Opinion ID: 1745096
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Interplay of Sovereign Immunity and Jural Rights

Text: The present matter requires this Court to examine an apparent tension between two doctrines implied in the Kentucky Constitution: sovereign immunity and jural rights. The issue is whether the General Assembly has the right, through the enactment of legislation, to confer immunity on fire departments and volunteer fire departments, or whether jural rights preclude this grant of immunity as unconstitutional. Firefighting has always been inherently intertwined with American civil governance. Dating back to the establishment of Jamestown in 1607, which was subsequently ravaged by fire a year later, the threat of fire and the need to curtail that threat became a pressing concern for the fledgling American colonies. Firefighting in Colonial America, http://www.firefighter central.com/history/firefighting_in_ colonial_america.htm. As early as 1648, the Governor of New Amsterdam, in what is present-day New York, appointed four fire wardens to enforce fire safety rules. Id. Volunteer firefighting can likewise trace its roots to colonial America as the vast majority of these early organizations were staffed by volunteer citizen-firefighters. During this same period in New Amsterdam, city burghers appointed citizens to a Rattle Watch, who volunteered to patrol the city streets at night to alert citizens if they saw a fire and organize a bucket brigade to extinguish it. Id. Boston, too, took steps to secure itself from the danger of fire as early as 1631 and already had a remedial fire engine when the city was consumed by fire in 1676. Id. When the engine proved ineffective for thwarting the fire, the city subsequently purchased a state of the art machine from England whose tank was filled by bucket brigade. Id. This engine brought about the need for the first organized fire department in the colonies, beginning service on January 27, 1678, requiring the General Court to seek out twelve men and a captain to man the engine and fight fires. Id. As with so many things in the emerging Union, Benjamin Franklin played a pivotal role in the development of the modern-day volunteer fire department. [4] Upon a visit to Boston, Franklin observed that the city had a far better established infrastructure for fighting fire than did his hometown of Philadelphia. See The Electric Ben Franklin, Franklin's Philadelphia: A Journey Through Franklin's Philadelphia, http://www.ushistory.org/franklin/ philadelphia/fire.htm. In 1735, in an effort to drum up support and raise public awareness about the need for organized firefighting, Franklin wrote to his own newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette, under the alias of old citizen as to the threat of fire: In the first Place, as an Ounce of Prevention is worth a Pound of Cure, I would advise `em to take care how they suffer living Coals in a full Shovel, to be carried out of one Room into another, or up or down Stairs, unless in a Warmingpan shut; for Scraps of Fire may fall into Chinks and make no Appearance until Midnight; when your Stairs being in Flames, you may be forced, (as I once was) to leap out of your Windows, and hazard your Necks to avoid being oven-roasted. Id. Soon thereafter, on December 7, 1736, Franklin established the Union Fire Company, which served as the model for volunteer firefighter organization in the rest of the colonies. Id. By the time of the Civil War, volunteer fire departments were widespread and were emerging as an entrenched aspect of state and local government. The evolution of firefighting in Kentucky mirrored that of much of the rest of the colonies and, ultimately, the newly formed country. For instance, organized firefighting was first commenced in Winchester in 1792, consisting largely of organized bucket brigades. Winchester Fire/EMS History, http://wfems.winchesterky.com/history. phtml. These remedial tactics soon gave way to engine pumps, filled by buckets and pumped by hand. Id. In 1838, in an effort to modernize the firefighting force, the city levied a tax to purchase a modern fire engine dubbed the old Rough and Ready. Id. In 1848, the General Assembly, eager to advance the organization and discipline of the profession, legislated the charter of the Rough and Ready Fire Company, so named after the city's beloved engine, mandating the duty of each member of said company, when alarms of fire are given, to meet promptly, with their engine, buckets, and other apparatus, the same; and shall, in all cases, render obedience to the officers of said company. Id. Like other cities in the state, modernization in technologies and population increases soon begat more advanced firefighting techniques and closer governmental regulation. Around 1886, Winchester obtained its first horse-drawn steam engine, capable of dispensing with 400 gallons per minute, and by 1909 the fire department had a Webb hose truck, which was apparently one of the first motorized engines in Kentucky. Id. Likewise, the capitol city, Frankfort, has had tax supported fire service since at least the early 1820s and additionally had regulations in effect during that period empowering fire engineers to require the assistance of lay citizens in answering fire alarms and mandating that households own one leather bucket for every three fireplaces found in the home for purposes of fighting house fires. City of Frankfort Fire and EMS, http://frankfort-ky.gov/fire- and-ems.html. In 1895, the Common Council passed an ordinance to establish and maintain a fire company and set forth the manner in which it would be governed. Id. The thrust of the aforementioned historical perspective is to note that the development of fire departments in Kentucky has arisen out of the common need of public service and grown alongside government legislation, regulation, and financial support of these entities. Fire departments, however, are particularly unique in their evolution in that, of necessity, they have been forced to maintain roots confined to the locality in which they serve. Because the nature of firefighting involves the need for expeditious and virtually instantaneous response to the scene of a fire, fire departments are maintained and operated in local areas, despite the fact that the authority from whence their existence arises stems from the central state legislature. See KRS 75.010; see generally §§ KRS 95.010-.015 It is incontrovertible that fire departments perform a paradigmatic function of the government in keeping the populous and its property safe from fire. Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to think of a more representative government function. Notably, Kentucky has a longstanding tradition of treating firefighting as a governmental function and thereby cloaking it in immunity. See Greenwood v. Louisville, 76 Ky. (13 Bush) 226,  (1877) (although a city has the power to establish a fire department and to appoint and remove its officers, still it is not liable for the negligence of firemen appointed and paid by it.); Davis v. City of Lebanon, 108 Ky. 688, 691, 57 S.W. 471, 472 (1900) (The appellee [city] is authorized by law to establish and provide for the prevention and extinguishment of fire, and it seems that such authority may be treated as a governmental function.); Terrell v. Louisville Water Co., 127 Ky. 77, 80, 105 S.W. 100, 101 (1907) (finding firefighting a government function); see also City of Louisville v. Bridwell, 150 Ky. 589, 150 S.W. 672, 673 (1912) (It is true that in maintaining a fire department for the protection of the lives and property of its inhabitants the city of Louisville performs a public or governmental duty imposed upon it by law, and for that reason it cannot be held liable for injuries resulting.); Smith v. Lexington, 307 S.W.2d 568, 569 (Ky.1957) (This [C]ommonwealth, however, is generally committed to the theory that when a city engages in an activity which relates primarily to the health and welfare of its citizens, it is protected by a sovereign immunity, and we have specifically found that a city fire department is engaged in such work.). The doctrine of sovereign immunity, as embodied in Ky. Const. § 231, purports to prohibit claims against the government treasury absent the consent of the sovereign. [5] Sovereign immunity is a bedrock component of the American governmental ideal, and is a holdover from the earliest days of the Commonwealth, having been brought over from the English common law. The doctrine has been included in all four of the Commonwealth's constitutions and predates each. Kentucky Center for the Arts Corporation v. Berns, 801 S.W.2d 327, 329 (Ky.1990). In recent years this Court has examined the history of sovereign immunity in Kentucky in Yanero and in Berns , noting that the doctrine made its way into the Commonwealth's jurisprudence at least as early as 1828. See Yanero, 65 S.W.3d at 517-518 ( citing Divine v. Harvie, 23 Ky. (7 T.B. Mon) 439 (1828). Thus, by the time our second Constitution was in effect, our courts had recognized that the applicable constitutional provision in force at that time  which manifested authority in the General Assembly to determine the manner in which the Commonwealth could be sued  was but a voluntary grant of ability to sue the state, and that the state was otherwise immune from suit in its own courts. See Divine, 23 Ky. (7 T.B. Mon.) 439 at -3. On the other hand, what has come to be known as the jural rights doctrine exists as the constitutional counterbalance to sovereign immunity. Under Kentucky jurisprudence, three provisions of the Kentucky Constitution have been read in conjunction to assert a canon of jural rights whose purpose is to ensure that citizens are afforded an opportunity to have their causes heard in open court and to prevent the legislature from unnecessarily inhibiting that right. In Ludwig v. Johnson , which was the first case to recognize these three sections together as implementing the doctrine, the Court found that the statute under review in that instance violates the spirit of our Constitution as well as its letter as found in sections 14, 54, and 241. It was the manifest purpose of the framers of that instrument to preserve and perpetuate the common-law right of a citizen injured by the negligent act of another to sue to recover damages for his injury. The imperative mandate of section 14 is that every person, for an injury done him in his person, shall have remedy by due course of law. Ludwig v. Johnson, 243 Ky. 533, 49 S.W.2d 347, 351 (1932). Happy is typically regarded as extending the reasoning in Ludwig and giving rise to the line of cases proffering jural rights as sovereign immunity's counterargument, although nowhere does the case mention sovereign or official immunity. The line of cases originating from Happy provides that the application of official immunity should be limited, that an individual's right to suit should be protected, and that the Kentucky Constitution sections 14, 54, and 241 serve to prohibit the abolition or diminution of legal remedies for personal injuries. G. Thomas Barker, Official Immunity in Kentucky: The New Standard under Yanero v. Davis, 90 Ky. L.J. 635, 646-647 (2002) (internal citations omitted). In Happy , a fire truck operator, responding to a call to fight a fire in a neighboring city, was involved in an accident which injured the appellant-bystander. 330 S.W.2d at 413. Therein, the appellant argued that an earlier version of KRS 95.830(2), which purported to grant absolute immunity to firefighters and municipalities engaged in the use of a fire apparatus outside of the city, was unconstitutional because it prevented the appellant from bringing suit against the alleged firefighter tortfeasor. Our predecessor Court agreed, holding unconstitutional the version of KRS 95.830(2) in effect at the time on the grounds that the statute was an impermissible restraint on a person's right to bring suit for damages done to person or property. See Happy, 330 S.W.2d at 414. (finding that the statute ran afoul of Ky. Const. §§ 14, 54). Accordingly, since the Happy decision, this reasoning has typically been asserted by those injured by a government agent for the proposition that sovereign immunity should be limited in scope. See G. Thomas Barker, Official Immunity in Kentucky: The New Standard under Yanero v. Davis, 90 Ky. L.J. 635, 648 (2002). At first blush, it would appear, then, that the two seminal cases for sovereign immunity and jural rights, Yanero and Happy respectively, are at odds with one another. Admittedly, these cases and their progeny, espouse two distinct theories based on common law principles. Yanero seeks to clarify the sovereign immunity defense to which qualified government agents are entitled under the common law, while  Happy , and the jural rights doctrine protect against the overextension of immunity by the legislature. G. Thomas Barker, Official Immunity in Kentucky: The New Standard under Yanero v. Davis, 90 Ky. L.J. 635, 654 (2002) ( citing Happy, 330 S.W.2d at 412; Ludwig v. Johnson, 49 S.W.2d at 351). However, these two lines of cases and competing common law principles need not represent mutually exclusive objectives. Indeed, we believe they may be read together and harmonized to produce compatible ends. Namely, Yanero may be construed as providing the proper framework for analyzing liability of a government agent, while Happy may be construed to limit the reach of Yanero in determining when a statute has extended immunity beyond constitutional constraints. Here, we believe the General Assembly's recognition of firefighters and fire departments' immunity was constitutional and, therefore, not repugnant to jural rights.