Opinion ID: 2142115
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Is Abrogation Within the Court's Province?

Text: The defendant argues that any change in the municipal-immunity doctrine should be addressed to the legislature. We recognize that earlier decisions of this court contemplated precisely that. See Flamingo v. Waukesha (1952), 262 Wis. 219, 228, 55 N. W. (2d) 24 (concurring opinion); Britten v. Eau Claire (1952), 260 Wis. 382, 386, 51 N. W. (2d) 30. Not only have we previously expressed the view that any proposed change should be directed toward the legislature,  but we also have expressed the view that the legislature's failure to enact a bill which had been introduced constituted . . . an expression by the legislature that no change should be made. Schwenkhoff v. Farmers Mut. Automobile Ins. Co. (1959), 6 Wis. (2d) 44, 47, 93 N. W. (2d) 867. We are satisfied that the governmental-immunity doctrine has judicial origins. Upon careful consideration, we are now of the opinion that it is appropriate for this court to abolish this immunity notwithstanding the legislature's failure to adopt corrective enactments. A comparable problem was presented in connection with the charitable-immunity doctrine. In Smith v. Congregation of St. Rose (1953), 265 Wis. 393, 398, 61 N. W. (2d) 896, it was noted that dissatisfaction with the charitable-immunity doctrine was properly a subject for the legislature. However, in Kojis v. Doctors Hospital (1961), 12 Wis. (2d) 367, 372, 107 N. W. (2d) 131, 107 N. W. (2d) 292, this court concluded that the doctrine with respect to paying hospital patients could be changed by the court as well as by the legislature: The defendant insists that if the rule be changed it should be done by the legislature and not by the court. This is upon the theory that questions of public policy are to be determined by the legislature. If that were strictly true then perhaps this court was in error in adopting the doctrine of charitable immunity in the first place. We do not think that is true. We believe the court was justified in acting as it did in 1917 in view of conditions as they then existed. The rule of stare decisis, however desirable from the standpoint of certainty and stability, does not require us to perpetuate a doctrine that should no longer be applicable in view of the changes in present-day charitable hospitals. In Hernandez v. County of Yuma (Ariz. 1962), 369 Pac. (2d) 271, the supreme court of Arizona studied precisely the same problem and concluded:  In Lee v. Dunklee this court refused to recede from the doctrine of governmental immunity, stating that the problem was legislative. We now express doubts concerning that statement. Concededly a court adopting a rule of law has the power to abrogate it. When the reason for the rule no longer exists, the court's responsibility does not terminate because the legislature through indifference or otherwise has not acted. Certainly there can be no justification for the extension of a rule universally criticized as an anachronism without rational basis. It requires but a slight appreciation of the facts to realize that if the individual citizen is left to bear almost all the risk of a defective, negligent, perverse, or erroneous administration of the state's functions, an unjust burden will become graver and more frequent as the government's activities are expanded and become more diversified. The supreme court of New Jersey reached a similar conclusion in McAndrew v. Mularchuk (1960), 33 N. J. 172, 193, 162 Atl. (2d) 820, 832: The borough argues that any such change should come about, if at all, by action of the legislature. But the limitation on the normal operation of respondeat superior was originally placed there by the judiciary. Surely it cannot be urged successfully that an outmoded, inequitable, and artificial curtailment of a general rule of action created by the judicial branch of the government cannot or should not be removed by its creator. As the supreme court of Washington observed in Pierce v. Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital Asso. (1953), 43 Wash. (2d) 162, 178, 260 Pac. (2d) 765, 774, We closed our courtroom doors without legislative help, and we can likewise open them. It is also urged that the immunity rule is a part of the common law which has been adopted by this state and can only be changed by the legislature pursuant to sec. 13, art. XIV. The limitation on judicial action implied by this provision of our constitution was examined in Bielski v. Schulze  (1962), 16 Wis. (2d) 1, 11, 114 N. W. (2d) 105, as well as in State v. Esser (1962), 16 Wis. (2d) 567, 115 N. W. (2d) 505. The doctrine of governmental immunity having been engrafted upon the law of this state by judicial provision, we deem that it may be changed or abrogated by judicial provision. But cf. Maffei v. Town of Kemmerer (1959), 80 Wyo. 33, 42, 338 Pac. (2d) 808, 810. The supreme court of Florida considered this problem in Hargrove v. Cocoa Beach (Fla. 1957), 96 So. (2d) 130, 132, and stated: Assuming that the immunity rule had its inception in the Men of Devon Case, and most legal historians agree that it did, it should be noted that this case was decided in 1788, some twelve years after our Declaration of Independence. Be that as it may, our own feeling is that the courts should be alive to the demands of justice. We can see no necessity for insisting on legislative action in a matter which the courts themselves originated.