Melvin ex rel. Their Deceased Minor Child Wayne Torrie v. Weber Cnty.

• Decision Date: 06 August 2013
• Docket Number: No. 20120500.,20120500.
• Citation: 309 P.3d 216,740 Utah Adv. Rep. 42
• Parties: Melvin and Raeghn TORRIE individually, and Melvin and Raeghn Torrie for and on behalf of their deceased minor child Wayne Torrie, Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. WEBER COUNTY and Denton Harper, Defendants and Appellees.
• Court: Utah Supreme Court

309 P.3d 216

740 Utah Adv. Rep. 42

Melvin and Raeghn TORRIE individually, and Melvin and Raeghn Torrie for and on behalf of their deceased minor child Wayne Torrie, Plaintiffs and Appellants,

v.WEBER COUNTY and Denton Harper, Defendants and Appellees.

No. 20120500.

Supreme Court of Utah.

Aug. 6, 2013.

James W. McConkie Jr., Bradley H. Parker, W. Alexander Evans, Salt Lake City, for appellants.

Peter Stirba, J., Michael Hansen, Julia D. Kyte, Salt Lake City, for appellees.

INTRODUCTION

Associate Chief Justice NEHRING, opinion of the Court:

¶ 1 This case presents an issue of first impression for this court—whether law enforcement owes a duty of care to fleeing suspects. Under a plain language analysis of the governing statute, we hold that law enforcement officers engaged in pursuit owe a duty to all persons, including fleeing suspects. The appellants, however, fail to meet their burden on appeal on their separate claim that Weber County owes a fleeing suspect a duty of care with respect to its law enforcement agency's implementation of policies and procedures regarding vehicular pursuits and with regard to the training and supervision provided to its officers.

BACKGROUND

¶ 2 On March 23, 2010, sixteen-year-old Wayne Torrie returned home from school upset because he had been teased by classmates. After an argument with one of his siblings, and against his mother's wishes, Wayne left home in his family's red Chevrolet Suburban. Mrs. Torrie called the Cache County Sheriff's Office and reported that her son had taken the family vehicle. She requested that officers locate Wayne and bring him into custody. While Mrs. Torrie was on the phone with police dispatch, Wayne returned home and pulled into the driveway next to his mother and rolled down the window of the Suburban. Wayne then left again after hearing his mother on the phone speaking with dispatch.

¶ 3 After speaking with the police, Mrs. Torrie attempted to reach Wayne on his cell phone. Wayne did not answer his mother's calls but responded with text messages indicating that he was suicidal. Mrs. Torrie informed dispatch that her son was threatening to commit suicide by crashing the vehicle if police attempted to apprehend him, but she did not ask law enforcement to stop their search efforts.

¶ 4 Cache County personnel eventually determined that Wayne had entered Weber County and contacted the Weber County Sheriff's Office. Cache County provided Weber County with a summary of the situation, including a description of Wayne and the vehicle he was driving, a warning that he was likely suicidal, and that he had texted his parents saying that he was almost out of gas. Cache County also requested that Wayne be brought into custody if he was located.

¶ 5 Deputy Denton Harper of the Weber County Sheriff's Office spotted Wayne in unincorporated Weber County. When he first saw Wayne, the two were traveling in opposite directions. Deputy Harper waited for Wayne to pass him, then turned around and pulled up behind him. Deputy Harper verifiedthe license plate and driver description, then activated his overhead flashing lights while Wayne was stopped at a stop sign. Wayne disregarded Deputy Harper's attempt to pull him over, turned right at the stop sign, and began to accelerate. Deputy Harper followed in pursuit. Wayne repeatedly crossed the double center divide line of the two-lane road to pass vehicles. During the pursuit, Deputy Harper reported to dispatch that he was traveling about seventy-five miles per hour. Information later recovered from the Suburban indicated that Wayne had reached speeds up to ninety-nine miles per hour. ¹ After less than a minute with Deputy Harper in pursuit, Wayne's vehicle abruptly left the road and rolled several times in a neighboring field. Wayne was ejected from the vehicle during the crash and subsequently died from his injuries.

¶ 6 Wayne's parents filed a lawsuit against Deputy Harper and Weber County, alleging various theories of negligence in connection with Deputy Harper's pursuit of their son.² After the conclusion of discovery, Mr. and Mrs. Torrie filed for summary judgment, arguing that summary disposition was appropriate because the defendants had not designated an expert witness to rebut their expert on the standard of care. Deputy Harper and Weber County responded with a cross-motion for summary judgment, arguing that no legal duty was owed to fleeing suspects. The district court denied the Torries' motion and granted Deputy Harper and Weber County's motion, stating, “The Court, having reviewed the memoranda filed by the parties, having heard the arguments of counsel, and being fully advised in the premises[,] hereby rules that Defendants Weber County and Denton Harper owed no duty to Plaintiffs' decedent, Wayne Torrie.” Plaintiffs timely appealed. This court has jurisdiction pursuant to Utah Code section 78A–3–102(3)(j).

STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶ 7 “We review the district court's decision to grant summary judgment for correctness, affording the trial court no deference.” ³ “An appellate court reviews a trial court's legal conclusions and ultimate grant or denial of summary judgment for correctness, and views the facts and all reasonable inferences drawn therefrom in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.” ⁴

ANALYSIS

¶ 8 The district court dismissed the Torries' claims on summary judgment, determining that there was no legal duty owed to their son. The Torries argue that the district court erred because the statutory language exempting emergency vehicle operators from general traffic laws imposes a duty, including to fleeing suspects. We agree and reverse, determining that the district court prematurely dismissed the Torries' cause of action. The Torries also contend that a common law duty should be imposed.⁵ Because we determine that there is a statutory duty, we decline to reach that issue.

¶ 9 For a plaintiff to prevail on a claim of negligence, the plaintiff must establish: “(1) that the defendant owed the plaintiff a duty, (2) that the defendant breached that duty, (3) that the breach of duty was the proximate cause of the plaintiff's injury, and (4) that the plaintiff in fact suffered injuries or damages.” ⁶ “Duty arises out of the relationshipbetween the parties and imposes a legal obligation on one party for the benefit of the other party.” ⁷ “Duty must be determined as a matter of law and on a categorical basis for a given class of tort claims” and is “analyzed at a broad, categorical level for a class of defendants.” ⁸ We caution against the potential for “misunderstanding of the role of duty in tort analysis, sometimes conflating duty with breach and proximate cause.” ⁹

¶ 10 “ ‘For a governmental agency and its agents to be liable for negligently caused injury suffered by a member of the public, the plaintiff must show a breach of a duty owed him as an individual, not merely the breach of an obligation owed to the general public at large....’ ” ¹⁰ The public duty doctrine precludes the imposition of a duty on a government entity with respect to specific individuals in the absence of a “specific connection between the government agency and the individuals that makes it reasonable to impose a duty.” ¹¹ There are at least four circumstances that may create such a special relationship:

(1) by a statute intended to protect a specific class of persons of which the plaintiff is a member from a particular type of harm; (2) when a government agent undertakes specific action to protect a person or property; (3) by governmental actions that reasonably induce detrimental reliance by a member of the public; and (4) under certain circumstances, when the agency has actual custody of the plaintiff or of a third person who causes harm to the plaintiff.¹²

The Torries argue that the first example applies here and that Deputy Harper had a statutory duty to use reasonable care in deciding whether to pursue Wayne and in his subsequent execution of that high speed pursuit.

¶ 11 We previously determined in Day v. State ex rel. Utah Department of Public Safety that a law enforcement officer engaged in high speed pursuit of a suspect owes a statutory duty of care to innocent third parties.¹³ We must now decide whether that duty extends to the fleeing suspect. In analyzing whether a statutory duty exists, we look first to the statute itself and give effect to its plain language. “[W]e presume that the legislature was deliberate in its choice of words and used each term advisedly and in accordance with its ordinary meaning. Where a statute's language is unambiguous and provides a workable result, we need not resort to other interpretive tools, and our analysis ends.” ¹⁴Utah Code section 41–6a–212, the statute providing exemptions to traffic laws for emergency vehicles, states in subsection (6) that “[t]he privileges granted under this section do not relieve the operator of an authorized emergency vehicle of the duty to act as a reasonably prudent emergency vehicle operator in like circumstances.” ¹⁵Further, subsection (1)(b) of the statute states, “the operator of an authorized emergency vehicle may exercise the privileges granted under this section when ... in the pursuit of an actual or suspected violator of the law,” indicating that the legislature intended the statute to apply to pursuits like the case at bar.¹⁶ The legislature's failure to include a carve-out exception to the duty referenced in subsection (6) for fleeing suspects, an act which we consider to be deliberate on the part of the legislature,¹⁷ reinforces our determination that such a duty should therefore be imposed.

¶ 12 While we recognize that other jurisdictions have looked to the plain language of similar statutes and interpreted that the duty did not extend to fleeing suspects,¹⁸ we decline to depart from our established plain language analysis.¹⁹ “[I]t is elementary that we do not seek guidance from legislative history and relevant policy...