Opinion ID: 1439615
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: chapter 89 what it does to the wyoming governmental claims act

Text: Wyoming stood way back in progress to eliminate the parasitic deterrent of immunity which withheld fairness and justice for the injured individual, but the state now reverses field to move against the tide for restoration of injustice. It is not the old platitudes soundly denuded by Edwin M. Borchard and perhaps 500 other writers in text and law journal articles, but a new summons that Wyoming is now called to constitutionally face by this reversed legislative direction toward central authority and statism against interest of the wrongfully injured individual. The principle thesis of this dissent, borne by an aversion to monarchy, dictatorship or any centralized autocracy as a feudalistic bureaucracy, is a question of how society can constitutionally step back into the morass. In the face of the clear commands of the Wyoming Constitution, I conclude that it cannot be done this way. Chapter 89, as it relates to this one vehicle rollover after highway patching activities, cannot be constitutionally pulled out and excluded from the scope of the statutory intercession used to generally deny potential relief to any injured highway user. The Wyoming Governmental Claims Act [8] as proudly announced in the 1979 enactment, 1979 Wyo. Sess. Laws ch. 157, stated in part: 1-39-102. Purposes of act. (a) The Wyoming legislature recognizes the inherently unfair and inequitable results which occur in the strict application of the doctrine of governmental immunity and is cognizant of the Wyoming Supreme Court decision of Oroz v. Board of County Commissioners, 575 P.2d 1155 (1978). It is further recognized that the state and its political subdivisions as trustees of public revenues are constituted to serve the inhabitants of the state of Wyoming and furnish certain services not available through private parties and, in the case of the state, state revenues may only be expended upon legislative appropriation. This act is adopted by the legislature to balance the respective equities between persons injured by governmental actions and the taxpayers of the state of Wyoming whose revenues are utilized by governmental entities on behalf of those taxpayers. This act is intended to retain any common law defenses which a defendant may have by virtue of decisions from this or other jurisdictions. (b) In the case of the state, this act abolishes all judicially created categories such as governmental or proprietary functions and discretionary or ministerial acts previously used by the courts to determine immunity or liability. This act does not impose nor allow the imposition of strict liability for acts of governmental entities or public employees. The act, after a rocky pathway from conception to ultimate passage, achieved only by continued unrelenting effort, has since been subject to almost annual dilution [9] . The initial governmental claims act, 1979 Wyo. Sess. Laws ch. 157, embraced driveways and walkways in highway, city, county and educational institutions within a public facility category: 1-39-111. Liability; public facilities. A governmental entity is liable for damages resulting from bodily injury, wrongful death or property damage caused by the negligence of public employees while acting within the scope of their duties in the operation or maintenance of public facilities within the jurisdiction of the employing governmental entity. See Stovall, 648 P.2d 543. The legislature of 1986, in attacking rights to redress of the citizen for negligent injury in fault of the governmental instrumentality (as a year, not a good one for the basic act), did two material things. First, in section one, exclusions from waiver of immunity were adopted: Section 1. W.S. 1-39-120 is created to read: 1-39-120. Exclusions from waiver of immunity; highways, etc. (a) The liability imposed by W.S. 1-39-105 through 1-39-112 does not include liability for damages caused by: (i) A defect in the plan or design of any bridge, culvert, highway, roadway, street, alley, sidewalk or parking area; (ii) The failure to construct or reconstruct any bridge, culvert, highway, roadway, street, alley, sidewalk or parking area; or (iii) The maintenance, including maintenance to compensate for weather conditions, of any bridge, culvert, highway, roadway, street, alley, sidewalk or parking area. 1986 Wyo. Sess. Laws ch. 89, § 1. Then, for whatever reason not discernible in any record available, the act in section three also repealed W.S. 1-39-111 which created the non-immunity category of public facilities. Consequently, unless a bridge, culvert, highway, roadway, street, alley, sidewalk or parking area can be put within motor vehicles, aircraft or watercraft, W.S. 1-39-105; a building, recreation area or public park, W.S. 1-39-106; an airport, W.S. 1-39-107; a public utility, W.S. 1-39-108, which includes gas, water, electric, solid or liquid waste collection, heating and ground transportation; or a medical facility, W.S. 1-39-109; there is little (except perhaps snow plows and school buses) available in present law upon which the exemptions provided in W.S. 1-39-120 can react. [10] This is symptomatic of the moribund residue left to protect citizens from the negligent deprecations of agents of government. There is no justification to serve for levels of comparison. Specifically, the 1986 act repealed Oroz, 575 P.2d 1155 from which justification for passage of the basic act had been obtained, even though the philosophical standard and the case citation of Oroz still remain in the statutory text. Also rejected in broad category of walkways and driveways of our society was the further statutory recognition: [T]he state and its political subdivisions as trustees of public revenues are constituted to serve the inhabitants of the state of Wyoming and furnish certain services not available through private parties and, in the case of the state, state revenues may only be expended upon legislative appropriation. This act is adopted by the legislature to balance the respective equities between persons injured by governmental actions and the taxpayers of the state of Wyoming whose revenues are utilized by governmental entities on behalf of those taxpayers. This act is intended to retain any common law defenses which a defendant may have by virtue of decisions from this or other jurisdictions. 1979 Wyo. Sess. Laws ch. 157, § 1. No funeral for the progressive philosophy was provided by even the good sense to delete the case reference when statutory repeal was pursued. Other cases the legislature reversed for denial of further liability would include: O'Donnell, 696 P.2d 1278; Stovall, 648 P.2d 543; as well as the prior cases of Town of Douglas, 445 P.2d 760; Fanning, 402 P.2d 460; Quest v. Town of Upton, 36 Wyo. 1, 252 P. 506 (1927); and Opitz, 249 P. 799. Cf. Oyler, 618 P.2d 1042; State v. Dieringer, 708 P.2d 1 (Wyo. 1985); and Hamlin v. Transcon Lines, 697 P.2d 606, reh'g denied 701 P.2d 1139 (Wyo. 1985). It is indicated in the minutes of the joint judicial committee which are included in this record that the original purpose of Chapter 89 was to restore governmental immunity for highway maintenance and design. If that was the justification for what was done, the tools used included both meat ax and chain saw as all of the places for driving and walking in this state became included in the created immunized zone of irresponsibility. That reach is from windrowed snow to summer potholes. [11] The effect of Chapter 89 is to excise out of a citizen's right for recovery for wrongful injury by agents of government a place exception, but one unfortunately where the greatest exposure to harm exists where you can walk or drive outside. This created exception has a classification basis only related to place  outside the door immunity  inside the door liability. It does not present consideration of design versus maintenance defects, nor does it anticipate the difference between governmental or propriety functions and discretion or ministerial acts, since those characters of differentiation of scope of responsibility of society have been specifically eliminated by the initial governmental claims act itself. The placement in excused responsibility for fault and negligence lacks absence of analysis of the difference between passive and active negligence or wrongfulness sounding within the character of a lack of care compared to willful and gross misconduct. Furthermore, Chapter 89 discriminatorily creates a character of governmental immunity, which had never existed in this state, while at the same time restoring sovereign immunity to the State Highway Department as a separate function. Finally, craftsmanship in statutory composition is absent by leaving in question reflected immunity of the agent for absolution from his own negligence as a theory related to institutional immunity for the governmental unit by which he may be employed. In text, the employee exclusion within the scope of duty of W.S. 1-39-104 requires relation to W.S. 1-39-120, which only includes exceptions applied to W.S. 1-39-105 through 1-39-112.