Case Name: CITY OF MIAMI v. BETHEL et al.
Court: Florida Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1953-04-28
Citations: 65 So. 2d 34
Docket Number: 
Parties: CITY OF MIAMI v. BETHEL et al.
Judges: THOMAS, MATHEWS and, DREW,’ JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 65
Pages: 34–39

Head Matter:
CITY OF MIAMI v. BETHEL et al.
Supreme Court of Florida, en Banc.
April 28, 1953.
Rehearing Denied May 25, 1953.
S.O. Carson, J. W. Watson, Jr., John H. Wahl, Jr., and Walton Hubbard, Schroeder, Lantaff & Atkins, Miami, for appellant.
Morehead, Forrest, Brown & Gotthardt and Lawrence G. Ropes, Jr., Miami, for appellees.

Opinion:
SEBRING, Justice/
The City of Miami'has appealed from an adverse judgment rendered in an action at law instituted' by the appellee, Kelsey Bethel, ' to recover damages for injuries resulting to him from an alleged beating by two police officers of the municipality.
From certain evidence in the record which the jury hád a right to believe, it appears that shortly prior to the alleged beating, the plaintiff, Bethel, was shooting craps with a 'group of friends in the back yard of a certain property on which was located a building containing a poolroom. After losing all his money, Bethel quit the crap game and walked into the poolroom. Shortly thereafter two policemen of the City of Miami appeared on the scene and the crap shooters scattered. Some of the participants ran into the poolroom pursued by the policemen. As one of the police officers came into the building he saw the plaintiff and accused him of having been a participant in the crap game. When Bethel denied having been in the game, the officer laid hands on him, took him outside the building, and held him while the other officer gave him a severe beating.
The question on the appeal is whether the city is liable for the beating administered to the plaintiff by the police officers of the city.
Whatever the law may be elsewhere, it has long been established in this jurisdiction that a municipal corporation is not liable for the tortious acts of its police officers committed as iricident to the exercise of a purely governmental function. As the principle is stated in Kennedy v. City of Daytona Beach, 132 Fla. 675, 182 So. 228, 229:
"When, by the action of the state, a municipal corporation is charged with the preservation of the peace, and empowered to appoint police boards and other agencies to that end, the corporation pro tanto is charged with governmental functions in the public interest and for public purposes and in the exercise of its powers and duties in respect of the enactment and enforcement of police regulations it is entitled to the same immunity as the sovereign granting the power unless such liability is expressly declared by the sovereign. The police regulations of a city are not made and enforced in the interest of the city in its corporate capacity, but in the interest of the public. A city is not liable therefore for the acts of its officers in attempting to. enforce such regulations . Furthermore, police officers can in no sense be regarded -as servants or agents of the city. Their duties are o.f a public nature. Their appointment is devolved upon cities and towns by the legislature as a convenient mode of exercising a function of government;' but this does not render the cities and towns liable, for their assaults, trespasses or negligent acts, while acting in the performance of such public , duties, unless liability is imposed by statute, or unless the municipal charter or some special statute makes members of the police force agents of the municipality. [43 C.J. 964]."
The doctrine of municipal immunity for tortious acts committed by employees engaged in " governmental functipns is derived from the common law which was adopted by the Legislature. McCain v. Andrews, 139 Fla. 391, 190 So. 616; Swanson v. City of Fort Lauderdale, 155 Fla. 720, 21 So.2d 217; Bradley v. City of Jacksonville, 156 Fla. 493, 23 So.2d 626. Also see 38 Am.Jur. 265, 272, 317. Hence, if the doctrine is to be altered, the responsibility for such change must rest with the legislative, not with the judicial, branch of the government.
While it may. be that the police officers in the instant case can be made to respond civilly or criminally for the acts committed by them — a question not before us — it is clear from the decisions that in those instances where a municipality has been held liable for the unlawful .commission by its agents of an act otherwise lawful, recovery has been confined to those cases where the act attempted and the unr lawful manner of its execution have been clearly outside the area of governmental functions.
From the conclusions reached it follows that the judgment appealed from should be reversed.
It is so ordered.
THOMAS, MATHEWS and, DREW,' JJ., concur.
HOBSON, J., concurs specially in judgment of reversal.
ROBERTS, C. J., and TERRELL, J., dissent.