In McCarthy v. City of Waltham, the Appeals Court overturned a judge's denial of the City's motion for a directed verdict pursuant to G. L. c.258, §10(j), the immunity clause under the Massachusetts Tort Claims Act. This clause provides immunity to a public employer for "[a]ny claim based on an act or failure to act to prevent or diminish the harmful consequences of a condition or situation ... which is not originally caused by the public employer or any other person acting on behalf of the public employer". In this case, the decedent was suicidal and had been taken into protective custody by the City's police department. His family members had contacted the police regarding his condition and alleged that the dispatchers had promised to contact them when the decedent was released. The decedent later committed suicide after being released. The decedent's estate brought a claim and asserted that several statements by dispatchers in the City's police department constituted "explicit and specific assurances of safety or assistance." If true, these assurances may have negated the City's immunity under Section 10(j) which contains an exception that allows for liability for "any claim based upon explicit and specific assurances of safety or assistance . . . made to the direct victim or a member of his family or household by a public employee, provided that the injury resulted in part from reliance on those assurances." The Appeals Court, however, agreed with the City and determined that "[t]he city's motion for a directed verdict should have been allowed because the evidence that the police made ‘explicit and specific assurances of safety or assistance' to [the decedent's] family members, when viewed in a light most favorable to the plaintiff, was insufficient, as a matter of law, to overcome the immunity afforded the city under G. L. c. 258, §10(j)." Specifically, the Appeals Court found that the family members could not rely on the statements because the statements were not explicit. In essence, the dispatchers only agreed to try to have the decedent contact his family members upon release.
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