Conn. Supreme: No Immunity for Negligent Operation of Emergency Vehicles

The Connecticut Supreme Court has overturned a trial court and ruled that municipalities and government agencies are not entitled to qualified immunity for negligent operation of emergency vehicles.

In a case involving a car accident caused by a Bloomfield police cruiser, the high court noted that the state’s immunity statutes are not intended to bar all civil actions arising from a municipal employee’s discretionary acts.

While the law grants drivers of emergency vehicles qualified immunity from liability for negligent acts performed in their exercise of judgment or discretion, including for violating ordinary traffic laws, the drivers remain subject to the common-law duty of care to drive with due regard for the safety of all persons and property, the court ruled.

The plaintiff in the case, Marline Adesokan, sought to recover damages from the town of Bloomfield, its police department, and one of its police officers, in connection with injuries she and her two minor children sustained when the vehicle in which they were traveling was struck by a Bloomington police cruiser.

At the time of the collision, the officer was responding to a report of a possible abduction and travelling in the southbound lane of traffic several vehicles behind Adesokan’s vehicle. Adesokan arrived at an intersection and made a lefthand turn, but the officer, while traveling at a speed exceeding 70 miles per hour, moved into the northbound lane, attempted to pass, and collided with the plaintiff’s vehicle.

Adesokan raised claims of negligence, negligent supervision, and respondeat superior, and the defendants moved for summary judgment on the ground that those claims were barred by discretionary act immunity.

The trial court granted the town’s motion for summary judgment, concluding that the officer’s operation of the police cruiser constituted a discretionary act that was subject to governmental immunity. In doing so, the trial court relied on the high court’s 2020 decision in Borelli v. Renaldi, which concluded that “the duty to drive with due regard” imposed a discretionary duty to act with respect to a police officer’s decision to initiate and continue a pursuit of a fleeing motorist.

On appeal, Adesokan claimed that the trial court had improperly relied on Borelli and had incorrectly concluded that discretionary act immunity barred her claims. She argued that the law imposes a ministerial duty on emergency vehicle operators “to drive with due regard for the safety of all persons and property.”

The state Supreme Court heard the appeal.

The high court had to reconcile two statutes. One law says that municipalities and their employees enjoy qualified immunity from liability regarding duties that require the exercise of judgment or discretion, with certain exceptions. In 1971, the state enacted an amendment that affords police and other first responders certain privileges including the right to disregard certain traffic laws, signals, and signs under certain conditions; however this amendment qualifies this privilege so that it “shall not relieve the operator of [the] emergency vehicle from the duty to drive with due regard for the safety of all persons and property.”

Adesokan argued that the decision in Borelli is distinguishable because her case concerns only the manner in which the officer operated his emergency vehicle, whereas Borelli concerned a police officer’s decision to engage in pursuit.

Adesokan also relied on public policy, pointing to a more recent court decision that concluded that conferring blanket immunity on the operation of an emergency vehicle would lead to unworkable results and essentially give municipal police officers “a blank check, without repayment, to act unreasonably without regard to the safety of the public.”

In response, the town and officer argued that the driving maneuvers taken by an emergency vehicle operator are discretionary, judgment-based decisions to which governmental immunity applies. They view the limiting language of the law as demonstrating only that reckless conduct is not permitted. They further argued that it would be illogical to conclude that the “due regard” language affords discretion to a police officer in deciding whether to engage in a pursuit, but also imposes a ministerial duty with respect to the operation of the vehicle “when answering an emergency call.”

The state Supreme Court concluded that the town was incorrect and the trial court improperly granted the motion for summary judgment.

The court, citing its own 1983 holding in Tetro v. Stratford, found that although the 1971 amendment granted emergency operators a privilege by relieving them from a presumption of negligence for violating ordinary traffic laws, such operators were not relieved from the existing, common-law duty of care to drive with “due regard for the safety of all persons and property.”

The court said that “granting governmental immunity in this context would effectively permit operators of emergency vehicles to drive without regard for a codified, common-law duty, and that result would be inconsistent” with the legislature’s intent.

To further bolster its conclusion, the court noted that the operation of an emergency vehicle is not one of the enumerated exceptions to liability provided by lawmakers in the state law that confers governmental immunity in specific contexts.