## Facts

- A neighbor called the City’s 911 emergency dispatch around 5:27 a.m. to report a fire at Jeri Mullin’s home.
- When asked whether anyone was inside, the caller replied, “I think so.”
- Dispatch sent fire units but did not send an ambulance.
- After arriving, fire personnel requested an ambulance; the first ambulance arrived around 5:44 a.m.
- The fire resulted in the death of Mullin’s son, Shawn, and injury to her daughter, Kathleen.
- Mullin alleged negligence based on failure to dispatch an ambulance immediately once the dispatcher knew or should have known the house was likely occupied.
- An internal dispatch memorandum stated that medics “will be dispatched to ALL FIRE CALLS” where someone is thought to be inside, and that if occupancy is unknown, medics should not be sent.

## Issues

1. Whether the City was immune from liability under the Indiana Tort Claims Act provisions asserted by the City for its 911/ambulance dispatch conduct.
2. Whether the City owed Mullin and her children a private common-law duty (rather than only a duty to the public) to use reasonable care in dispatching an ambulance once it undertook emergency dispatch services and had information indicating occupants were inside.

## Decision

- The Indiana Supreme Court granted transfer and reversed summary judgment for the City.
- The City was not immune under the asserted Indiana Tort Claims Act provisions for the conduct alleged because the claim concerned operational execution of an existing procedure, not protected policy-level discretion.
- The City owed a private duty to Mullin and her children to exercise reasonable care in providing dispatch services once it undertook the service and had information that someone was thought to be inside the burning residence.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings on the negligence claim.

## Legal Principles

- Statutory immunity for discretionary governmental functions does not extend to alleged negligence in carrying out established emergency-response procedures at the operational level.
- A governmental entity that undertakes to provide emergency dispatch services must exercise reasonable care toward individuals who are foreseeably and directly endangered when the entity has knowledge (actual or constructive) of a specific risk to those individuals.
- The public duty doctrine does not bar a negligence claim where the circumstances support a duty to specific persons in peril based on the entity’s undertaking, knowledge of individualized danger, and foreseeable reliance on the service.
- Internal policies and protocols may be evidence of the scope of the undertaking and the standard of reasonable care, even if they do not independently create a cause of action.

## Conclusion

The court held that the City’s alleged failure to dispatch an ambulance immediately was not protected by the Indiana Tort Claims Act immunity provisions invoked and that, given the City’s undertaking of 911 dispatch and the information that occupants were thought to be inside, the City owed a private duty of reasonable care to Mullin and her children, requiring reversal of summary judgment and remand.


Mullin v. Municipal City of S. Bend, 639 N.E.2d 278 (Ind. 1994)