The mere fact that officers are required to exercise good judgment in making those decisions does not change the discretionary nature of their duties. We are similarly unpersuaded by the plaintiff's reliance on dictum from this court's decision in Tetro v. Stratford , 189 Conn. 601, 458 A.2d 5 (1983), which, like the present case, arose from a police pursuit, for the proposition that § 14-283 imposes a ministerial duty on officers to drive with due regard for safety when deciding whether to initiate a pursuit. For two reasons, Tetro is inapplicable to the present case. First, Tetro presented a different question than the one at issue in this appeal.

Indeed, the legislature's understanding of the liability of individual police officers—and of the municipalities that employ them pursuant to § 7-465 —for the negligent operation of motor vehicles during law enforcement operations is implicitly confirmed by this court's nearly contemporaneous decision in Tetro v. Stratford , 189 Conn. 601, 611, 458 A.2d 5 (1983), which rejected a claim of "blanket immunity" under § 14-283 for damages arising from a crash caused by a high-speed police pursuit. This is particularly so given that we presume that the legislature is aware of the common law on a particular subject and, further, that it knows how to abrogate common-law rules, as it deems appropriate.

a) Any town, city or borough, notwithstanding any inconsistent provision of law, general, special or local, shall pay on behalf of any employee of such municipality, except firemen covered under the provisions of section 7-308, and on behalf of any member from such municipality of a local emergency planning district, appointed pursuant to section 22a-601, all sums which such employee becomes obligated to pay by reason of the liability imposed upon such employee by law for damages awarded for infringement of any person's civil rights or for physical damages to person or property, except as set forth in this section, if the employee, at the time of the occurrence, accident, physical injury or damages complained of, was acting in the performance of his duties and within the scope of his employment, and if such occurrence, accident, physical injury or damage was not the result of any wilful or wanton act of such employee in the discharge of such duty. ..." Indeed, this court's decision in Tetro v. Stratford , 189 Conn. 601, 458 A.2d 5 (1983), provides a paradigmatic example of the law governing liability for negligence in the operation of emergency vehicles as it existed at the time the legislature enacted § 52-557n. This court's decision in Tetro captures the state of our law on the subject a mere three years prior to the enactment of § 52-557n but more than one decade after the 1971 amendments to § 14-283, thus answering the historical question of whether immunity was conferred on emergency vehicles operators under Connecticut law before the legislature codified the municipal immunity doctrine.

The trial court's ruling in Mason reflected what is described as a minority view in a Connecticut case cited by Kembel, Tetro v. Town of Stratford, 189 Conn. 601, 610, 458 A.2d 5 (Conn. 1983). In Tetro, the Stratford police approached three young men in a Chevrolet because they "looked too young to have valid driver's licenses.

In addition, as noted by the Connecticut Supreme Court, section 14-283 (d) expressly states "that it "shall not relieve the operator of an emergency vehicle from the duty to drive with due regard for the safety of all persons and property.'" Tetro v. Stratford, 189 Conn. 601, 609, 458 A.2d 5 (1983). Section 14-283 provides no special zone of limited liability once the defendants' negligence has been established.

The municipal regulations define an authorized emergency vehicle as the vehicle of any police department, 18 D.C.M.R. § 9901, presumably including that of Arlington County; under District law the regulation therefore applies to Kyle and imposes on him a duty to act with due care for the safety of others while driving an emergency vehicle in the District. See also Tetro v. Town of Stratford, 189 Conn. 601, 458 A.2d 5 (1983) (liability permissible on a finding of negligence, based on language similar to that in the District regulation); Mason v. Bitton, 85 Wash.2d 321, 534 P.2d 1360 (1975) (en banc) (statute with language like that in the District regulation imposes actionable duty to exercise due care during felony pursuit); Myers v. Town of Harrison, 438 F.2d 293 (2d Cir. 1971) (same). See generally Annot.

883 S.W.2d at 610. We note that some other jurisdictions apply the same ordinary negligence standard of care. See, e.g., Estate of Aten v. City ofTuscon, 169 Ariz. 147, 817 P.2d 951 (1991) (reversing summary judgment for City); City of Caddo Valley v. George, 340 Ark. 203, 9 S.W.3d 481 (2000) (holding City liable to the extent of its insurance); City of Sacramento v. Superior Court, 131 Cal. App. 3d 395, 182 Cal. Rptr. 443 (1982) (noting that the evidence tended to show that the officer was not negligent for failing to warn other motorists with his lights and siren but remanding for trial because the plaintiff presented some facts that might warrant a contrary finding); Tetro v. Stratford, 189 Conn. 601, 611 n. 6, 458 A.2d 5 (1983) (affirming a verdict in favor of the plaintiff and noting that there was "no occasion to consider the extent to which formulation of a duty of care should take into account, as one of the relevant circumstances, the fact that police officers are responding to an emergency"); City of Pinellas Park v. Brown, 604 So. 2d 1222 (Fla. 1992) (holding that police, like everyone else, have a duty to lessen the risk or take precautions to protect others when their conduct creates a foreseeable "zone of risk"); Brooks v. Lundeen, 49 Ill. App. 3d 1, 364 N.E.2d 423 (1977) (applying an ordinary care standard to officers who set up a roadblock and failed to warn decedent about an approaching highspeed chase); Eklund v. Trost, 335 Mont. 112, 151 P.3d 870 (2006) (reversing summary judgment and remanding for trial); Lee v. City of Omaha, 209 Neb. 345, 307 N.W.2d 800 (1981) (affirming the trial court's finding of no liability after a bench trial); Jones v. Chieffo, 549 Pa. 46, 700

AccordBiscoe v. Arlington County, 738 F.2d 1352, 1366 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (stating "numerous jurisdictions have recognized a cause of action for negligent conduct of a high-speed chase, where the pursued vehicle strikes and injures an innocent third party"). See also Seals v. City of Columbia, 575 So.2d 1061 (Ala. 1991); Tetro v. Town of Stratford, 458 A.2d 5 (Conn. 1983); City of Miami v. Horne, 198 So.2d 10 (Fla. 1967); Mixon v. City of Warner Robins, 444 S.E.2d 761 (Ga. 1994); Boyer v. State, 594 A.2d 121 (Md. 1991); Fiser v. City of Ann Arbor, 339 N.W.2d 413 (Mich. 1983); Lee v. City of Omaha, 307 N.W.2d 800 (Neb. 1981); Lowrimore v. Dimmitt, 797 P.2d 1027 (Or. 1990); Haynes v. Hamilton County, 883 S.W.2d 606 (Tenn. 1994); Travis v. City of Mesquite, 830 S.W.2d 94 (Tex. 1992);Mason v. Bitton, 534 P.2d 1360 (Wash. 1975). A few states, however, require a showing of gross negligence before imposing liability.

In general, the common-law rule for causation in tort actions against municipalities is the ordinary proximate causation standard. Tetro v. Stratford, 189 Conn. 601, 607, 458 A.2d 5 (1983) (rejecting argument that intervening negligence of driver pursued by police required conclusion that there was lack of causation between police negligence and plaintiff's injuries, and confirming that ordinary rules of causation generally apply in action against municipality). According to this standard, "[w]hen there is an intervening force between the defendant's action and the plaintiff's injuries . . . proximate cause [exists when] the defendant's negligence was a substantial factor in causing the plaintiff's injuries and . . . the harm which occurred was of the same general nature as the foreseeable risk created by the defendant's negligence."

Numerous police agencies have already recognized the high risk of harm to the public from high speed chases and, as a result, have adopted regulations to govern the conduct of their officers that include some or all of the factors set out above. See e.g. Nevill, supra; Tetro v. Town of Stratford, 189 Conn. 601, 458 A.2d 5, 7 (1983); City of Pinellas Park v. Brown, 604 So.2d 1222, 1224 (Fla. 1992). Nonetheless, the factors listed above are not exclusive, and overall, a police officer's conduct should be viewed in light of how a reasonably prudent police officer would respond under the circumstances, and not judged with the perfect vision afforded by hindsight.