Supreme Court Rules in Case of Woman Whose Home Was Mistakenly Raided by Tacoma Police

The Washington State Supreme Court ruled Thursday to reinstate a verdict that awarded $250,000 to a woman whose home was mistakenly raided by Tacoma police a decade ago.

Jurors found police were negligent in failing to verify information from an informant about where a suspected drug dealer they were looking for lived before they raided Kathleen Mancini's Federal Way home in 2011.

The Court Appeals overturned the $250,000 judgment last year. The Supreme Court reinstated the jury's verdict in a 8-1 opinion.

"We hold that police owe a duty to exercise reasonable care when executing a search warrant," Justice Sheryl Gordon McCloud wrote for the majority. "We further hold that substantial evidence exists from which a reasonable jury could conclude that Tacoma police breached that duty in entering, searching, and detaining at Mancini's apartment."

Lori Haskell, an attorney who represented Mancini, said the court's decision provides recourse for the negligent execution of a search warrant going forward.

"Police hit the wrong door more often than we know, more often than we think," Haskell said. "And in the state of Washington there's never been recourse for when police hit the wrong door of a citizen, and now there is."

Asked for comment about the court's opinion, a city spokesperson said in a statement: "The City respects and will abide by the decision of the Court's majority."

The suspected methamphetamine dealer police were looking for lived in the same apartment complex as Mancini, court records say. An informant said the suspect lived in B1. An officer found records that Mancini rented that apartment and believed she was the suspect's mother.

Police used a battering ram on the door of the then-62-year-old nurse's apartment, where she was sleeping after working a night shift.

The suspect actually lived in apartment A1, elsewhere in the complex.

"At trial, Mancini introduced evidence that the police raided her apartment, pointed guns at her, forced her to the ground, handcuffed her, took her outside barefoot in a nightgown, in January, and left her handcuffed for up to 15 minutes," Gordon McCloud wrote. "... A rational juror could have found that police breached the door unreasonably quickly after knocking and receiving no response, that police took an unreasonable amount of time to realize they had the wrong apartment, that the police unreasonably continued their search of Mancini's apartment after realizing they had hit the wrong door, or that the police unreasonably left Mancini handcuffed long after realizing she had no relation to their suspect—or any combination of these facts."

Mancini argued that officers violated department policy by not doing an controlled buy or surveillance to make sure they had the right apartment.

A three-judge panel of Division I of the state Court of Appeals overturned the $250,000 judgment in 2019.

"On appeal, the City contends that Mancini's negligence claim should not have been submitted to the jury because, as tried, it was a claim for negligent investigation, which is not cognizable in Washington," the Division I opinion said in part.

Justice Barbara Madsen dissented Thursday, saying that she would affirm the Court of Appeals decision.

"While I would recognize a common law claim for negligent police investigation, the fact remains that it does not currently exist in Washington," Madsen wrote. "Given Mancini's own expert's testimony, along with Mancini's concession in closing arguments, that police acted appropriately in securing the scene and in their contacts with Mancini in executing the warrant, in my view there is no basis for Mancini's negligence claim."

Justices Steven González, Charles Johnson, Susan Owens, Debra Stephens, Mary Yu, Raquel Montoya-Lewis, and G. Helen Whitener signed the majority opinion.

In it, Gordon McCloud wrote that the court had not previously "specifically addressed tort liability for negligence in the execution of a search warrant. Today we hold that police executing a search warrant owe the same duty of reasonable care that they owe when discharging other duties."

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