Government Held Immune From Police Damage Costs : Supreme Court: State justices say the Constitution does not require reimbursement for losses suffered at hands of officers in pursuit of suspects. A Sacramento store had sought $300,000 for tear-gas damage.

A deeply divided California Supreme Court held Monday that the state Constitution does not require government to reimburse property owners for damage police inflict while pursuing suspects.

The 4-3 ruling came in a Sacramento case involving an incident in which police lobbed 13 tear-gas canisters into a grocery store where a suspected car thief had barricaded himself.

The store chain, trying to recover about $360,000 in losses, contended that it was owed compensation under the “takings” clause of the California Constitution. That clause requires government to reimburse owners for property taken for public use.

To drum up support, Customer Co. of Benicia, the chain that owns the Sacramento store and 82 others, printed the text of its appeal to the California Supreme Court on its grocery bags.

But the court majority, in an opinion written by Justice Ronald M. George, said the “takings” clause was intended to protect owners whose property is acquired for public works projects, not damaged in law enforcement operations.

Allowing the store to recover under the Constitution “might well deter law enforcement officers from acting swiftly and effectively to protect public safety in emergency situations,” George wrote.

Representatives of Customer Co. called the decision a loss for private property rights in California. Rulings by other state courts in similar cases have been mixed.

“The ramifications of this decision are that anyone who owns property in California ought to be worried that the police don’t cordon someone in their house this week,” said Matthew Graham, an Oakland lawyer representing the chain, “because if they end up destroying your house, your primary asset is gone.”

Cities in the past have voluntarily reimbursed residents for windows or doors smashed by police, Graham said. The Sacramento case was the first dispute over such damage to reach the California Supreme Court.

The state high court took an unusually long time to decide the case, asking for additional briefs after oral arguments were held in October. Voting with George were Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas and Justices Kathryn Mickle Werdegar and Joyce L. Kennard.

Justices Marvin R. Baxter, Stanley Mosk and Armand Arabian dissented. Baxter, who wrote the dissent, argued that the store should be reimbursed because law enforcement deliberately caused the damage as a means of resolving a crisis.

“The authorities deliberately inflicted substantial injury upon plaintiff’s property as the chosen means of achieving certain public purposes under the police power,” Baxter wrote.

The standoff occurred on June 22, 1987, after an officer in an unmarked car followed suspected car thief Christopher Nash to Rogers Food and Liquor Store in North Sacramento.

The officer radioed for assistance, and a police car drove into the store parking lot with flashing lights, alerting Nash to his potential arrest. Nash, who did not carry a weapon into the store, remained inside, resulting in a standoff that lasted more than four hours before he was taken into custody.

The tear-gas canisters fired by police shattered several store windows, wall mirrors and acoustical panels; the store’s inventory, contaminated by the toxic gas, had to be discarded. The store was forced to close for 11 days.

“Going into this, the law was that the police could destroy your home, your property, without being responsible for the damage,” said Ned Roscoe, president of the store chain. “The California Supreme Court let that stand, and that has got to be disappointing to any citizen.”

The court majority said victims in such cases can either file a personal injury suit or ask for compensation under a law that allows cities to establish programs to reimburse such victims.

But Graham, the chain’s lawyer, said a trial judge dismissed the store’s personal injury claim, ruling that the city and county had governmental immunity in such situations. An appeal court upheld the ruling. Laws granting government such immunity contain several exceptions, but not for the destruction of land or buildings.

Graham said he did not know whether Sacramento has a victims compensation program. “If they wanted to compensate us, they could have,” the lawyer said. “They know our address.”

Lawyers for the city of Sacramento said they had not read the ruling and could not comment on it. Sacramento Assistant City Atty. Ted Kobey said he did not know whether the city has a program to compensate residents who suffer losses as a result of police activity.