County of Los Angeles v. Super. Ct.
Under Government Code section 815.6, a public entity may be liable for injury caused by its failure to discharge a “mandatory duty†imposed by an enactment designed to protect against that type of injury.[1] Our Supreme Court has explained that, to be mandatory, “the enactment [must] be obligatory, rather than merely discretionary or permissive, in its directions to the public entity . . . .†(Haggis v. City of Los Angeles (2000) 22 Cal.4th 490, 498 (Haggis).) In addition, “[i]t is not enough . . . that the public entity or officer have been under an obligation to perform a function if the function itself involves the exercise of discretion.†(Ibid.) Therefore, an enactment’s use of mandatory language such as “shall†is not dispositive. An enactment creates a mandatory duty “only where the . . . commanded act [does] not lend itself to a normative or qualitative debate over whether it was adequately fulfilled.†(de Villers v. County of San Diego (2007) 156 Cal.App.4th 238, 260 (de Villers).)
The main issue raised in this writ proceeding is whether the County of Los Angeles (County) had a mandatory duty to capture and take into custody two privately-owned pit bulls before they attacked one of the plaintiffs in this case. The trial court concluded it did based on certain provisions in the Los Angeles County Code (LACC) which, when read together, require the Director of the County Department of Animal Care and Control to capture and take into custody any animal that “constitute[s] or cause[s] a hazard, or [is] a menace to the health, peace or safety of the community.â€
We hold the trial court erred in its construction of the LACC provisions in question. We also reject plaintiffs’ additional arguments that other provisions in the LACC imposed a mandatory duty on the County to take certain actions that might have prevented the pit bull attack in this case. Accordingly, we grant the County’s petition for a writ of mandate and direct the trial court to vacate its order denying the County’s motion for summary judgment and to thereafter enter a new order granting the motion.
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