In Adams v. City of Fremont (1998) 68 Cal.App.4th 243, the Court considered a city's liability for the death of a suicidal individual armed with a gun who fatally shot himself during a police standoff before being shot by officers who mistakenly believed he was shooting at them. In a divided opinion, the majority held that "police officers responding to a crisis involving a person threatening suicide with a loaded firearm have no legal duty under tort law that would expose them to liability if their conduct fails to prevent the threatened suicide from being carried out." (Id. at p. 248.) The majority applied the "traditional" factors of Rowland v. Christian (1968) 69 Cal.2d 108, 112-113, and concluded these factors did not favor liability. "On balance, the relevant public policy considerations militate against imposing a legal duty on police officers to take reasonable steps to prevent a threatened suicide from being carried out. The foreseeability and certainty of harm suffered are factors which favor imposing a duty. The absence of moral blame, the remoteness of the connection between the conduct of the officers and the harm suffered, the policy of preventing future harm, consequences to the community, the role of law enforcement in society, and the potential detriment to the public in imposing judicial allocation of resources all heavily favor shielding law enforcement personnel from tort liability in instances such as this." (Adams, at p. 276.) The Court began its analysis with an exposition of the principles pertinent to the question of duty as it pertains to public employees, first setting forth the fundamental rule that the right to recover against public entities or their employees for injuries resulting from alleged negligent conduct has, since 1963, been defined by statute. The Court then went on: "Public employees are liable for injuries resulting from their acts or omissions to the same extent as private persons, except where otherwise exempted or immunized by law. (Gov. Code, 820.) Public entities are correspondingly liable for the negligent acts or omissions of their employees acting within the scope of their employment except where either the employee or the public entity is immunized from liability by statute. (Gov. Code, 815.2.) However, 'the exclusive sway of statutory rules does not foreclose the aid of common law tort doctrines and analogies in ascertaining and achieving imperfectly expressed statutory objectives. ' Where a legal duty is not created by statute, the question of whether a legal duty exists is analyzed under general principles of tort law. ' "A tort, ... involves a violation of a legal duty ... owed by the defendant to the person injured. Without such a duty, any injury is 'damnum absque injuria'--injury without wrong. " ' " (Adams, supra, 68 Cal.App.4th at p. 264.) In Adams v. City of Fremont (1998) 68 Cal.App.4th 243, the decedent threatened suicide with a firearm and was shot by the police. The family sued for wrongful death and was awarded $ 4 million damages. The Court of Appeal reversed, holding that the officers owed no legal duty or care to the decedent or his family. ( Id., at pp. 248, 288, fn. 40.) The court said that "imposing liability for the negligent handling of a threatened suicide improperly elevates the interests in preserving the life of the person threatening suicide over the interests of public safety and the physical safety of police officers." ( Id., at p. 272.) As a matter of public policy, "the interests to the public in protecting against future harm and the detrimental consequences to the public in imposing a tort duty under such circumstances, outweigh the partial loss of legal accountability occasioned by a rule of nonliability. Moreover, our decision does not insulate police misconduct from all legal and internal scrutiny. Plaintiffs may still pursue a legal action when police misconduct constitutes an intentional tort or a violation of an individual's constitutional or other federally protected rights. (42 U.S.C. 1983)." ( Id., at p. 274.) The Court examined these considerations in the context of a claim that police officers, responding to a person threatening to commit suicide, acted negligently by failing to prevent the suicide. The court rejected imposition of a general duty of care, noting there is a "'widely held misconception' that law enforcement's public safety function imposes a duty on police officers to protect individual constituents as opposed to the general public." (Id. at p. 274.) Adams noted there are substantial policy concerns "that the establishment of a privately enforceable duty to use reasonable diligence in the performance of public functions would 'effectively bring the business of government to a speedy halt,'" (id. at p. 275) and that the "extent and quality of police protection afforded to the community necessarily depends upon the availability of public resources and upon legislative and administrative determinations concerning allocation of those resources. The public, through its representative officials, recruits, trains, maintains and disciplines its police force and determines the manner in which personnel are deployed. At any given time, publicly furnished police protection may accrue to the personal benefit of individual citizens, but at all times the needs and interests of the community at large predominate." (Ibid.) The Court concluded that: "The role of law enforcement in society is to act in the general public interest. Permitting potential suicide victims and their families to hold police officers personally liable for the negligent handling of a suicide crisis conflicts with the public nature of protection services police officers provide to the community at large. Moreover, imposing a duty on law enforcement to take reasonable steps to prevent a threatened suicide would have significant budgetary implications and improperly insinuate the civil justice system into the allocation of law enforcement resources. The degree of training devoted to suicide intervention and prevention would be dictated by events in the civil courtroom, and not necessarily by the needs of the community. Compelling the reallocation of finite public resources may serve to benefit individuals in a suicidal crisis, but that benefit may be at the expense of other, more pressing law enforcement needs and programs." (Id. at pp. 275-276.)