Opinion ID: 1685276
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: is a citizen's nuisance action to enjoin a school district from locating and building a school building on a particular site on school property barred by sovereign immunity?

Text: The chancellor ruled that the school district's action in selecting a site for the gymnatorium was within the discretionary authority vested in it by law, so that it enjoys sovereign immunity from suit with respect to the action in question. The legislature has empowered school districts such as the appellee to designate the locations for school buildings and attendance centers in the school district subject to its jurisdiction and to change, alter, or abolish the location of such school buildings and attendance centers as may be required. Mississippi Code Annotated § 37-7-315 (1972). The same section provides that where a change or alteration to the location of a school building shall involve the construction of new school facilities, a municipal separate school district must submit the proposal to the State Educational Finance Commission for approval. Our landmark decision in Pruett v. City of Rosedale, 421 So.2d 1046 (Miss. 1982), abolishing sovereign immunity from tort liability for injuries caused by the state and its political subdivisions expressly retained intact the ... historical and well-recognized principle of immunity granted to all legislative, judicial and executive bodies and those public officers who are vested with discretionary authority .... Id. at 1052. We noted that: The reasonable man standard of tort law is not an appropriate measure for the political, social, or economic desirability of government programs and the methods selected for pursuing them. State tort standards cannot adequately control those governmental decisions in which, to be effective, the decision-maker must look to considerations of public policy and not merely to established professional standards or to standards of professional reasonableness. Id. The principle of immunity from suit for governmental bodies vested with discretionary authority was carried forward in the legislative response to Pruett v. City of Rosedale, supra , the 1984 Immunity Act. Miss. Code Ann. § 11-46-1, et seq. (Supp. 1984). The legislature re-established the sovereign immunity of the state and political subdivisions from suits at law or in equity on account of tortious actions by the state or political subdivisions. Miss. Code Ann. § 11-46-3 (Supp. 1984). This immunity was waived as to claims for money damages arising out of the torts of such governmental entities within certain limitations. § 11-46-5 (Supp. 1984). The legislature expressly exempted governmental entities from liability, in § 11-46-9 (Supp. 1984), for any claim: (c) Based upon the exercise or performance or the failure to exercise or perform a discretionary function or duty on the part of a governmental entity or employee thereof, whether or not the discretion be abused; ... and (m) Arising out of a plan or design for construction or improvements to public property, including but not limited to public buildings, ... where such plan or design has been approved in advance of the construction or improvement by the legislative body or governing authority of a governmental entity or by some other body or administrative agency, exercising discretion by authority to give such approval, and where such plan or design is in conformity with engineering or design standards in effect at the time of preparation of the plan or design. Both our decision in Pruett v. City of Rosedale and the legislature's enactment of § 11-49-1 et. seq. (Supp. 1984) take effect after this complaint was filed. They are relevant to demonstrate that while this state has seen significant inroads into the doctrine of sovereign immunity in recent years, the immunity from suit of governmental bodies exercising discretionary authority has remained intact. The appellants argue that no governmental body should be shielded by sovereign immunity from constructing and maintaining a nuisance. In City of West Point v. Womack, 178 Miss. 808, 174 So. 241 (1937), cited by appellants, this Court affirmed a damages award to a private citizen for injuries to his property resulting from the city's operation of a sewage ditch in a manner constituting a public nuisance. This case, appellants contend, shows that this Court has recognized that municipalities are not immune from suit where their operation of a facility constitutes a public nuisance. Also cited by appellant are cases from other jurisdictions in which an injunction or damages were allowed against a school district for creation or maintenance of a nuisance, even though done in the performance of a governmental function. Kreiner v. Turkey Valley Comm. Sch. Dist., 212 N.W.2d 526 (Iowa 1973), (sewage lagoon); Wayman v. Board of Education, 5 Ohio St.2d 248, 215 N.E.2d 394 (1966), (dust from school parking lot); Ness v. Independent Sch. Dist. of Sioux City, 230 Iowa 771, 298 N.W. 855 (1941), (damages from baseball games); Stein v. Highland Park Independent Sch. District, 540 S.W.2d 551 (Tx.Civ.App. 1976), (trespass, littering, harassment, noise). The rationale common to these cases is that the state or its subdivisions have no greater authority to subject the public to a nuisance than does any private citizen. Apart from City of West Point v. Womack, supra , the settled rule in Mississippi shields the state and its subdivisions from suits at law or in equity based on the exercise of discretionary governmental authority. We conclude that nothing in the recent developments of the law of sovereign immunity of this state manifests any intention to change this rule to permit private citizens to maintain an action against a governmental subdivision such as the school district to enjoin an alleged nuisance arising from the exercise of discretionary governmental authority. The chancellor was, therefore, correct in dismissing the action to enjoin a nuisance insofar as it related to the location and construction of a school building on school property. For this reason, we do not reach the question of whether the conditions of noise, vandalism, and loitering arising from the proposed gymnatorium would constitute a public nuisance. We note, however, that the appellants moved to Battle Street after the old gymnasium was constructed and that the old gymnasium created problems of the same kind, if not to the same degree, as those anticipated by the appellants with the new gymnatorium. The growth of Gentry High School and the concommitant increase in the problems typically endured by residents adjacent to a public school was not an unforeseeable development.