Case Name: DI VINCENTI BROTHERS, INC. v. LIVINGSTON PARISH SCHOOL BOARD et al.
Court: Louisiana Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1977-03-21
Citations: 355 So. 2d 1
Docket Number: No. 11170
Parties: DI VINCENTI BROTHERS, INC. v. LIVINGSTON PARISH SCHOOL BOARD et al.
Judges: Before LANDRY, EDWARDS and COLE, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 355
Pages: 1–12

Head Matter:
DI VINCENTI BROTHERS, INC. v. LIVINGSTON PARISH SCHOOL BOARD et al.
No. 11170.
Court of Appeal of Louisiana, First Circuit.
March 21, 1977.
On Rehearing Dec. 28, 1977.
Rehearing Denied Feb. 13, 1978.
Writ Refused March 31, 1978.
Karl W. Cavanaugh, Denham Springs, for plaintiff.
J. Donald Cascio, Denham Springs, for defendants.
Before LANDRY, EDWARDS and COLE, JJ.

Opinion:
COLE, Judge.
This suit by a wholesale food distributor seeks to have the Livingston Parish School Board enjoined from removing it from the list of those allowed to bid on supplies for the Board's school lunch program.
For several years prior to the 1974-75 school year, plaintiff has been one of the suppliers of food to that School Board. Pri- or to that school year, the Board's food service director had informed all such distributors that they would have to comply with the state certification and inspection program for meat. During that year, it came to the attention of the director that Di Vincenti was delivering uncertified meats to some of the schools, and it was removed at that time from the list of bidders.
Thereafter, the plaintiff met with the School Board and its suspension was amicably resolved. However, it was again removed from the list of suppliers in February, 1976, because it was found to have resumed the delivery of meat which did not have the required certification.
This litigation followed that action. Made defendants were the School Board and its individual members. A plea of immunity and a peremptory exception were filed on behalf of the Board and the members respectively. Without a ruling on those exceptions, a hearing was had on the merits of the injunctive relief sought, and judgment was subsequently rendered in favor of the defendants, dismissing the plaintiff's suit.
The School Board again here maintains that its plea of immunity should be sustained because the plaintiff did not obtain legislative authorization for its suit. That argument is correct.
This suit was filed on March 17,1976, and alleges a cause of action which arose on February 20th of that year. Therefore, this suit is governed by the Louisiana Constitution of 1974 which became effective at midnight, December 31, 1974.
Article 12, § 10 of that document provides, in part:
"(A) No Immunity in Contract and Tort. Neither the state, a state agency, nor a political subdivision shall be immune from suit and liability in contract or for injury to person or property.
"(B) Waiver in Other Suits. The legislature may authorize other suits against the state, a state agency, or a political subdivision. A measure authorizing suit shall waive immunity from suit and liability."
See, also, Article 14, § 33 of the document.
Therefore, the present inquiry is whether this suit is one in either contract or for injury to person or property requiring no legislative waiver of immunity, or whether it is one to be governed by Article 12, § 10(B).
In considering a similar issue in Hill v. North-Central Area Vocational Technical School, La.App., 310 So.2d 104 (1975), our Supreme Court, with respect to interpretative analysis of what constitutes a suit in contract, stated:
"A contract is an agreement, by which one person obligates himself to another, to give, to do or permit, or not to do something. La.C.C. art. 1761. A contract consists of a proposition and the consent to it, and when one proposes and the other assents, the obligation is complete. La.C.C. arts. 1800, 1803. A bilateral or reciprocal contract exists when the parties expressly enter into mutual engagements. La.C.C. art. 1779 provides:
'Four requisites are necessary to the validity" of a contract:
'1. -Parties legally capable of contracting.
'2. Their consent legally given.
'3. A certain object, which forms the matter of agreement.
'4. A lawful purpose.' "
(310 So.2d at 106)
This suit seeks to obtain the right to contract with the defendant School Board. It does not allege that a contract was in effect at the time of the institution of this litigation or that any agreement has been breached. Additionally, the plaintiff at this time seeks no damages for injury. To the contrary, it has specifically reserved its right to amend its petition at a later time to claim monetary damages. We note this statement on page 2 of appellant's supplemental brief in this Court:
"The relief plaintiff seeks, at this point, is a mandatory injunction to compel the defendant board, its members and certain named employees to comply with the law, particularly the Public Contracts Law. >>
That summation accurately reflects the nature of the cause of action asserted at this time. To characterize this matter as a contractual dispute or as a claim for injury to person or property would require a distortion of that terminology and of the intent of the Constitution. Further, subsection (B) of § 10 which was obviously inserted to require a legislative waiver for "Other Suits" would be rendered meaningless.
In reaching the conclusion that we do not have before us a suit in contract or for injury to person or property for which there is no immunity, we have considered source provisions of the Constitution of 1921 and the intent of the drafters of Article 12, § 10 of the Constitution of 1974. Article 3, § 35 and Article 19, § 26 of the Constitution of 1921; Official Transcript of the Constitutional Convention, 1973, pp. 31-95 of the 20th day of the proceedings and pp. 7-46 of the 21st day of the proceedings. Additionally, we find a statutory waiver of immunity as regards school boards only for suits for the enforcement of contracts entered into by a school board or for recovery of damages for the breach thereof. LSA-R.S. 17:51. This statute is obviously insufficient to afford the further constitutional right to sue for injury to person or property, but it is not a legislative waiver of immunity from "Other Suits" against a school board. Still further, we note that the Legislature in fulfilling the mandate of Article 12, § 10(C) to provide a procedure for suits against the state, a state agency, or a political subdivision, specifically defines "political subdivision" to include a school board. LSA-R.S. 13:5102.
The character of the action given by plaintiff in his petition, an analysis of the entire pleading, and the nature of the relief prayed for, when considered within the context of the extensive debate engaged in by the drafters of Article 12, § 10 of the Constitution of 1974 (Official Transcript, supra), leads us to conclude that the instant action is neither ex contractu nor ex delicto but falls within the category of "Other Suits" intended to be provided for by Article 12, § 10(B).
As a further argument against the dismissal of the present action, the appellant also maintains that the "Plea of Immunity" filed by the School Board is an improper procedural device for asserting this issue. As we noted in Huckabay v. Netterville, 263 So.2d 113 (La.App. 1st Cir. 1972), the exception of no right of action has been specifically approved by the Supreme Court in cases involving similar issues. See, also, Tucker v. Edwards, 214 La. 560, 38 So.2d 241 (1948), and Weinstein, Bronfin and Heller v. LeBlanc, 249 La. 936, 192 So.2d 130 (1966).
As in Huckabay, we now supply the exception of no right of action as authorized by Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure Article 927.
The peremptory exception filed herein is also maintainable as it applies to the individual School Board members who were made defendants in this matter due to official acts only. In Tucker v. Edwards, supra, the Supreme Court commented:
"With respect to non-feasance by a public officer the law appears to be:
'A public officer who knowingly or negligently fails or refuses to do a ministerial act which the law or legal authority absolutely requires him to do may be compelled to respond in damages to one to whom performance was owing, to the extent of the injury proximately caused by the nonperformance. Honest intentions and a mistake as to his duty will not excuse the offender. On the other hand, failure to perform discretionary and quasi-judicial powers does not in general sub ject an officer to personal liability so long as he is acting within the scope of his authority or jurisdiction. ' 43 American Jurisprudence, verbo Public Officers, Section 278.
"Further, in the succeeding Section 279 we find:
'As is elsewhere mentioned in this article, officers performing discretionary duties may become personally liable for negligent acts in excess of their authority. But no action lies for the negligent performance of an official duty which is judicial or discretionary in its nature, however gross or corrupt such neglect may be, so long as the acts are wholly within the officer's jurisdiction. The remedy in all such cases is by indictment or impeachment. '
"Continuing, that authority states in Section 280, with reference to liability for acts of board members, as follows:
'In a number of cases, public officers or the sureties on their bonds have been held personally liable for resulting damage where they fail to perform a duty expressly and positively imposed on a body of which they are members, or where they violate express provisions of law forbidding their action, or where they otherwise cause injury by violating or disobeying the law, although they act in concert as a body. On the other hand, it is held in various cases that the neglect or breach of duty is the default of the board and not of the individuals composing it, and that the members may not be held personally liable. If there is refusal to exercise the power of such body, it is the refusal of the body, and not of the individuals composing it. The official action of its different members is merged into the official action of the board itself as an entity. '
"This non-liability doctrine was considered and applied in Monnier v. Godbold et al., 116 La. 165, 40 So. 604, 608, 5 L.R.A.,N.S., 463, 7 Ann.Cas. 768, the court commenting therein:
'In the case before us the act complained of was not one of commission, but of omission (a refusal to grant a certificate), and the action or nonaction of the corporate body was one with which the defendants were connected exclusively in their positions as members of the board. Nothing which they did or could do, simply as individuals, could alter the situation. As individuals, they were strangers to the act complained of. The official action of the different members became merged in the ultimate action of the board itself as an entity.' " (38 So.2d at 244)
Therefore, for the reasons herein assigned, the appellant's suit is dismissed at its costs.
AFFIRMED.