Title: GUILLAUME BY GUILLAUME v. Staum
Citation: 328 N.W.2d 259
Docket Number: 13709
State: south-dakota
Issuer: south-dakota Supreme Court
Date: December 28, 1982

328 N.W.2d 259 (1982) Linda Lee GUILLAUME, by Ileen GUILLAUME, Guardian of Linda Lee Guillaume, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Darmon STAUM, George Donnelly, Charles Donnelly, Steve Taylor, Paula Boilard, and Elk Point Public School District, Defendants and Appellees. No. 13709. Supreme Court of South Dakota. Considered on Briefs November 19, 1982. Decided December 28, 1982. *260 R. Scott Rhinehart, N. Sioux City, and James R. Minick, Elk Point, for plaintiff and appellant. James Doyle, Delvin N.J. Welter, Yankton, John Simko, Sioux Falls, John Murphy, Elk Point, and Lyle Wirt, Sioux Falls, for defendants and appellees. FOSHEIM, Chief Justice. Linda Lee Guillaume (appellant) brought this action in tort against the Elk Point School District and Paula Boilard and Steve Taylor (appellees), as its employees, for personal injuries received while under Ms. Boilard's and Mr. Taylor's supervision. Appellant was a member of the Elk Point School band and was injured while engaged in a required, supervised act: picking corn to raise money for the school band. Appellees' motion for summary judgment was granted on the basis of our recent decision in Merrill v. Birhanzel, 310 N.W.2d 522, 523 (S.D. 1981), wherein we said, "No permission to sue the defendants (a school district and its employees) in tort on this type of action had then been granted by the legislature. Appellants cite no such statute nor are we aware of any. Absent such permission no suit could prevail." (Emphasis added, footnotes deleted). Appellant raises a number of issues on appeal. However, this court granted her petition for intermediate appeal based on her statement therein that the only issue was the effect of SDCL 13-5-1. Accordingly, our review is confined to that public interest question. We affirm. Appellant contends we erred in Birhanzel by overlooking SDCL 13-5-1, which states: SDCL 13-5-1 has been codified in essentially its present form since 1887. CL 1887 § 1811. The import of SDCL 13-5-1 is to confer the powers necessary and incident to contracting. This statute, which we have never interpreted as constituting permission to sue a school district in tort, was in effect when we decided Plumbing Supply Co. v. Bd. of Ed., Etc., 32 S.D. 270, 142 N.W. 1131 (1913), a case relied upon in Birhanzel. Plumbing Supply did not recognize the "may sue or be sued" statute as a consent to tort liability. It held that absent an express consent from the Legislature, sovereign immunity applies. *261 Id. at 1132. That is consistent with the general rule thus stated: 57 Am.Jur.2d, Municipal, School and State Tort Liability, § 73. Jerauld County v. St. Paul-Mercury Indemnity Co., 76 S.D. 1, 71 N.W.2d 571 (1955), is consistent with that rule. Jerauld 71 N.W.2d at 575, interpreted what is now SDCL 7-18-1,[1] a statute similar to SDCL 13-5-1, permitting counties to sue and be sued. We therein said: In Conway v. Humbert, 82 S.D. 317, 145 N.W.2d 524, 526 (1966), we reaffirmed our adherence to Jerauld and the general rule with this language: Accordingly our holding in Birhanzel is consistent with our previous decisions that in the absence of a statute waiving sovereign immunity from tort liability, the "may sue and be sued" provisions of SDCL 13-5-1 do not create a cause of action in tort. The summary judgment is affirmed. All the Justices concur. [1] SDCL 7-18-1 reads: Each organized and each unorganized county is a body corporate for civil and political purposes only, and as such may sue and be sued, plead and be impleaded, in any court in this state.