## Facts

- Leola Washington and Steven Barnes were in a long-term, violent domestic relationship; both abused drugs.
- Washington previously obtained protection/no-contact orders against Barnes, but record-keeping failures prevented the orders from appearing in relevant records.
- In December 1985 Barnes threatened to kill Washington; she called Seattle police after Barnes left.
- Washington reported Barnes had violated a no-contact order; responding officers could not verify the order in their system and did not arrest Barnes.
- Officers searched the area for Barnes without success and offered to take Washington to a shelter or other safe location; she declined and stayed with her mother.
- Two days later Barnes found Washington at her mother’s home and fatally stabbed her.
- Washington’s estate sued the City for wrongful-death negligence, alleging statutory noncompliance and inadequate response caused the death.

## Issues

1. Whether Washington’s Domestic Violence Prevention Act (DVPA) creates a duty to protect domestic-violence victims that is actionable in tort, rather than a duty owed only to the public under the public duty doctrine.
2. Whether the DVPA requires mandatory arrest when officers have probable cause to believe a domestic-violence offense or protection-order violation occurred, and whether that requirement applied on these facts.
3. Whether the City’s alleged failures were a proximate cause of Washington’s death despite Barnes’s intervening criminal act two days later.
4. Whether governmental/discretionary-function immunity bars liability for the officers’ response.

## Decision

- The Washington Court of Appeals agreed in part and reversed in part the judgment entered on the jury’s verdict against the City.
- The court recognized that the DVPA is directed at protecting a defined class—domestic-violence victims—and can support an actionable duty in tort, limiting application of the public duty doctrine in this setting.
- The court treated the DVPA as mandating arrest when an officer has probable cause to believe a domestic-violence crime or protection-order violation occurred.
- The court nevertheless limited liability and reversed in part based on the interaction of duty with proximate cause and related limits on municipal liability (including immunity principles as applied to the conduct at issue).

## Legal Principles

- A municipality is generally not liable for breach of duties owed to the public at large; liability requires a duty owed to the plaintiff or a protected class.
- A protective statute may create an actionable duty to a defined class of persons when the statute’s language and purpose show an intent to provide specific protection.
- Under Washington’s DVPA, when probable cause exists for certain domestic-violence offenses or protection-order violations, arrest is mandatory rather than a matter of unfettered discretion.
- Proximate cause remains required in negligence claims against government entities; an assailant’s later criminal act may limit liability where the connection to the alleged breach is too remote, though statutory protection duties may affect foreseeability analysis.
- Discretionary-function immunity protects basic policy choices, but operational acts and statutory compliance at the officer level are less likely to be immune, especially where the statute leaves limited discretion once triggering conditions are met.

## Conclusion

The court held that Washington’s DVPA can impose an enforceable duty on police to protect domestic-violence victims, but it reversed in part because the jury’s imposition of municipal liability could not stand in full given limits tied to proximate cause and related doctrines governing governmental liability.


Donaldson v. City of Seattle, 831 P.2d 1098 (Wash. Ct. App. 1992)