White v. Humbert

• Decision Date: 15 August 1994
• Docket Number: Docket No. 144445
• Citation: 522 N.W.2d 681,206 Mich.App. 459
• Parties: Sheila WHITE, Personal Representative of the Estate of Phoebe Obleton, deceased, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Hope HUMBERT and Keith D. Beasley, Defendants-Appellants, and Ronald Johnson, Defendant.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US

Page 681

522 N.W.2d 681

206 Mich.App. 459

Sheila WHITE, Personal Representative of the Estate of Phoebe Obleton, deceased, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Hope HUMBERT and Keith D. Beasley, Defendants-Appellants, and Ronald Johnson, Defendant.

Docket No. 144445.

Court of Appeals of Michigan.

Submitted April 13, 1994, at Detroit.

Decided Aug. 15, 1994, at 9:15 a.m.

Released for Publication Oct. 31, 1994.

Lopatin, Miller, Freedman, Bluestone, Erlich, Rosen & Bartnick by Richard E. Shaw, Detroit, for plaintiff.

Donald Pailen, Corp. Counsel, and Sharon D. Blackman, Asst. Corp. Counsel, Detroit, for defendants.

Before SAWYER, P.J., and KAVANAGH ^* and HEATHSCOTT, ^** JJ.

SAWYER, Presiding Judge.

Defendants appeal by leave granted from an order of the circuit court denying their motion for summary disposition. We affirm in part and reverse in part.

Because this case involves a question whether summary disposition is appropriate, we will accept as true the facts pleaded by plaintiff. According to plaintiff's complaint, on October 9, 1990, calls for emergency assistance were placed by two neighbors of plaintiff's decedent. The first call was received by defendant Hope Humbert, a 911 dispatch operator, at 12:30 a.m. Because of the priority rating given to the call, a police unit was not dispatched for approximately forty minutes after receiving the first call. According to plaintiff, while waiting for police to arrive, other calls were placed directly to the precinct. In any event, the first scout car did not arrive at the scene until approximately 1:30 a.m.

The original call itself was prompted by neighbors who saw and heard plaintiff's decedent being attacked and screaming for help. The two officers who responded to the scene are defendants Keith D. Beasley and Ronald Johnson. ¹ When officers Johnson and Beasley arrived, they were met by decedent's neighbors, who explained that decedent had been screaming for help and that, through the decedent's bathroom window, they had witnessed her being attacked. They informed the officers concerning which apartment decedent lived in. The officers then took down the witnesses' names, circled the building, and left without knocking on decedent's door or otherwise attempting to make contact with decedent to determine if she, in fact, was being or had been attacked.

Thereafter, at approximately 4:15 a.m., a call was received by the 911 operator from decedent's husband, who stated he had just stabbed his wife to death. In fact, the time of decedent's death was placed at 4:50 a.m. Indeed, according to plaintiff, although decedent suffered numerous stab wounds, the actual cause of death was due to bleeding from those wounds.

On appeal, defendants argue that they were entitled to summary disposition on the basis of the "public duty" doctrine. Under the public duty doctrine, a public official, such as a police officer, is regarded as owing his duty to the public in general and not to a specific individual unless a special relationship exists between the official and the individual such that the performance by the public official would affect the individual in a manner different in kind from the way performance would affect the public. Harrison v. Director of Dep't of Corrections, 194 Mich.App. 446, 456-457, 487 N.W.2d 799 (1992).

Turning first to the issue of the 911 dispatch operator, defendant Humbert, we conclude that no special relationship can be said to exist between defendant Humbert and decedent. Decedent did not place the call to 911, thus, there were no assurances by Humbert to decedent that help was on the way. In essence, the connection between decedent and Humbert is simply too attenuated to conclude that any relationship or duty would arise between the two beyond the general duty owed by Humbert to the public at large. Accordingly, we conclude that the trial court erred in denying Humbert's motion for summary disposition.

However, with respect to the police officers, and specifically defendant Beasley, we are persuaded that a police officer's response at a crime scene is individualized sufficiently to allow for the creation of a duty to a potential victim at that crime scene above and beyond the general duty owed by the police to the public at large. In this respect, we think it important to consider the context in which the public duty doctrine normally is applied. Specifically, the cases in which claims were dismissed on the basis of the public duty doctrine have the common thread of involving the speculative possibility of a tortfeasor's injuring an unidentifiable member of the general public.

For example, in Harrison, a parolee broke into the plaintiff's house, murdered two thirteen-year-old boys, attempted to murder one other, and placed three other individuals in fear of their lives. The plaintiffs brought an action against the director of the Department of Corrections, members of the parole board, and various other officials of the Department of Corrections. In essence, their claim was based upon a theory that the granting of the parolee's parole and his release from prison had been improper. This Court applied the public duty doctrine and rejected the argument that a special relationship existed. This Court noted that, at a minimum, the existence of a special relationship would seem to require some contact between the governmental agency or official involved and the victim and reliance by the victim upon the promises or actions of the governmental agency or official. Harrison, supra at 457, 487 N.W.2d 799.

The point made by Harrison, and other cases cited by defendants, is that while the defendants in those cases might have had some reason to believe that members of the general public might be endangered by the actions of a third party, there was no identifiable person who was being endangered. That is, the potential for injury and the identification of the victim remain hypothetical until such time as the crime has occurred.

Similarly, in Chivas v. Koehler, 182 Mich.App. 467, 475-476, 453 N.W.2d 264 (1990), the Court concluded that prison guards owed no duty to members of the public killed by escaped prisoners. Again, however, in that case the danger to the public and the identity of the victims remained speculative until the crimes actually occurred.

In the case at bar, on the other hand, the police were responding to a police call in which they had been informed specifically that a crime was in progress and that a particular, identifiable victim was in danger. This does not involve a matter where some unidentifiable member of the general public might be injured, but where the police were informed that a specific member of the public was, in fact, in the process of being injured.

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