Justices Overturn 1992 Case Insulating Police From Liability
August 26, 1997
By Michael A. Riccardi of the Legal Staff

Reversing five-year-old precedent, a divided state Supreme Court ruled late last week in a Philadelphia case that police agencies may be held liable for injuries stemming from collisions caused by high-speed chases.

Vulnerability to the lawsuit comes despite a statutory shield of immunity, which was raised by city lawyers as a primary defense.

The decision came in Jones v. Chieffo, where a motorist was struck by a car driven by a suspect fleeing from a police car without working sirens.

Justice Russell M. Nigro, writing the lead opinion, said that the 1992 case Dickens v. Horner is now bad law.

In Dickens, the high court held that municipalities are not liable when the harm is directly caused by a criminal act. But in a 1995 case, Powell v. Drumheller, the justices rejected the government's argument that a driver's criminal negligence was a superseding cause relieving it of liability.

The Jones case gave the court a chance to unravel the apparent contradictions.

"We conclude ... that Dickens was wrongly decided and overrule it," Nigro wrote. "We cannot hold as a matter of law that [the city's] alleged negligence was not a substantial factor causing Jones' injuries. A jury must make the determination."

Nigro said the government, despite immunity under the Political Subdivision Tort Claims Act, is not immune from liability in cases where its negligence, in combination with that of a third party, causes harm.

Nigro was joined by Chief Justice John P. Flaherty. Justice Ralph Cappy wrote a concurring opinion.

The 3-2 ruling came over the dissent of Justice Ronald D. Castille, who was joined by Justice Stephen A. Zappala. Justice Sandra Schultz Newman recused herself as a former Commonwealth Court judge. Newman voted with the plaintiff in the Jones case at the Commonwealth Court level..

John M. Dodig of Master Weinstein Schnoll & Dodig, the attorney for plaintiffs, said the high court should hold the city to answer for its own negligent conduct in failing to observe proper chase procedures and providing the police officer with a faulty vehicle, without a working siren or in-car radio.

City Law Department attorney Alan C. Ostrow urged the justices to reaffirm Dickens v. Horner. He could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon.

"Dickens was a bad decision which took an issue that had always been decided by a jury, away from the jury," Dodig said. "It usurped the jury's province and equated criminal conduct with a superseding cause as a matter of law."

Cappy found himself changing his position in terms of the result, ruling for the municipality in the 1992 case but concurring with the majority in Jones.

Cappy explained that he did not join the majority reasoning in the now-overruled Dickens case and remained "unpersuaded" that third party acts would relieve a municipality of liability. His position against the government in Jones was in accord with his ruling with the government in Dickens, he said.

The high court Thursday agreed with an en-banc Commonwealth Court that reversed Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Joseph O'Keefe's grant of summary judgment for the City of Philadelphia and its police department in a case where a woman was killed in a collision with a pursued vehicle.

Coincidently, the opinion was released two days after a man and a baby were killed by a police car that collided with another police car as they were racing to respond to an "officer in need" call in South Philly.

The city has admitted that it was aware that many Philadelphia Police Department patrol cars lacked working sirens. It is also a matter of record that if the police officer's siren had worked, the accident might have been prevented because the plaintiff's decedent's car might not have entered the intersection.

The Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association, in an amicus curiae brief, asked the court to overturn the Dickens v. Horner rule.

Ostrow of the City Law Department asked the court to straighten out conflicting case law by discussing all police chase and governmental immunity cases in one opinion.

"It is very important that this court discuss all cases in one opinion," he said. "If that occurs, we won't have any more. Bring them all together."

For Ostrow, the majority decision may have carried a "be careful what you wish for" quality.

Governmental immunity has taken a legal beating this year, with Nigro ruling in a case called Grier v. Reisinger that a fire department could be held liable by a jury where the negligent act of leaving paint thinner on a floor led to damages. The court in Grief rejected a municipality's claim of immunity and widened the real estate exception.

Dodig said that more than a dozen police chase cases were thrown out of court under the Dickens rule, which is now history.

On Nov. 12, 1989, at approximately 2 a.m., Officer Charles Chieffo, a 14-year veteran of the Philadelphia force, was unwittingly driving a police cruiser without a working siren and communicating with a walkie-talkie, not in-car police radio, when he observed three vehicles speeding through an intersection.

The officer gave chase and saw a passenger in the second car fire a gun at the lead car on Germantown Avenue. Chieffo attempted to activate his siren, but it did not operate.

Chieffo observed one of the fleeing vehicles proceed through the intersection of Broad Street and Roosevelt Boulevard, running a red light, and colliding with a vehicle operated by Kent and Bridgett Jones. Kent Jones was severely injured and Bridgett Jones died in the accident.

DISSENT

In dissent, Castille worried about the effect of the ruling in imposing liability for the activities of police exercising their duty.

"I believe that a municipality and its agents are immune from liability where a police officer, acting within the scope of his duties, initiates a vehicular pursuit of a person suspected of committing a crime," Castille said, arguing that the Tort Claims Act shields the government from liability when damages are caused by the acts of the public agency or others.

The court should narrowly construe governmental exposure to tort liability, Castille warned. He said the court should stick with the "general rule that the criminal acts of third parties are superseding causes which will absolve the original actor from liability for injuries caused by a third party."

Dodig said that the Jones ruling has the potential to act as a spur to reform of police chase policies.

"Now, police departments will have to look closely at their directives," Dodig said.

"They need to determine whether or not high-speed police chases should take place under any factual scenarios," he said. "There are times when [chases] are justified, but for situations like stolen cars ... they have to look very closely."

The case, unless there is a reargument petition or an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, will be sent back to the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court for trial.