Source: http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/104/104mass87.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 22:16:54+00:00

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SIDNEY A. FISHER v. CITY OF BOSTON.
A city is not liable for a personal injury resulting from the negligence of officers and members of its fire department in performing their duties, although the department was established and is regulated under a special statute which by its terms required acceptance by the city council before it took effect.
TORT for injuries resulting to the plaintiff from the bursting of the hose attached to a fire-engine at a fire in Boston on September 8, 1868.
The defendants demurred to this declaration, as setting forth no legal cause of action against the city; and the case was thereupon reserved by Morton, J., for the determination of the full court.
D. Foster & E. H. Abbot, for the plaintiff, were first called upon. 1. If the fire apparatus had been owned and managed by a private corporation, the owner would be liable in this case.
the powers and privileges conferred by the act. In Child v. Boston, 4 Allen 41 , the city was held liable for negligently suffering a common sewer to be out of repair, on the ground that the charge of sewers and drains was not an obligation imposed upon the city by legislative authority, exclusively for public purposes, and without its corporate assent, but was voluntarily assumed, by the acceptance of the act conferring the power. In Bigelow v. Randolph, 14 Gray 541 , Metcalf, J., referring to the rule that a private action cannot be maintained against a town for a neglect of corporate duty, unless such action be given by statute, says that the rule is of limited application, and is not applied to the neglect of those obligations which a town incurs when a special duty is imposed on it with its consent, express or implied, or a special authority is conferred on it at its request. See also White v. Phillipston, 10 Met. 108 ; Barney v. Lowell, 98 Mass. 570 ; Eastman v. Meredith, 36 N. H. 284; Lloyd v. New York, 1 Selden, 369; Bailey v. New York, 3 Hill, 531; New York v. Furze, Ib. 612; Conrad v. Ithaca, 16 N. Y. 158; Meares v. Wilmington, 9 Ired. 73; Richmond v. Long, 17 Grat. 375; Nevins v. Peoria, 41 Ill. 503; Mersey Docks Trustees v. Gibbs, Law Rep. 1 H. L. 93; Scott v. Manchester, 1 H. & N. 59; Western Savings Fund Society v. Philadelphia, 31 Penn. State, 175; Same v. Same, Ib. 185; Shuter v. Philadelphia, 3 Philadel. 228; Barton v. Syracuse, 36 N. Y. 54; and Jones v. New Haven, 34 Conn. 1.
upon the assumption that the city was bound by the general law to maintain a fire department as a political duty is manifest from the reference to it in Walcott v. Swampscott, 1 Allen 101 , by Bigelow, C. J., who had delivered the opinion in Hafford v. New Bedford.
C. H. Hill, for the defendants. 1. The demurrer admits facts well pleaded, but not conclusions of law. The plaintiff alleges the establishment of a fire department under the Sts. of 1825, c. 52, and 1850, c. 262, and the appointment of officers and establishment of rules and regulations therefor by the city government. The nature of the department, its relations to the city, and the liability of the city, must depend upon these statutes and the doings of the municipal corporation under them; and the further allegations that at the time the plaintiff incurred the injury those using the engine were then and there the agents and servants of the city, and then and there employed by the said city, are conclusions of law, and, if inconsistent with the facts previously alleged, are not admitted by the demurrer. Com. Dig. Pleader, Q. 6. Foster v. Jackson, Hob. 56. Rex v. Bishop of Chester, 1 Salk. 560. Millard v. Baldwin, 3 Gray 484 . Lea v. Robeson, 12 Gray 280 , 285.
and members to the city. Whether they are public officers, and exist for public purposes, cannot be affected by the fact that the city government was consulted and its consent obtained at the time the department was established.
supporting it, derives no benefit from it, and cannot be said to have received any special privilege from the statute establishing it; and the fault, if any, was purely of omission. The case falls exactly within Bigelow v. Randolph, 14 Gray 541 , 544, 545, and Eastman v. Meredith, 36 N. H. 284.
GRAY, J. Cities and towns are authorized by law to procure and maintain fire-engines and reservoirs of water therefor, and to pay the necessary expense thereof, either by general taxation or out of moneys belonging to the town; because the prevention of damage to buildings by fire is an object which affects the interest of all the inhabitants and relieves them from a common burden and danger, and is therefore within the scope of municipal authority. Allen v. Taunton, 19 Pick. 485 . Torrey v. Millbury, 21 Pick. 64 . Hardy v. Waltham, 3 Met. 163 . For the same reason, they are expressly authorized by statute to put conductors into the pipes of aqueduct corporations for the purpose of drawing therefrom, free of expense, as much water as is necessary to extinguish fires. Gen. Sts. c. 65, § 14. St. 1867, c. 158.
But the extinguishment of fires is not for the immediate advantage of the town in its corporate capacity; nor is any part of the expense thereof authorized to be assessed upon owners of buildings or any other special class of persons whose property is peculiarly benefited or protected thereby. In the absence of express statute, therefore, municipal corporations are no more liable to actions for injuries occasioned by reason of negligence in using or keeping in repair the fire-engines owned by them, than in the case of a town house or a public way. Hafford v. New Bedford, 16 Gray 297 . Eastman v. Meredith, 36 N. H. 284. Bigelow v. Randolph, 14 Gray 541 . Oliver v. Worcester, 102 Mass. 489 , 499.
The duty of extinguishing fires, and of keeping the engines in repair and ready for use, is imposed by the statutes of the Commonwealth, not upon towns and cities, but upon firewards, engineers and other officers, chosen either by the inhabitants, or by the selectmen or mayor and aldermen. Gen. Sts. c. 24, §§ 4, 6, 7, 9, 13, 26, 29. So where a distinct fire department is established in a village or district, the district may raise money for the purchase of engines and other necessary apparatus, and for incidental expenses; but the charge and management thereof are imposed upon the engineers and other officers, when elected. §§ 33, 40, 41, 43. The firewards, engineers and other similar officers are not the servants or agents of the city or town, but are public officers, for whose acts in their official capacity the city or town or fire district is not made responsible, except in the single case of the pulling down of a building to prevent the spreading of a fire. §§ 5, 41. Taylor v. Plymouth, 8 Met. 462 .
and members of that department are no less public officers, and no more agents of the city, than firewards and similar officers under the General Statutes. In the leading case of Hafford v. New Bedford, 16 Gray 297 , the fire department, for the negligence of whose members the city was held not to be liable to an action, was established and regulated, and its officers and members appointed, under a similar special statute.
This case is not like that of an act done by the city for its own corporate advantage and immediate emolument, as in Oliver v. Worcester, 102 Mass. 489 ; or in constructing or repairing a common sewer, laid under authority of a statute voluntarily accepted by the corporation, which permits the assessment of a contribution to the expense thereof upon the abutters, as in Emery v. Lowell, 104 Mass. 13 . But it comes precisely within the rule laid down in Hafford v. New Bedford, and since applied to various similar cases. Walcott v. Swampscott, 1 Allen 101 . Buttrick v. Lowell, Ib. 172. Barber v. Roxbury, 11 Allen 318 . Barney v. Lowell, 98 Mass. 570 .

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