Is foreseeability sufficient to constitute a duty for a police officer to warn or protect the public?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from Sullivan v. City of Sacramento, 190 Cal.App.3d 1070, 235 Cal.Rptr. 844 (Cal. App. 1987):

Notwithstanding the expansive language in Molien, foreseeability alone is not sufficient to impose a duty upon police officers to warn or protect individual members of the public. (Davidson v. City of Westminster, supra, 32 Cal.3d at p. 209, 185 Cal.Rptr. 252, 649 P.2d 894.) Even in circumstances in which the plaintiff's injury could be characterized as both "reasonably foreseeable" and "rational to anticipate" the courts have declined to find that the officer owed a duty to the plaintiff.

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