Dudley v. Massachusetts State Police

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16-P-2 Appeals Court
RICHARD DUDLEY, JR. vs. MASSACHUSETTS STATE POLICE.
No. 16-P-2.
Bristol. December 1, 2016. - June 1, 2017.
Present: Cypher, Maldonado, & Blake, JJ. 1
Massachusetts Tort Claims Act. Governmental
Immunity. Dog. Police, Negligence. Negligence,
Governmental immunity, Police. Practice, Civil, Summary
judgment.
Civil action commenced in the Superior Court Department on
February 1, 2013.
The case was heard by William F. Sullivan, J., on a motion
for summary judgment.
Jason R. Markle for the plaintiff.
Andrew W. Koster, Assistant Attorney General, for the
defendant.
MALDONADO, J. The plaintiff, Richard Dudley, Jr.,
commenced this negligence action, pursuant to the Massachusetts
1
Justice Cypher participated in the deliberation of this
case while an Associate Justice of this court, prior to her
appointment as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial
Court.
2
Tort Claims Act (Act), G. L. c. 258, seeking damages from the
defendant, Massachusetts State Police (State police), for
injuries he suffered as a result of being attacked, in a public
parking lot, by a trained police dog. Moments before the attack
occurred, State Trooper Edward T. Blackwell, an experienced
police canine handler, had been in pursuit of a criminal suspect
who fled, on foot, taking a circuitous route through that
parking lot.
Dudley sued the State police, a public employer and agent
of the Commonwealth, 2 alleging that Trooper Blackwell's conduct,
in releasing the police dog to apprehend a suspect in a public
space, where the presence of others would be expected, created a
foreseeable and substantial risk of harm to an innocent
bystander.
The State police answered the complaint, engaged in
discovery, and then filed a motion for summary judgment, based
on the ground of sovereign immunity under G. L. c. 258.
Following a hearing, a judge of the Superior Court allowed the
State police's motion, ruling that Dudley's negligence claim was
barred by the immunity provisions of the Act, §§ 10(b) and (j).
Dudley appeals from the separate and final judgment. See
Mass.R.Civ.P.54(b), 365 Mass. 820 (1974). We reverse.
2
His claims against the criminal suspect (William P.
Monopoli) and an automobile insurer are not at issue in this
appeal.
3
1. Background. The chase. In the early afternoon of May
6, 2011, William P. Monopoli led several State police troopers
on a high-speed motor vehicle chase, which began in Boston and
ended in West Bridgewater.
While speeding down the highway, Monopoli abruptly pulled
his truck off the road onto an exit ramp. At the top of the
ramp, Monopoli lost control of his truck, crossed the roadway's
double yellow lines, and crashed into a guardrail or curb. He
then exited his truck and quickly fled on foot, jumping over a
fence into a park and ride commuter lot. Trooper Blackwell, who
was following the suspect in a State police cruiser, pulled
behind Monopoli's truck.
The bite. Trooper Blackwell stepped outside of the
cruiser, with his trained patrol dog, Jager, 3 on a leash.
Trooper Blackwell yelled to Monopoli and ordered him to give
himself up, adding that, if he did not do so, the dog would be
sent after him. Monopoli did not stop. He scaled over the
fence into the commuter parking lot, out of the Trooper's
immediate vision. Trooper Blackwell, knowing the lot was more
than half full, commanded Jager to apprehend and he let go of
the dog's leash, releasing him toward the parking lot. Jager
hopped the fence, but in the midst of the parked cars, he, as
did Blackwell, lost sight of Monopoli.
3
A German shepherd weighing about eighty-two pounds.
4
Meanwhile, Dudley, while on his way home from work, was
dropping his coworker, Shiller, off at the commuter parking lot,
heard the crash of a car. The two men exited Dudley's truck.
Dudley observed Monopoli as he zig-zagged through the parking
lot toward a structure situated outside the lot. At about this
same time, Trooper Blackwell came onto the scene. Pointing
towards where Monopoli had fled, the two men yelled, "He went
that way." Jager's attention focused on Dudley and Schiller.
Trooper Blackwell, who had also lost sight of Jager, had now
regained sight of him. Jager was about fifteen feet from Dudley
when he jumped up and bit Dudley in the stomach. Meanwhile,
Trooper Blackwell yelled for Dudley to get inside the truck and
lock the doors. Dudley tried to dive in the interior
compartment of his truck headfirst. He made it halfway in but
Jager clenched onto Dudley's leg and dragged him out of the
vehicle. Trooper Blackwell commanded Jager to "release," and
Jager complied. 4 Trooper Blackwell then took hold of Jager's
leash and continued his pursuit of Monopoli. Other officers had
arrived by then, and within a short time, they apprehended
Monopoli outside the periphery of the parking lot. Trooper
Blackwell returned to Dudley, who was taken to a local hospital
4
The use of force by the State police is governed by
written policies and procedures. A trooper and his State police
dog operate as a team and, when given the order to apprehend a
suspect, the dog will "bite and hold" the suspect.
5
by ambulance, where he was treated for his wounds. Dudley was
discharged the same day.
2. Discussion. "In reviewing a grant of summary judgment,
'we assess the record de novo and take the facts, together with
all reasonable inferences to be drawn from them, in the light
most favorable to the nonmoving party.'" Pugsley v. Police
Dept. of Boston, 472 Mass. 367, 370-371 (2015), quoting
from Bulwer v. Mount Auburn Hosp., 86 Mass. App. Ct. 316, 318
(2014). Here, we review the judge's grant of immunity under
the Act, G. L. c. 258.
The Act provide[s] "a comprehensive and uniform regime of
tort liability" for public employers." Morrissey v. New England
Deaconess Assoc. -- Abundant Life Communities, Inc., 458 Mass.
580, 588 (2010). See Greenwood v. Easton, 444 Mass. 467, 469-
471 (2005). As is pertinent in this case, the Act exempts a
public employer from liability for "any claim based upon the
exercise or performance or the failure to exercise or perform a
discretionary function or duty on the part of a public employer
or public employee, acting within the scope of his office of
employment, whether or not the discretion involved is abused."
G. L. c. 258, § 10(b). The parties agree that the State police
is a public employer entitled to the protections of the
discretionary function exemption in § 10(b), which, if
applicable in this case, would immunize it from liability.
6
In deciding whether § 10(b)'s discretionary function
exemption precludes a plaintiff's tort claim, we first look to
"whether the governmental actor had any discretion . . . to do
or not to do what the plaintiff claims caused [the]
harm." Greenwood, supra at 469, quoting from Harry Stoller &
Co. v. Lowell, 412 Mass. 139, 141 (1992).
"[I]f the governmental actor had no discretion because a
course of action was prescribed by a statute, regulation, or
established agency practice, [§ 10(b)'s] discretionary function
exception to government liability has no role to play in . . .
the case." Ibid. Here, Dudley cannot reasonably contest the
State police's assertion that the use of the trained police
canine, Jager, was not prescribed by a statute, regulation, or
established agency practice. The State police's contention, at
least with respect to the first prong of the Greenwood/Harry
Stoller test, is aided by our opinion in Audette
v. Commonwealth, 63 Mass. App. Ct. 727 (2005), which held that
State police canine handlers did have "discretion" as to the
course of conduct to follow in the police canine's training and
use in police operational activities. Id. at 731. As was true
with a similar State police general order in Audette, the State
police's general order for canine units (effective November 5,
2008) gives discretion to its canine handlers for determining
"whether a situation justifies canine use and the appropriate
7
tactical measures that should be taken." We turn, then, to the
second (and final) step in deciding whether § 10(b)'s
discretionary function exemption applies. In this step we must
determine "whether the discretion that the [governmental] actor
had is that kind of discretion for which § 10(b) provides
immunity from liability." Greenwood, supra at 470, quoting
from Harry Stoller, supra at 141. The essential measure, under
governing case precedent, is whether the governmental actor's
conduct, i.e., Trooper Blackwell's act of releasing Jager to
apprehend the suspect in a moderate to heavily occupied commuter
parking lot, involved discretionary activity of the "planning or
policy-making type" that is immunized under § 10(b), as opposed
to particular conduct that involves the "implementation" of
government policy, for which there is no immunity. Ibid.
In our view, particularly at the summary judgment stage, we
cannot say Trooper Blackwell's injury producing conduct of
commanding and releasing Jager to apprehend a criminal suspect
involved the use of planning or policy making discretion.
Rather, it was conduct that carried out or implemented the State
police's general policy for police canine use in the field.
Where, as here, the allegedly tortious conduct of the
governmental actor concerns the "carrying out of previously
established policies or plans, such acts should be governed by
the established standards of tort liability applicable to
8
private individuals or entities." Greenwood, supra at 471,
quoting from Whitney v. Worcester, 373 Mass. 208, 218-219
(1977).
We reject the State police's contention that Audette
controls the result in this case. In Audette, unlike the
situation presented here, a trained State police canine was off
leash during a motor vehicle search for contraband when he
attacked the victim when the police handler neither ordered an
attack nor an apprehension. See Audette, supra at 729. In our
view, that is significantly different from the situation here,
where a trained, experienced police canine handler ordered a
police dog to apprehend another individual, that is to bite and
hold a person, in a moderate to heavily occupied public parking
lot. It is immaterial that Jager had never attacked anyone
without a command from his handler because, here, Jager was
commanded to attack. He was ordered to apprehend, and that
order contemplated Jager's hunting down, biting, and holding an
individual, which is precisely what Jager did to Dudley.
The State police is not assisted by the governmental
immunity provision set forth in § 10(j) either, because § 10(j)
does not preclude suit where the governmental actor is an
"original cause" in creating the harmful condition that resulted
in injury to the plaintiff. Kent v. Commonwealth, 437 Mass.
312, 318 (2002). See Serrell vs. Franklin County, 47 Mass. App.
9
Ct. 400, 405-406 (1999), where § 10(j) did not bar recovery for
the affirmative actions of correction officers, who, while
intervening in a fight, struck and injured the plaintiff. The
same is true here. Trooper Blackwell, while trying to capture a
fleeing suspect, ordered and released Jager, in a moderate to
heavily occupied parking lot, to attack a suspect and, in doing
so, the Trooper created the harmful condition that resulted in
Dudley's injury. Accord Gennari v. Reading Pub. Sch., 77 Mass.
App. Ct. 762, 764 (2010) (§ 10[j] did not provide immunity where
school principal ordered recess in a concrete playground and,
therefore, created the situation in which a child would be
pushed and fall onto the concrete while playing tag). The
judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the Superior
Court for trial consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.