tom J. Molamphy, Both Individually and as a Parole Officer of the State of Iowa; William L. Gillman, Both Individually and as Director of the Fourth Judicial District Department of Correctional Services, Appellees.

No. 88-657.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

April 19, 1989.

Bruce H. Stoltze of Brick, Seckington, Bowers, Swartz & Gentry, P.C., Des Moines, for appellants.

Thomas J. Miller, Atty. Gen., Eleanor E. Lynn, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellees.

Considered en banc.

CARTER, Justice.

The plaintiff, Michael F. Fitzpatrick, is a police officer in the State of Washington who alleges he was shot and seriously injured by a burglary suspect who proved to be on parole from the Iowa State Penitentiary. The officer and members of his family commenced the present action against the State of Iowa, the Iowa Board of Parole, the suspect's parole officer, and the parole officer's supervisor. Recovery was sought under the Iowa Tort Claims Act (Iowa Code ch. 25A) based on alleged negligence and also under 42 U.S.C. section 1983 based on alleged deprivation of protected constitutional rights. The district court dismissed the action on motion under Iowa Rule of Civil Procedure 104(b). The plaintiffs have appealed. Upon consideration of the arguments presented on the appeal, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

The record presented to the district court on the motion to dismiss consisted entirely of the rather detailed allegations of the petition. These allegations were substantially as follows. Jerry Dale Lain was released on parole from the Iowa State Penitentiary on April 7, 1982. On September 7, 1982, plaintiff Michael F. Fitzpatrick, while on duty as a police officer for the City of Richland, Washington, was stabbed and shot while trying to arrest Lain for a burglary in that city. As a result of the assault on Fitzpatrick, Lain was convicted in a Washington court of assault with a deadly weapon and sentenced to life imprisonment.

The conviction which had led to Lain's incarceration in the State of Iowa occurred in 1978. On May 13, 1978, he had been sentenced to serve ten years in the Iowa State Penitentiary for conviction of willful injury, a class C felony. In August 1978 and again in February 1979, Lain underwent psychological evaluations. These examinations revealed a history of violence, and he was diagnosed as having an antisocial personality disorder. On August 29, 1980, Lain was subjected to another psychiatric evaluation which was conducted at the Iowa State Medical Facility in Oakdale. He was again diagnosed as having an antisocial personality disorder.

The petition alleges that while Lain was incarcerated he was found guilty of numerous prison rule violations, including assaulting other inmates. His applications for parole were rejected in April 1979 and April 1980. On April 7, 1982, Lain was granted parole. Defendant Tom J. Molamphy, a community correction service worker in the Missouri Valley area, was assigned Lain's parole supervision.

The petition alleges that, almost immediately upon his release from custody and continuing during the months of May and June of 1982, Lain committed serious violations of his parole agreement which were known to defendant Molamphy. These violations consisted of disorderly conduct, assault upon Lain's wife, intoxication, and breaking a window at his wife's parents' house. At least one of these incidents had resulted in Lain's arrest by Missouri Valley police on a charge of criminal mischief.

When Molamphy attempted to contact Lain with respect to these violations in late June 1982, he was unable to locate him. Various individuals suggested to Molamphy that Lain, in violation of his parole agreement, had gone to the State of Washington with another Iowa parolee. On August 6, 1982, Molamphy presented a parole violation information and arrest warrant to a Harrison County magistrate. At this same time, he recommended that the Board of Parole revoke Lain's parole. The report recommending revocation was approved by defendant William Gillman, Molamphy's supervisor. The petition asserts that, notwithstanding the foregoing circumstances, police authorities in the State of Washington had not been advised by Iowa authorities as to Lain's suspected presence in that state at the time officer Fitzpatrick was accosted.

Plaintiffs claim that the State, its agencies, and the two state employees named as defendants were guilty of negligence in several particulars, which was a proximate cause of injuries to plaintiff Michael F. Fitzpatrick, his wife and children. They claim that the Board of Parole was negligent in paroling Lain when it had reason to know that he would be a danger to the community. They claim that community corrections service worker Molamphy was negligent in supervising Lain's parole status and that Molamphy's superior, defendant Gillman, was negligent in supervising Molamphy with respect to Lain's parole. It is also claimed by plaintiffs that the State and its agents were negligent in not advising law enforcement agencies in the State of Washington that Lain was believed to have fled to that state in violation of his parole. Plaintiffs also claim that the same acts or omissions upon which they predicate their negligence claims give rise to liability under 42 U.S.C. section 1983.

I. Legal Sufficiency of Plaintiffs' Negligence Claims.

The order granting defendants' motion to dismiss under rule 104(b) can be upheld only if the petition on its face fails to state a cause of action upon which relief could be granted under any circumstances. Smith v. State, 324 N.W.2d 299, 300 (Iowa 1982); Cole v. Taylor, 301 N.W.2d 766, 767 (Iowa 1981); Weber v. Madison, 251 N.W.2d 523, 525 (Iowa 1977). In determining this issue, we must view the allegations of the petition in the light most favorable to plaintiffs. Citizens for Washington Square v. City of Davenport, 277 N.W.2d 882, 883-84 (Iowa 1979); Weber, 251 N.W.2d at 525. The district court's order indicated that the motion was sustainable on the basis that the State and its employees acted with due care as a matter of law. It also indicated that the motion was sustainable under the "fireman's rule" which this court recognized in Pottebaum v. Hinds, 347 N.W.2d 642 (Iowa 1984).

The State seeks to uphold the district court's order on both of the grounds specified in the ruling. It also urges that the motion was properly granted on the grounds raised in paragraph six of its motion to dismiss. That paragraph of the motion asserted that there was no cause of action for parole officer negligence on the facts which plaintiffs assert.

If any ground asserted in a motion to dismiss is valid, a ruling sustaining the motion will be affirmed on appeal, even though other reasons were relied on by the district court. Rick v. Boegel, 205 N.W.2d 713, 716 (Iowa 1973); In re Lone Tree Community School Dist., 159 N.W.2d 522, 526 (Iowa 1968); Emmert v. Neiman, 245 Iowa 931, 934, 65 N.W.2d 606, 608 (1954). Because the district court's reliance on the pleadings to establish due care as a matter of law was tenuous, and its application of the fireman's rule has raised some doubts, we prefer to test the ruling against the alternative ground advanced in paragraph six of the State's motion.

In seeking reversal, plaintiffs note that, under subsection 5(b) of Iowa Code section 25A.2 (1981), tort claims are allowed against state employees for injuries caused by a "negligent or wrongful act or omission ... while acting within the scope of the employee's office or employment." They further note that, under subsection 5(a) of that statute, tort claims may be brought against the state for the "negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee."

Plaintiffs also stress that this court suggested in Anthony v. State, 374 N.W.2d 662 (Iowa 1985), in considering the analogous situation of a prisoner under work release supervision, that

[t]he State could be liable in negligence for failing to exercise due care in implementing [the work release] plan but not for breach of any duty that inheres in the decisions involved in formulating the plan.

Id. at 667. Plaintiffs tacitly concede that the approach to discretionary function advanced in Anthony and the more recent decision of Sheerin v. State, 434 N.W.2d 633 (Iowa 1989), would insulate the state and its agencies from any liability arising from both the decision to parole Lain and the decisions relating to the terms and conditions of his parole. They urge, however, that the Anthony rationale, as expressed in the quoted language, does not preclude and, indeed, supports their claims based on negligent implementation of Lain's parole.

In response to these arguments, the State urges that the suggestion in our decisions that the discretionary function or duty exception is strictly limited to decisions made at the planning level should be modified. It urges that some decisions made at the operational level should also be included within the discretionary function exception. In addition, the State argues that, irrespective of the discretionary function exception, the same rationale which led to rejection of "social worker malpractice" for negligent placement of children in M.H. by and through Callahan v. State, 385 N.W.2d 533 (Iowa 1986), and Rittscher v. State, 352 N.W.2d 247 (Iowa 1984), should lead to rejection of liability claims for "parole officer malpractice."

In seeking to resolve the conflicting claims of the parties, we begin with a review of the Anthony decision. The portion of the opinion indicating that the state "could be liable for negligence" as a result of acts or omissions at the operational level was, we believe, intended to confirm the principle that liability for operational negligence was not...