Soderlund v. Merrigan

955 A.2d 107

110 Conn.App. 389

Sandra SODERLUND v. Janice MERRIGAN et al.

No. 28875.

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued April 21, 2008.

Decided September 23, 2008.

Bruce A. Chaplin, Wallingford, for the appellant (plaintiff).

Deborah Leigh Moore, with whom was Kevin M. Casini, law student intern, for the appellees (defendants).

FLYNN, C.J., and McLACHLAN and WEST, Js.

McLACHLAN, J.

In this negligence action, the plaintiff, Sandra Soderlund, appeals from the summary judgment rendered in favor of the defendants, Janice Merrigan, a Meriden police officer, and the city of Meriden (city). The plaintiff claimed that the defendants had a duty to remove an arrest warrant for her from the statewide police computer system and failed to do so. The court concluded that the plaintiff's claims were barred by the doctrine of governmental immunity. On appeal, the plaintiff contends that the court improperly granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment because the defendants were not immune from liability for their negligence in failing to remove the arrest warrant from law enforcement records after the court had ordered the warrant vacated.¹ We agree and, accordingly, reverse the judgment of the trial court.

The following facts are relevant to the resolution of the plaintiff's appeal. On August 14, 1998, the Meriden police department (department) arrested the plaintiff and charged her with two separate offenses: one appearing on the criminal docket and one appearing on the motor vehicle docket. On January 21, 2000, the plaintiff failed to appear in court for a scheduled court date. As a result of her failure to appear, the court, Holden, J., issued an arrest warrant for the plaintiff for a failure to appear and set the bond at $1500. On March 9, 2000, the court vacated the arrest warrant. The court issued a "notice to vacate" (notice) the warrant in the criminal matter and sent the notice to the department. At that time, Merrigan was working as a court liaison officer for the department. She collected the notice, but, because she could not find the arrest warrant in her file, she did not process the notice. Instead, she stamped the notice with the words "not on file," noted the date, initialed the document and returned it to the Meriden courthouse.

On March 13, 2000, the court issued a notice to vacate in the motor vehicle case and handled it in the same manner as the March 9, 2000 notice to vacate. Similarly, after Merrigan realized that the warrant was not in the department's computer system, she stamped the document with the notation, "not on file," noted the date, initialed it and returned it to the Meriden courthouse.

On May 5, 2000, the department entered the plaintiff's arrest warrant into the computer system. More than six months later, on Friday, January 27, 2001, the plaintiff was leaving a sports bar in Cheshire when she was stopped by police. On the basis of the January, 2000 arrest warrant, the plaintiff was taken to the Cheshire police department and then transported to the Meriden police department. The Meriden department did not have any record of the notice to vacate the arrest warrant, so it held the plaintiff in custody. The department allowed her to make several telephone calls, but she was unable to post bond. She spent the weekend in the department's holding cell.

On Monday, January 29, 2001, the plaintiff was taken to the Meriden courthouse where court personnel determined that the warrant had been vacated. She was released immediately. Subsequently, the plaintiff commenced this action against the defendants, claiming that the department and Merrigan were negligent.²

In her complaint, the plaintiff alleged that the defendants were negligent in failing to remove the arrest warrant from the police computer system pursuant to the notice and in accordance with General Statutes § 54-142a(a) and (e).³ On February 2, 2007, the defendants moved for summary judgment, asserting that the plaintiff's claims were barred by the doctrines of qualified immunity and governmental immunity, and that the plaintiff had failed to establish her common-law negligence claim. Particularly, the defendants argued that the plaintiff's claims do not "fall under any of the exceptions that abrogate governmental immunity involving discretionary acts" because "the plaintiff does not qualify as an identifiable victim subject to imminent harm." In opposition, the plaintiff argued that there were material issues of fact and that she did fall under one of the exceptions that abrogates governmental immunity. She also claimed that Merrigan's actions were not discretionary, but ministerial.

On May 22, 2007, the court, Holzberg, J., granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment and issued its memorandum of decision on July 13, 2007. The court found that the manner in which a police officer performed his or her duties is discretionary and rejected the plaintiff's assertion that the acts of Merrigan were ministerial. The court rejected the plaintiff's argument that the defendants owed her a duty pursuant to § 54-142a, and it found that an arrest warrant for a failure to appear was not a final judgment and, therefore, § 54-142a was inapplicable. Furthermore, the court found that the plaintiff did not fall under any of the three exceptions to governmental immunity for discretionary acts. This appeal followed.

At the outset, we set forth the applicable standard of review. "Practice Book § 17-49 provides that summary judgment shall be rendered forthwith if the pleadings, affidavits and any 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. In deciding a motion for summary judgment, the trial court must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.... The party moving for summary judgment has the burden of showing the absence of any genuine issue of material fact and that the party is, therefore, entitled to judgment as a matter of law.... On appeal, we must determine whether the legal conclusions reached by the trial court are legally and logically correct and whether they find support in the facts set out in the memorandum of decision of the trial court.... Our review of the trial court's decision to grant the defendant's motion for summary judgment is plenary." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Allen v. Cox, 285 Conn. 603, 609, 942 A.2d 296 (2008).

"Although the determination of whether official acts or omissions are ministerial or discretionary is normally a question of fact for the fact finder ... there are cases where it is apparent from the complaint ... [that] [t]he determination of whether an act or omission is discretionary in nature and, thus, whether governmental immunity may be successfully invoked pursuant to [General Statutes] § 52-557n(a)(2)(B), turns on the character of the act or omission complained of in the complaint. ... Accordingly, where it is apparent from the complaint that the defendants' allegedly negligent acts or omissions necessarily involved the exercise of judgment, and thus, necessarily were discretionary in nature, summary judgment is proper." (Citation omitted; emphasis in original; internal quotation marks omitted.) Grignano v. Milford, 106 Conn.App. 648, 654-55, 943 A.2d 507 (2008). Here, the plaintiff claims that the defendants did not have the right to exercise their judgment, and, therefore, the duty was mandatory or ministerial. We agree.

The dispositive issue on appeal is whether the plaintiff's claim is barred by the doctrine of governmental immunity. Therefore, a review of the following principles of governmental immunity is relevant to the resolution of this appeal.

"The [common-law] doctrines that determine the tort liability of municipal employees are well established ... Generally, a municipal employee is liable for the misperformance of ministerial acts, but has a qualified immunity in the performance of governmental acts.... Governmental acts are performed wholly for the direct benefit of the public and are supervisory or discretionary in nature.... The hallmark of a discretionary act is that it requires the exercise of judgment.... In contrast, [m]inisterial refers to a duty which is to be performed in a prescribed manner without the exercise of judgment or discretion....

"Municipal officials are immunized from liability for negligence arising out of their discretionary 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.... Discretionary act immunity reflects a value judgment that—despite injury to a member of the public—the broader interest in having government officers 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.... 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. ... This is because society has no analogous interest in permitting municipal officers to exercise judgment in the performance of ministerial acts....

"There are three exceptions to discretionary act immunity. Each of these exceptions represents a situation in which the public official's duty to act is [so] clear and unequivocal that the policy rationale underlying discretionary act immunity—to encourage municipal officers to exercise judgment—has no force.... First, liability may be imposed for a discretionary act when the alleged conduct involves malice, wantonness or intent to injure.... Second, liability may be imposed for a discretionary act when a statute provides for a cause of action against a municipality...