Sadler v. New Castle County

• Decision Date: 09 May 1989
• Citation: 565 A.2d 917
• Parties: Kenneth Lee SADLER and Violet Sadler, Plaintiffs Below, Appellants, v. NEW CASTLE COUNTY, James D. McCarnan, Harry Connor, Eric Cannon, Richard Hegelund, Professional Ambulance Service, Inc., a Delaware corporation, Talleyville Fire Company, a Delaware corporation, the Mayor and Council of Wilmington, Carmen Maiorano, Edward Hojnicki and Ronald Anderson, Defendants Below, Appellees. . Submitted:
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Delaware

Page 917

565 A.2d 917

Kenneth Lee SADLER and Violet Sadler, Plaintiffs Below, Appellants, v. NEW CASTLE COUNTY, James D. McCarnan, Harry Connor, Eric

Cannon, Richard Hegelund, Professional Ambulance Service,

Inc., a Delaware corporation, Talleyville Fire Company, a

Delaware corporation, the Mayor and Council of Wilmington,

Carmen Maiorano, Edward Hojnicki and Ronald Anderson,

Defendants Below, Appellees.

Supreme Court of Delaware.

Submitted: May 9, 1989.

Decided: Oct. 26, 1989.

Morton Richard Kimmel (argued), Edward B. Carter, Jr. and William R. Peltz, of Kimmel, Weiss & Carter, P.A., Wilmington, for appellants.

John G. Mulford (argued) and David S. Lank, of Theisen, Lank, Mulford & Goldberg, P.A., Wilmington, for appellees, New Castle County, James D. McCarnan and Eric Cannon.

F. Alton Tybout, of Tybout, Redfearn & Pell, Wilmington, for appellee, Richard Hegelund.

Paul M. Lukoff (argued) of Prickett, Jones, Elliott, Kristol & Schnee, Wilmington, for appellee, Talleyville Fire Company.

Jeffrey S. Goddess (argued) of Saul, Ewing, Remick & Saul, Wilmington, for appellees City of Wilmington, Carmen Maiorano, Edward Hojnicki and Ronald Anderson.

Before HORSEY, MOORE and WALSH, JJ.

WALSH, Justice:

This is an appeal from the grant of summary judgment by the Superior Court in favor of certain governmental entities and their employees who participated in the rescue of the plaintiff, Kenneth Lee Sadler, ¹ after he was injured in a fall in the Brandywine River. In his Superior Court action, Sadler contended that the individuals who participated in the rescue and the governmental entities who employed or controlled them, New Castle County (the "County"), Talleyville Fire Company ("Talleyville"), and the City of Wilmington (the "City"), were negligent in selecting an unduly hazardous means to remove him from the bank of the river, thereby seriously aggravating his injuries.

In granting summary judgment to the governmental entities and their employees, the Superior Court ruled that the immunity conferred under the Municipal Torts Claims Act, 10 Del.C. §§ 4001-4013 (the "Act") precluded Sadler's claims based on simple negligence. Additionally, the Superior Court ruled that Sadler's claim against the City was barred by the one-year notice of claim requirement and that Talleyville did not waive its statutory immunity through the purchase of public disability insurance. Sadler v. New Castle County, Del.Super., 524 A.2d 18 (1987).

Although we differ with the rationale of the Superior Court decision, we affirm the application of the Municipal Torts Claim Act as a bar to recovery against all governmental entities and their agents or employees. Accordingly, we affirm.

I

The unfortunate events which led to this litigation are largely undisputed. On July 31, 1983, Sadler, who was then 20 years of age, together with three companions, was floating down the Brandywine River on logs. As the group approached a turbulent and rocky section of the river known as "Brandywine Falls", Sadler and his friends left the logs and proceeded to walk along the top of a waterfall to reach the side of the river. Sadler lost his footing and fell approximately six feet over the falls to the water below, apparently striking his head. His companions managed to pull Sadler, who had lost consciousness, from the water and onto the rocky north shore of the river. While one of his companions administered CPR until Sadler began breathing on his own, another friend swam to the south side of the river to summon help.

Two New Castle County paramedics, James D. McCarnan and Eric Cannon, were dispatched to the scene and proceeded to the north side of the river, parking on a high bluff overlooking the bank where Sadler lay. At about the same time an ambulance from the Talleyville Fire Company arrived with at least two attendants. In order to get from the area where the emergency vehicles were parked to Sadler's location on the river bank, it was necessary to traverse a rocky path approximately one-quarter mile down the embankment. McCarnan and Cannon, together with the Talleyville personnel, proceeded down the path. They carried assorted emergency equipment, including a cardiac box, a long backboard, a cervical collar, a trauma box, an oxygen tank and radio equipment. The path was crossed with fallen trees and the rescue personnel were occasionally required to jump from boulder to boulder.

When the emergency personnel reached Sadler, they found him lying on his left side, breathing on his own but evidencing mild seizure activity. He was placed in a cervical collar, given an I.V. injection of dextrose and administered oxygen. Sadler was next placed on a scoop-type orthopedic stretcher with his head taped to the stretcher to keep it immobilized. The stretcher was placed in a Stokes carrying basket and secured to the basket with straps. By radio, McCarnan then contacted Dr. Jay Feldstein, an emergency physician on duty at the Wilmington Medical Center. McCarnan relayed Sadler's condition and the first-aid measures already taken. Dr. Feldstein agreed with the steps taken to stabilize Sadler's condition and also later acquiesced in the paramedics' decision to transport Sadler across the river.

The decision to transport Sadler across the river was made by McCarnan, rescue personnel from Talleyville, and City of Wilmington firemen who had by then arrived on the south side of the river and managed to cross the river with a large rope. Several alternatives were first considered: use of a helicopter, a boat, carrying Sadler up the bank to the Alapocos side or carrying him across the river to the south side using a rope sling. A helicopter evacuation was deemed not practical because of overhanging trees and the lack of a side door on the helicopter. This meant that the Stokes basket would have to swing beneath the helicopter. A boat was requested but the rescuers were advised that none was available. Thus, the only two feasible alternatives were transport up the cliff or across the river. Since the rescue personnel had just traversed the path to the Alapocos woods, they were aware of the difficulties posed by that route. McCarnan believed that any attempt to carry Sadler up the hill posed danger to both Sadler and rescue personnel. It was then agreed that the safest option lay in transporting Sadler across the river.

The river transport was accomplished by attaching the Stokes basket to a rope stretched across the river and secured on both sides. The top of the falls was considered too slippery for passage, so the rescuers decided to wade across and attach the rope at a new location on the south shore. The basket was attached to the rope with clips to permit it to slide and another rope was attached to the front of the basket and pulled from the south side of the river. Because of the length of the ropes, there was some sagging, with the result that the Stokes basket could not be kept completely out of the water despite the efforts of the rescuers who guided the basket. There is some dispute concerning the extent to which the basket sagged into the water. Sadler contends that his head was submerged several times during the rescue but McCarnan claims that while members of the rescue team occasionally lost their footing, Sadler's head never went under the water.

After Sadler's transport across the river, he was placed in an ambulance and transported to the hospital, where he was diagnosed as having suffered quadriplegia. In support of their motion for summary judgment, the defendants submitted the affidavit of a neurosurgeon, Dr. William Kraut, who opined that rescue personnel exercised the appropriate standard of care in treating and transporting Sadler and that, in any event, Sadler's quadriplegia resulted from the fall over the falls and not from any subsequent contact with the water while crossing the river. In opposition, Sadler offered an affidavit from Dr. John Hocutt, a family physician, who claimed that in view of the knowledge of rescue personnel that Sadler had sustained a possible spinal cord injury and required head and neck stability, it was an act of recklessness to attempt to transport him across the river rather than up the bank.

Based on the conflict in medical opinion, the Superior Court denied summary judgment as to the individual County paramedics, ruling that a material issue of fact was presented on the issue of wanton misconduct. Summary judgment was granted as to the County and Talleyville, however, based on the immunity conferred by the Municipal Torts Claim Act. Additionally, summary judgment was granted in favor of the City of Wilmington because of Sadler's conceded failure to give written notice to the City as required by 10 Del.C. § 8124. ² Therefore the parties consented to the entry of final judgment in favor of all defendants, governmental and individual. In this appeal, Sadler has tacitly abandoned his claim of wanton misconduct against the individual defendants but seeks reversal of the Superior Court's application of the Municipal Tort Claims Act.

II

The Superior Court determined that Sadler's claim against the municipal entities was barred because the various devices used by the rescue personnel to transport Sadler did not fall within the definition of "equipment" as that term is used in the exception to immunity provision of the Act. ³ While we reach the same result, our analysis of Sadler's claim proceeds upon a different rationale. In our view, Sadler's claim fails because it is directed against a decision that enjoys immunity under the substantive provision of section 4011, not because the devices used to implement that decision do not fall within the statutory exception.

Our analysis of the scope of immunity conferred by the Act is dictated, in large part, by this Court's decision in Fiat Motors of North America, Inc. v. Mayor and Council of Wilmington, Del.Supr., 498 A.2d 1062 (1985), which explored both the...