Hull v. Town of Newtown

• Decision Date: 26 December 2017
• Docket Number: SC 19656
• Citation: 327 Conn. 402,174 A.3d 174
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Andrew HULL et al. v. TOWN OF NEWTOWN

327 Conn. 402

174 A.3d 174

Andrew HULL et al.

v.TOWN OF NEWTOWN

SC 19656

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued September 12, 2017

Officially released December 26, 2017

David N. Rosen, for the appellants (plaintiffs).

Aaron S. Bayer, Hartford, with whom was Tadhg Dooley, New Haven, for the appellee (defendant).

Kathleen M. Flaherty, Newington, and Kirk W. Lowry, Middletown, filed a brief for the Connecticut Legal Rights Project et al. as amici curiae.

Rogers, C.J., and Palmer, Eveleigh, McDonald, Robinson, Vertefeuille and Espinosa, Js.^*

ESPINOSA, J.

This appeal requires us to determine whether certain policy and procedures of the Newtown Police Department (department) imposed a ministerial duty on its officers to search Stanley Lupienski, an individual suffering from auditory hallucinations and shortness of breath, when they took him into custody pursuant to General Statutes § 17a–503 (a).¹ The plaintiffs, Andrew Hull and Erica Hull,² appeal³ from the judgment of the trial court granting summary judgment in favor of the defendant, the town of Newtown. The plaintiffs contend that the arrest section of the department's policy (arrest policy) imposesa ministerial, nondiscretionary duty on the police to search anyone taken into custody, including those taken into custody pursuant to § 17a–503 (a). See Newtown Board of Police Commissioners, Newtown Police Policy and Procedure 3.00 (revised February 1, 2005) (Police Policy). Alternatively, the plaintiffs argue that Lupienski was a prisoner and, therefore, subject to mandatory search under the department's prisoner transportation section of the policy (transportation policy). See id., 3.07 (revised May 5, 2009). The defendant counters that the arrest policy applies only in the context of criminal arrest and does not apply in the context of civil mental health custody, which is governed by § 17a–503 (a). The defendant also argues that the transportation policy does not apply to those under custody pursuant to § 17a–503 (a). We agree with the defendant and, therefore, affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The following undisputed facts are relevant to this appeal. The plaintiffs' claims arise from an incident at Danbury Hospital on March 2, 2010. While a patient at the hospital, Lupienski shot Andrew Hull, an assistant nurse manager. Lupienski had been transported to the hospital approximately thirty-eight hours earlier, after he went to the department complaining of auditory hallucinations and shortness of breath. Without searching Lupienski, Officer Steven Borges took him into involuntary custody and arranged for him to be transported to the hospital by Newtown Emergency Management Services, as provided by § 17a–503 (a).

The plaintiffs subsequently brought this action, seeking damages for, inter alia, the injuries sustained by Andrew Hull, and alleging that the police had a ministerial, nondiscretionary duty to search Lupienski pursuant to the arrest policy. The defendant moved for summary judgment, arguing that (1) it was immune from liability because any duty to search was discretionary rather than ministerial, (2) any requirement to search would have been a public duty resulting in a public injury rather than an individual injury, (3) there was no custody pursuant to the arrest policy and therefore no duty to search Lupienski, and (4) the plaintiffs had submitted no proof that a search would have revealed a weapon. The trial court denied the motion. The plaintiffs subsequently filed a motion seeking a legal ruling from the trial court as to whether "custody" under § 17a–503 (a) equates to "arrest" under the arrest policy. In its memorandum of decision, the court concluded that "as a matter of law ... taking a person into custody pursuant to § 17a–503 (a) is not an ‘arrest’ and that Lupienski was not ‘arrested’ under the [Police Policy]." As a result of the trial court's decision, the defendant filed a second motion for summary judgment, contending that the police had no duty to search Lupienski because he was not arrested under the arrest policy or under § 17a–503 (a). Several weeks later, the plaintiffs moved to amend the complaint to include their alternative theory that alleged that the police had a duty to search Lupienski pursuant to the transportation policy. The trial court denied the plaintiffs' motion to amend and granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment. The court also denied the plaintiffs' subsequent motion for reconsideration, which argued that the trial court improperly declined to consider the transportation policy as an alternative legal basis for the duty to search. This appeal followed.

The plaintiffs' primary argument implicates governmental immunity. Their theory of liability is that the police had a ministerial or mandatory, nondiscretionary duty to search Lupienski. The plaintiffs rest this conclusion on two premises. First, the plaintiffs contend that the arrest policy requires officers to search arrestees, and that individuals, like Lupienski, who are taken into custody pursuant to § 17a–503 (a), have been "arrested" for the purposes of the arrest policy. Second, the plaintiffs offer as an alternative argument that the transportation policy imposed a ministerial, nondiscretionary duty to search Lupienski. The defendant counters that neither § 17a–503 (a) nor the arrest or transportation policies imposed such a duty and that, as a result, the defendant is shielded from liability due to governmental immunity.

We begin by setting forth the applicable standard of review. "Summary judgment shall be rendered forthwith if the pleadings, affidavits and other proof submitted show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.... The scope of our appellate review depends upon the proper characterization of the rulings made by the trial court.... When ... the trial court draws conclusions of law, our review is plenary and we must decide whether its conclusions are legally and logically correct and find support in the facts that appear in the record." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Marchesi v. Board of Selectmen , 309 Conn. 608, 620, 72 A.3d 394 (2013).

With respect to governmental immunity, under General Statutes § 52–557n, a municipality may be liable for the "negligent act or omission of a municipal officer acting within the scope of his or her employment or official duties." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Coley v. Hartford , 312 Conn. 150, 161, 95 A.3d 480 (2014). The determining factor is whether the act or omission was ministerial or discretionary. See id., at 161–62, 95 A.3d 480 (contrasting extent of municipal liability for ministerial versus discretionary acts). "[ Section] 52–557n (a) (2) (B)... explicitly shields a municipality from liability for damages to person or property caused by the negligent acts or omissions which require the exercise of judgment or discretion as an official function of the authority expressly or impliedly granted by law." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., at 161, 95 A.3d 480. In contrast, "municipal officers are not immune from liability for negligence arising out of their ministerial acts, defined as acts to be performed in a prescribed manner without the exercise of judgment or discretion." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., at 162, 95 A.3d 480.

Discretionary acts are treated differently from ministerial acts "in part because of the danger that a more expansive exposure to liability would cramp the exercise of official discretion beyond the limits desirable in our society.... [D]iscretionary act immunity reflects a value judgment that—despite injury to a member of the public—the broader interest in having government officials and employees free to exercise judgment and discretion in their official functions, unhampered by fear of second-guessing and retaliatory lawsuits, outweighs the benefits to be had from imposing liability for that injury." (Citation omitted; footnote omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., at 161, 95 A.3d 480.

These concerns are particularly appropriate in the present case, in light of the "broad scope of governmental immunity that is traditionally afforded to the actions of municipal police departments." Id., at 164, 95 A.3d 480. "[I]t is firmly established that the operation of a police department is a governmental function, and that acts or omissions in connection therewith ordinarily do not give rise to liability on the part of the municipality.... [Accordingly] [t]he failure to provide, or the inadequacy of, police protection usually does not give rise to a cause of action in tort against a city." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id. For example, in Coley , we held that governmental immunity shielded the city of Hartford in a wrongful death action stemming from alleged police negligence where two officers failed to stay on the scene of a domestic violence call that later turned fatal. Id., at 152, 155–56, 95 A.3d 480. The plaintiff in Coley claimed that the General Statutes and a Hartford police departmental policy that set forth procedures for police response to domestic violence imposed a nondiscretionary duty to "remain at the scene for a reasonable amount of time until the likelihood of imminent violence had been eliminated ...." Id., at 152, 95 A.3d 480. This court held that "the police officers' allegedly negligent acts ... required the exercise of discretion, and, accordingly, the [city of Hartford] [was] immune from liability for its discretionary acts." Id., at 172, 95 A.3d 480.

In the present case, the police would have been required to search Lupienski only if the arrest policy in conjunction with § 17a–503 (a), or the transportation policy, imposed a ministerial duty to do so. We address each possibility in turn.

I

The plaintiffs' first argument in support of their claim that the police had a ministerial duty operates in three parts: (1) the arrest policy...