The question in this case is whether plaintiffs injured by a municipality must show that the municipality owed them a special duty.
As a sovereign, New York traditionally enjoyed sovereign immunity, which extended to its municipalities. It has waived its sovereign immunity for, among other things, claims arising from its negligence, a waiver that likewise extends to its municipalities. That waiver has several exceptions. One exception is the special-duty requirement. The Court of Appeals has long held that plaintiffs suing the State or its subdivisions for negligence can recover only if “the duty breached [is] more than that owed to the public generally.”
The plaintiff in this case is Jesus Ferreira. Ferreira was shot in the stomach by a City of Binghamton police officer who was executing a no-knock warrant on an apartment where Ferreira was staying. Ferreira sued the officer and the City in federal court. He alleged that the officer negligently shot him and that the City for negligently planned the raid. A jury found that the officer was not negligent but that the City was. The district court set aside the verdict against the City, holding that Ferreira had failed to prove that the City breached a special duty owed to him.
On appeal, Ferreira argued that the special-duty requirement applies only to cases in which a municipality fails to protect a person from a third party’s negligence. When the municipality itself is the cause of the harm, he contended, the plaintiff need not show as special duty. Although the Second Circuit observed that Ferreira’s gloss on the rule finds support in “the longstanding practice of the Court of Appeals and the underlying rationale for the special duty rule,” it noted that “the Court of Appeals has frequently stated in dictum that the special duty requirement applies whenever the municipal defendant acts in a governmental capacity.” The Court of Appeals has also applied the special-duty requirement to “at least one case involving government-inflicted injury.” Given this conflict, the Second Circuit certified to the Court of Appeals the question whether the special-duty requirement applies to government-inflicted injury.
The Court of Appeals accepted the certified question.