Janet C. Fleming v. City of Memphis

This appeal concerns whether the public duty doctrine, which immunizes public employees and governmental entities from liability when their duty is owed to the general public rather than any particular individual, survived the 1973 enactment of the Governmental Tort Liability Act (“The GTLA”). While walking in Memphis, Janet C. Fleming (“Plaintiff”) was bitten by a pit bull. Plaintiff sued the City of Memphis (“Defendant”) in the Circuit Court for Shelby County (“the Trial Court”) alleging that Defendant knew of the dog’s violent tendencies from prior incidents and should have taken stronger preventative action. Defendant filed a motion for summary judgment asserting the public duty doctrine. The Trial Court granted the motion. Plaintiff appeals, arguing that the GTLA supersedes the public duty doctrine despite the fact that our Supreme Court has held otherwise in a never-overturned opinion. Constrained to adhere to our Supreme Court’s binding precedent, we hold that the public duty doctrine was not superseded by the GTLA. We hold further that while the GTLA does not provide immunity to Defendant, the public duty doctrine does because Defendant’s duty was to the public at large and Plaintiff has not established a special duty exception. We, therefore, affirm the judgment of the Trial Court.