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| Passenger Hurt When Motorcycle Swerves to Avoid Tow Truck at Prior Accident Scene |
Ms. Patricia Faulkner suffered personal
injury when she was thrown off the back of a motorcycle that came upon an
accident scene and swerved to avoid a tow truck that she claimed unexpectedly
pulled out and blocked both lanes of travel on Route 262 in Watertown. Her lawyer sued a police officer at the
scene of the prior accident and the town’s police chief claiming that the
accident scene was not properly secured.
The
police chief and police officer successfully asked the court to throw out the
case on the grounds that Connecticut personal injury law protects municipal
employees from lawsuits for injuries if the employees are performing activities
that require them to exercise discretion.
The court threw out the case and the Connecticut Appellate Court agreed
with that decision, quoting language from a 2006 case to explain its reasoning:
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 the fear of second-guessing and retaliatory lawsuits, outweighs
the benefits to be had from imposing liability for that injury.
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