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Adam v. City of Fremont12/3/1998
ich favor imposing a duty. The absence of moral blame, the remoteness of the connection between the conduct of appellants and the harm suffered, the policy of preventing future harm, consequences to the community, the role of law enforcement in society, and the potential detriment to the public in imposing judicial allocation of resources all heavily favor shielding law enforcement personnel from tort liability in instances such as this.
Moreover, the majority of the disputed conduct in this case was the product of Sergeant Osawa's deliberate tactical decisions designed to maximize the safety of the responding officers. Therefore, under Parsons, supra, 15 Cal.4th at page 472, we must also consider the social value of the interest Sergeant Osawa sought to advance. (Ibid.) The social value of protecting the lives of police officers involved in a standoff with an armed individual is extremely high. Accordingly, after balancing the relevant considerations, we conclude that appellants owed respondents no duty of care under this analysis.
C. Duty of Care Analysis Under the Special Relationship Exception
1. The Nature of the Special Relationship Exception and Its Application to Suicide Prevention
States adopting the public duty rule often permit a "narrow exception" for unusual police conduct that creates a "special relationship" between the police officer and an individual member of the public. (See generally, Comment, Washington's Special Relationship Exception to the Public Duty Doctrine (1989) 64 Wash.L.Rev. 401.) This special relationship exception to the public duty rule has been adopted in California as well. In the case of law enforcement officers, a special relationship only has been found in a "few narrow circumstances." (M.B. v. City of San Diego (1991) 233 Cal.App.3d 699, 704-705 (italics added) (M.B.).) Absent a special relationship creating a special duty, the police have no legal duty to control the conduct of others. (Von Batsch v. American Dist. Telegraph Co. (1985) 175 Cal.App.3d 1111, 1122 (Von Batsch).)
Respondents argue that such a special relationship arose between Patrick and appellants, thereby creating a duty to exercise to prevent Patrick's suicide. In cases involving suicide, courts have been extremely reluctant to impose liability based on the special relationship exception. (See, e.g., Nally, supra, 47 Cal.3d 278; see also Lee v. Corregedore (1996) 83 Hawaii 154; Donaldson v. YMCA (Minn. 1995) 539 N.W.2d 789, 792.) In Nally, our Supreme Court explained that a special relationship giving rise to a duty to exercise due care in order to prevent suicide has only been imposed "in the limited context of hospital-patient relationships where the suicidal person died while under the care and custody of hospital physicians who were aware of the patients' unstable mental condition." (Id. at pp. 293-294 citing Meier v. Ross General Hospital (1968) 69 Cal.2d 420 (Meier); Vistica v. Presbyterian Hospital (1967) 67 Cal.2d 465 (Vistica).) The Supreme Court described Meier and Vistica as "carefully limited precedent" that "severely circumscribe the duty they create," and declined to extend this duty of prevention to nontherapist counselors. (Nally, supra, 47 Cal.3d at pp. 293-296.) The Nally court held "Neither [Meier nor Vistica] suggested extending the duty of care to personal or religious counseling relationships in which one person provided nonprofessional guidance to another seeking advice and the counselor had no control over the environment of the individual being counseled." (Id. at p. 294.)
The Supreme Court also rejected an argument that nontherapist counselors have a duty to prevent foreseeable suicides based on dictum from
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