## Facts

- The District of Columbia instituted a budget-driven program that closed certain fire stations on a random, rotating basis.
- A fire occurred at Patricia Z. Chandler’s home on September 8, 1976, killing her two children from smoke inhalation.
- The fire station nearest Chandler’s home was closed that day pursuant to the rotation program.
- Chandler, as administratrix and legal representative of the children, sued under survival and wrongful death statutes, alleging the station closure was negligent and the proximate cause of the deaths.
- Chandler conceded the station-closure program was a policy-based, discretionary governmental decision.

## Issues

1. Whether the District may be held liable in tort for injuries allegedly caused by a conceded discretionary decision to implement and operate a rotating fire-station closure program.
2. Whether the court should modify or abandon the ministerial–discretionary framework to allow tort liability when a discretionary decision is alleged to be arbitrary and capricious.
3. Whether the District owed Chandler and her children a specific, actionable duty of care (as opposed to a general public duty) regarding fire protection services.

## Decision

- The D.C. Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal for failure to state a claim.
- The fire-station closure program was a discretionary governmental function, and the District was immune from tort liability for harms alleged to result from that discretionary policy choice.
- The court declined to create an “arbitrary and capricious” exception to discretionary-function immunity or otherwise change the ministerial–discretionary test.
- Independently, the District owed no actionable duty to Chandler or her children because no special relationship or statutory obligation created an individualized duty of care.

## Legal Principles

- The District is immune from tort suits arising from discretionary governmental acts involving policy judgment, including allocation of limited public resources for public safety.
- A division of an appellate court generally will not overrule binding precedent that recognizes discretionary-function immunity.
- Government provision of fire protection is ordinarily a public duty owed to the community, not to specific individuals.
- Absent a special relationship or a statute creating a particularized obligation, no private duty arises, and negligence liability cannot be established.

## Conclusion

The court held that tort claims based on the District’s rotating fire-station closure program were barred because the program was a discretionary policy decision protected by sovereign immunity and because the District owed no individualized duty of fire protection to the plaintiffs absent a special relationship or statutory mandate.


Chandler v. District of Columbia, 404 A.2d 964 (D.C. 1979)