Court overturns government immunity in police pursuit case.

Message to cops: Next time you're chasing a suspect at high speed, make sure you turn on all your lights and alarms.

So said the Colorado Supreme Court recently, finding that when a police officer failed to give warning that he was in pursuit, the Denver city government became liable for any damage he caused. The ruling overturned trial and appellate court decisions that cited government immunity for accidents involving police vehicles. (Tidwell v. City & Country of Denver, No. 02SC532, 2003 WL 22533402 (Colo. Nov. 10, 2003).)

At issue was the definition of pursuit. Denver's regulations state that when police officers pursue suspects they plan to arrest, they must have their lights and sirens on as a warning to other motorists. An exception to this rule is the state's "verification" clause: when an officer is following a driver to observe whether there is cause for arrest--for instance, to determine whether the driver seems to be drunk.

In this case, the police department maintained that the chase was "investigatory" and qualified for immunity under the verification clause. The state supreme court disareed, holding that because the officer was driving well over the speed limit and disobeying other traffic laws, he was technically in pursuit and disqualified from the exception.

In 1996, officer Timothy McAleer spotted an Oldsmobile whose appearance, erratic movements, and temporary tags made him suspicious. He turned on his yellow "stage one" lights, also called "wigwags" (they do not flash or make noise), and the driver stopped.

As McAleer pulled up to the Oldsmobile, a passenger got out and ran, and the driver took off in the car, with the officer in pursuit. At no point did McAleer turn on any other lights or a siren. When the Oldsmobile turned a corner, it rail a red light and hit an oncoming limousine that was traveling at about 26 mph. The limo driver was killed; the passenger, Britt Tidwell, suffered permanently disabling injuries, including brain damage. Tidwell's father, as his conservator, filed suit.

The trial court granted summary judgment to the city, finding that the chase did not qualify as a pursuit. The appellate court concluded that there was a pursuit but that it was "investigatory in nature," qualifying for immunity under the verification clause. The state supreme court reversing both decisions, held that "the purpose of the lights-and-siren requirement is to ensure that operators of emergency vehicles give due regard to the safety of other drivers on the road" and to "make other drivers aware of the pursuit so they may alter their conduct accordingly."

The judges called it "inappropriate" for the trial court to have entered summary judgment on immunity grounds and to have prevented Tidwell from presenting evidence about causation. (Tidwell had produced an expert witness who would have testified that if the limousine had slowed down by even 1 or 2 mph, the accident would have been avoided.) The judges returned the case to the court of appeals with directions to remand it to the trial court for further proceedings.

"It's precedent-setting," said Wesley Hoyt of Englewood, Colorado, who represented Tidwell. "For the first time, the court defined 'pursuit.' They basically said, if you're chasing someone down the street and you're going over the speed limit--guess what--that is a pursuit." Also, he said, the court defined the emergency-vehicle statute, stating that "if you pursue, you must use lights and sirens, period."

The state supreme court judges literally relied on the dictionary definition of "pursuit," quoting from Webster's New World College Dictionary and Black's Law Dictionary.

"It's perfect," noted Hoyt, "because essentially what they are telling the city and the police department is, you can't play word games anymore."