NICOLE M BEAUDRIE V PAULINE HENDERSON
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STATE OF MICHIGAN
COURT OF APPEALS
NICHOLE M. BEAUDRIE,
UNPUBLISHED
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v
No. 202304
Wayne Circuit Court
LC No. 96-614930 NZ
PAULINE HENDERSON,
Defendant-Appellant,
and
CITY OF DEARBORN and DEARBORN
POLICE DEPARTMENT,
Defendants.
Before: Gage, P.J., and Kelly and Hoekstra, JJ.
KELLY, J. (dissent).
I respectfully dissent.
I believe that this Court improvidently granted leave to appeal from the trial court’s order of
March 14, 1997 denying defendant’s motion for summary disposition. We have been forced to review
an incomplete record. Accepting the allegations in plaintiff’s amended complaint as true, plaintiff has
alleged not only malfeasance and gross negligence but acts of intentional misconduct which she should
have been given the opportunity to support. I believe plaintiff properly alleged willful misconduct on the
part of the defendant, Pauline Henderson, acting wholly outside the scope of any police dispatcher’s
ambit of authority. Thus, a trier of fact could have found her actions to have proximately caused the
plaintiff nine hours more of brutal savagery for which a remedy should be fashioned.
Furthermore, the public duty doctrine described in Gassette v Pontiac (On Remand), 221
Mich App 579, 582; 561 NW2d 879 (1997),
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[a]pplied to police officers, the public duty doctrine insulates officers from tort liability
for the negligent failure to provide police protection unless an individual satisfies the
special-relationship exception to the doctrine.
Defendant Henderson may or may not be a police officer within the appropriate definition, but
the allegations characterize her as acting beyond the scope of her employment with intentional disregard
for the safety of plaintiff while occupying a position of public trust, i.e., police dispatcher. The facts
alleged portray defendant Henderson as being grossly negligent to the extent of acting as a criminal co
conspirator, aiding and abetting to an extent which might have established a special relationship. If the
special relationship exception is found to be applicable to defendant Henderson at trial the allegations in
plaintiff’s amended complaint could reasonably be found to establish a de facto or surrogate relationship
between the perpetrator’s mother, defendant Henderson and the perpetrator’s attorney sufficient to
show the existence of a special relationship.
I would affirm the lower court’s order denying defendant/appellant’s motion for summary
disposition.
/s/ Michael J. Kelly
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