DENVER (Legal Newsline) - A Colorado law providing immunity to police officers against most tort lawsuits may protect an officer who switched on his flashing lights and siren five seconds before T-boning a van in a highway intersection, killing the two men inside.
An appeals court went too far by ruling Colorado Governmental Immunity Act only covers police who keep their sirens on through the entirety of a chase, the Colorado Supreme Court said. Plaintiffs must prove the police caused an accident by failing to turn on warning signals or doing so too late, the court ruled in in a Feb. 20 decision.
Officer Justin Hice with the Olathe Police Department set off in chase after a speeder on Highway 50 in 2018 when a van containing brothers Walter and Samuel Giron turned into an intersection and were hit by Hice’s car at more than 70 m.p.h. Both men were killed and Hice was seriously injured.
Olathe claimed Hice turned on his siren and lights five seconds before the crash, providing immunity under CGIA, which holds government employees “immune from liability in all claims for injury which lie in tort,” including police “making use of audible or visual signals” during a chase.
The trial court ruled officer must turn on their lights and siren as soon as they exceed the speed limit, however. “It is not enough for the officer to activate lights or sirens sometime after exceeding the speed limit while in pursuit,” the court held.
An appeals court agreed, but the Supreme Court reversed in an opinion by Justice William H. Hood.
“This interpretation means emergency drivers waive immunity even when there’s no possible connection between the failure to use emergency alerts and the plaintiff’s injuries,” the court said. The law provides immunity from suit over “injuries resulting from” a chase, the court said, which means “the relevant period for an officer’s failure to use alerts is the period during which that omission could have affected the accident.”
The decision returned the case to the appeals court to decide whether the officer turned on his siren and lights too late to warn the victims, and whether he violated the requirement that emergency drivers emergency drivers “refrain from endangering life or property while speeding.”
The plaintiffs were represented by Killian Davis Richter & May, while Olathe was represented by Tucker Holmes P.C. The Colorado Trial Lawyers Association filed an amicus brief in the case.