Case Title: Wolf v. Fidelity & Deposit Company of Maryland

Citation: 174 Kan. 402, 256 P.2d 862

Docket Number: 38,843

State: kansas

Court: Kansas Supreme Court

Date: 1953-05-09T00:00:00Z

Document:
174 Kan. 402 (1953)
256 P.2d 862
NICK WOLF, Appellee,
v.
THE FIDELITY AND DEPOSIT COMPANY OF MARYLAND, a Corporation, and HAL L. EVERETT, Appellants.
No. 38,843

Supreme Court of Kansas.
Opinion filed May 9, 1953.
Drew Hartnett, of Salina, argued the cause, and Raymond E. Haggart, of Salina, was with him on the briefs for the appellants.
William S. Norris, of Salina, was on the briefs for the appellee.
The opinion of the court was delivered by
HARVEY, C.J.:
Plaintiff sued to recover damages to his automobile and for personal injuries sustained when he drove onto a bridge which was part of a road maintained by the county, several boards of the floor of which had been removed in making repairs and no warning signs or barricades indicating the road was not passable had been put out or erected. The sole defendants were the county engineer and the surety on his bond. Defendants filed separate motions to strike parts of the petition, which were successfully contested. They then separately demurred to the petition on the ground that it did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. This demurrer was overruled and they have appealed.
In support of the ruling of the trial court counsel for appellee frankly state:
The sole question before us is whether this action can be maintained. *403 Our statute (G.S. 1949, 68-501) requires the county commissioners to appoint a competent road builder or supervisor of roads whose official title shall be county engineer, the appointment to be subject to the approval of the state highway commission. G.S. 1949, 68-502, prescribes the duties of the county engineer. It reads:
Counsel for appellee relies heavily upon our statute (G.S. 1949, 68-121), which places certain duties upon anyone who has "entered into any contract" to do any highway construction or repair work, "or any city, township, or county, which has undertaken for itself to perform" such work; and the following section, 68-122, which makes the failure, neglect or refusal to comply with the provisions of section 68-121 a misdemeanor, for which the penalty is prescribed.
*404 We see nothing in any of the statutes above cited making it the personal duty of the county engineer to do the actual work of making repairs on the floor of a bridge on a county highway. Counsel for appellants call attention to the fact that there was no specific allegation in the petition that the county engineer was present and doing the work of repairing the bridge. In his brief counsel for appellee replies to that as follows:
Appellee's argument is not well taken. In Miller v. Ottawa County Comm'rs, 146 Kan. 481, 71 P.2d 875, the court held the county engineer "is a public officer, and not an employee of the county board with ministerial duties"; and in the opinion (p. 485) it was said:
Smith v. Higgins, 149 Kan. 477, 87 P.2d 544, was an action for damages brought by an employee of Reno county. The county *405 commissioners, the county engineer and the surety on his bond, and the superintendent of the county yards were named as defendants. Plaintiff alleged that on a certain date, while working as an employee of the county in the sand pit being operated in connection with highway construction, he suffered injury caused by the breaking of a belt on the machine hoist, which resulted from the improper repairing of the belt by a county employee under the direction of W.L. Powell, superintendent of the yards, and that Powell was assistant clerk and/or deputy of the county engineer. In that case the plaintiff sought to invoke section 75-3020 of our General Statutes (now G.S. 1949, 75-3020), which provides:
The court noted that this is a section of our statute pertaining to state employees and officers and that the county engineer is not a state officer, and said:
Counsel for appellee cites no Kansas authority supporting the view that the defendant or county engineer is liable under the facts of this case. He does cite Mott et al. v. Hull, 51 Okla. 602, 152 Pac. 92, where it was held:
This case has given the Oklahoma courts quite a little trouble, as shown by the opinion in Lowe v. Storozyszyn, 183 Okla. 471, 83 P.2d 170, and Hines v. Carroll, 186 Okla. 555, 99 P.2d 113. These cases point out the distinction between acts of negligence, spoken of as misfeasance, and nonfeasance, which is doing nothing, and cites circumstances under which one might be negligent for the former but not for the latter. The result is Mott et al. v. Hull, *406 supra, is limited to acts of misfeasance by an officer whose duties are purely ministerial. Counsel for appellee also cites Tholkes v. Decock, 125 Minn. 507, 147 N.W. 648, where recovery was allowed in a case of misfeasance of an overseer in repairing a culvert in a public highway. It was not a case of nonfeasance. This case has given the Minnesota courts difficulty. In Bolland v. Gihlstorf, 134 Minn. 41, 158 N.W. 725, it was squarely held that township trustees and the road overseer are not personally liable for failure to repair bridges or roads. This decision was followed in Stevens v. North States Motor, Inc., 161 Minn. 345, 201 N.W. 435. In Giefer v. Dierckx, 230 Minn. 34, 40 N.W. 2nd 425, the court considered the earlier Minnesota cases and held:
Counsel for appellee also cites general authorities to the effect that where the duties of the officer are ministerial they may be liable for negligent performance of such duties. None of these authorities is in point here, for, as we have seen, the duties imposed by statute upon the county engineer are not ministerial duties. They are governmental duties. He acts for the county. (Breedlove v. Wyandotte County Comm'rs, 127 Kan. 754, 758, 275 Pac. 379.) In fact the plaintiff's petition clearly shows that the work of repairing the bridge was being done on a road which was under the jurisdiction of the county commissioners  in other words, a county road. The county engineer was a county officer acting for the county. It is well settled in this state that the county and its officers are immune from liability for negligence except to the extent they may be made so by statute. (See, Silver v. Clay County, 76 Kan. 228, 91 Pac. 55, citing many of the earlier cases. Also, see, Gresty v. Darby, 146 Kan. 63, 68 P.2d 649, and Clapham v. Miami County Comm'rs, 158 Kan. 685, 149 P.2d 344, citing many of the later cases.) In fact, counsel for appellee does not contend the rule to be otherwise.
We think it was error for the court to overrule the motions of the respective defendants to strike, and also to overrule their demurrers to the petition, and that the judgment of the trial court should be reversed, with directions to sustain the demurrers to the petition.
It is so ordered.