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

Heading: Historical Background of Tort Immunity.

Text: The rule of sovereign immunity developed in this country from an English doctrine and has been applied in the United States far beyond its original conception. The doctrine expanded to the point where the historical sovereignty of kings was relied upon to support a protective prerogative for municipalities. This, according to Professor Borchard, is one of the mysteries of legal evolution. Borchard, Government Liability in Tort, 34 Yale Law Journal (1924), 1, 4. It would seem somewhat anomalous that American courts should have adopted the sovereign-immunity theory  in the first place since it was based upon the divine right of kings. The concept of municipal immunity from tort claims stems from the English case of Russell v. Men of Devon (1788), 2 T. R. 667, 100 Eng. Rep. 359. That was a case in which an unincorporated county was relieved of liability for damages which were occasioned by the disrepair of a bridge. One of the grounds advanced in the Men of Devon Case was that immunity was necessary because the community was an unincorporated one and did not have funds to pay for damages. A second reason advanced was that it is better that an individual should sustain an injury than that the public should suffer an inconvenience. 100 Eng. Rep., page 362. In Maffei v. Town of Kemmerer (1959), 80 Wyo. 33, 42, 338 Pac. (2d) 808, 810, the argument was advanced that the Men of Devon Case in turn relied upon an earlier authority from Brooke's Abridgement. However, most historical analyses of the general thesis of municipal immunity agree that the Men of Devon Case was the judicial parent of the doctrine. The first case in the United States which adopted the doctrine of the Men of Devon Case was Mower v. Leicester (1812), 9 Mass. 247, in which immunity was granted even though the county was a corporation and had corporate funds. Perhaps the leading case which adopted the rule in the United States is Bailey v. New York (1842), 3 Hill 531. In Wisconsin, the first case which wholly adopted municipal immunity was Hayes v. Oshkosh (1873), 33 Wis. 314, 318, 14 Am. Rep. 760. That decision justified the rule on the following grounds: The grounds of exemption from liability, as stated in the authorities last named, are, that the corporation is engaged in the performance of a public service, in which it has no particular interest, and from which it derives no special  benefit or advantage in its corporate capacity, but which it is bound to see performed in pursuance of a duty imposed by law for the general welfare of the inhabitants, or of the community; that the members of the fire department, although appointed by the city corporation, are not, when acting in the discharge of their duties, servants or agents in the employment of the city, for whose conduct the city can be held liable; but they act rather as public officers, or officers of the city charged with a public service, for whose negligence or misconduct in the discharge of official duty no action will lie against the city, unless expressly given; and hence the maxim respondeat superior has no application. The rules surrounding municipal tort immunity have resulted in some highly artificial judicial distinctions. For example, the municipality may be immune or liable depending upon whether we determine that the particular function involved is proprietary or governmental. Our court held in Christian v. New London (1940), 234 Wis. 123, 290 N. W. 621, that a live wire which carried electricity from a municipal electrical utility to a municipal streetlight was maintained by the city in a proprietary capacity, but a municipal waterworks which supplied water to be used for fire fighting was operating in a governmental capacity. Highway Trailer Co. v. Janesville Electric Co. (1925), 187 Wis. 161, 204 N. W. 773. The operation of a municipal hospital, although generally a proprietary activity, may have some of its operations classed as governmental. Carlson v. Marinette County (1953), 264 Wis. 423, 59 N. W. (2d) 486. In applying the governor-to-governed test we have adopted some additional artificial rules regarding immunity or liability. We have held that this crucial relationship did exist where a plaintiff was using a public toboggan slide and slid into an unprotected quarry, Pohland v. Sheboygan (1947), 251 Wis. 20, 27 N. W. (2d) 736, and where a  plaintiff fell into an open sewer ditch which ran through a public park, Erickson v. West Salem (1931), 205 Wis. 107, 236 N. W. 579. However, we have concluded that the relationship did not exist where a plaintiff walking on a public walk was hit by a baseball coming forth from a municipal playground, Robb v. Milwaukee (1942), 241 Wis. 432, 6 N. W. (2d) 222, or where a minor plaintiff was playing on a snow pile created by the city near a river, Flamingo v. Waukesha (1952), 262 Wis. 219, 55 N. W. (2d) 24.