City Expected to Alter Policy on High-Speed Police Pursuits : Law: 2nd District Court of Appeal rules that Gardena can be sued because department guidelines are unclear.

Gardena is expected to alter its policy on high-speed police pursuits, following a recent court decision that allows the son of an innocent motorist who died in a 1988 chase to sue the city.

The state 2nd District Court of Appeal, noting the rash of deadly high-speed police pursuits in Southern California, ruled last month that state law does not shield Gardena from such lawsuits because the city’s policy on police chases is unclear.

“To gain the benefit of immunity from liability for vehicle pursuits, public entities are required to adopt pursuit policies enunciating minimum standards, with specific guidelines which give due consideration to safety concerns,” Presiding Justice Joan Dempsey Klein wrote.

The ruling means that Robert Colvin, 17-year-old son of Bobby Colvin, can go forward with a suit seeking damages for the death of his father during a police pursuit of a joy-riding 9-year-old boy.

The chase ended when the boy’s car, which had reached speeds of 100 m.p.h., slammed into Colvin’s vehicle at Imperial Highway, killing the 36-year-old Compton man. The appellate court ruled that the three officers involved in the pursuit were immune from liability, but not the city.

Michael J. Karger, Gardena’s city attorney, said the city can decide as early as next week whether to ask the appellate court for a new hearing or appeal to the state Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, as a precaution against further rulings against the city, the Police Department will review its chase policy and will probably make it more specific, Karger said.

“We probably will be changing our policy, not because we think it’s bad but, if the ruling stands, it’s been judged that it does not offer immunity,” Karger said.

“I don’t think we will be the only city making changes,” he said, adding that several departments have consulted him on the ruling. Gardena’s policy, written in 1987, was modeled after guidelines suggested by the California Police Chiefs Assn.

“We felt it was adequate,” said David Snowden, president of the police chiefs organization, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Gardena’s policy.

Snowden, chief of the Costa Mesa Police Department, said he had not yet seen the appellate court’s decision, so he could not say if the organization would change its police chase recommendations.

He said he doubted that the court’s ruling will lead to widespread alterations in chase policies because many departments have adopted pursuit guidelines that go beyond the organization’s recommendations.

Colvin appealed his case against Gardena after Torrance Superior Court Judge Abraham Gorenfeld dismissed the suit in July, 1991. Gorenfeld ruled that the city and the Police Department could not be sued because of a state statute that grants immunity to public entities and their employees in such cases, provided there is a written policy on vehicle pursuits.

But the appellate court agreed with Colvin that Gardena’s policy was too vague and thus did not conform to the state statute. The appellate court said Gardena’s policy did not specify when officers could begin a pursuit and when they should end it.

Gardena’s policy states that officers can begin a pursuit “when an officer has reasonable cause to stop a vehicle and the driver fails to stop.”

“Under this lax standard,” Klein wrote, “the ‘reasonable cause to stop a vehicle’ as justification for the initiation of a pursuit could apply to a mere Vehicle Code violation for a non-functioning tail lamp . . . or other minor violation.”

Moreover, Klein wrote, the policy does not provide officers clear guidelines for determining what offenses might warrant a pursuit or what conditions would justify ending it.

“There are no guidelines to assist the officer in balancing risks and benefits,” Klein wrote.

Michael J. Piuze, the attorney representing Colvin’s family, said he expects the suit to go to trial later this year if Gardena does not appeal. Piuze said he thinks that the rash of deadly police pursuits over the last year may have influenced the appellate justices.

More than 10 people, most of them bystanders, have died over the last two months in police pursuits in Southern California.