County of Sacramento v. Superior Court

Petitioner County of Sacramento (the County) unsuccessfully moved for summary judgment in this tort action, which is premised on the alleged failure of the Sacramento County Public Conservator (the conservator) to warn a care facility adequately about a conservatee’s history of violence. After placement at the facility, the conservatee injured one employee and killed another (Tumbur Purba and his wife, decedent Pausta Sibarani). The County had asserted, inter alia, that its agency was immune from suit under Welfare and Institutions Code section 5358.1 1 and consequently it did not have any derivative liability. The trial court, after finding the existence of a duty to warn adequately, ruled that “the immunity is not so broad” because “there is a duty that in essence supersedes the immunity . . . where someone is a real problem and dangerous to the public . . . .”

The County filed a petition in this court for a writ of mandate directing the trial court to set aside its order and issue a new one granting summary judgment on the basis of this statutory immunity. We issued an alternative writ, to which real parties in interest (Tumbur Purba and the children of the couple, to…