Court Opinion

ID: 9579437
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:55:08.769445+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:35:30.597039
License: Public Domain

COCHRAN, J.,
dissenting.
The rationale of the majority is that expressed in Lawhorne v. Harlan, 214 Va. 405, 200 S.E.2d 569 (1973), that agents and employees of an immune employer are immune from personal liability for negligence in the performance of discretionary duties for their employer. As I stated in my dissent in Lawhorne, 214 Va. at 408-09, 200 S.E.2d at 572-73, this rationale could not be reconciled with the views expressed in Crabbe v. School Board and Albrite, 209 Va. 356, 164 S.E.2d 639 (1968), where a high school teacher was held not entitled to immunity from liability for negligence in instructing a student in the use of a power saw.
We returned to the sound principles of Crabbe in Short v. Griffins, 220 Va. 53, 255 S.E.2d 479 (1979), where we held that an athletic director, a coach, and a supervisor of buildings and grounds of a public high school could not successfully plead sovereign immunity where the motion for judgment alleged that they had negligently failed to perform their duties. It was alleged that the plaintiff, a student, was injured when he fell on broken glass on school property, and that defendants had failed to establish procedures to maintain the property safely, to supervise and instruct custodial personnel, to inspect the premises, and to warn of the dangerous condition. We remanded the case to permit a factual determination whether the supervision, maintenance, and inspection of the school’s athletic facilities were among the defendants’ responsibilities, whether they had negligently breached any duty owed the plaintiff, and whether such breach, if any, was the proximate cause of the plaintiff's injury.
In James v. Jane, 221 Va. 43, 267 S.E.2d 108 (1980), we held that full-time faculty members at the University of Virginia Medical School could not plead sovereign immunity as a defense to a medical malpractice action, although hospital administrators and a surgical intern had been permitted to do so in Lawhorne.
It was my fond hope that James marked the demise of the Lawhorne rationale, but the holding in the present case shows how distressingly ill-founded was that hope. The majority opinion, which cannot be reconciled with James, leaves bench and bar with no consistent rule or pattern to follow. Once again, I advocate adherence to the rule for which Crabbe stands, that agents and em*175ployees of an immune employer are subject to suit for negligence in the performance of their duties. In accord with our decision in Short, I would reverse the trial court’s ruling that sustained the pleas of sovereign immunity interposed by the school officials and remand the case for a hearing on the merits as to these employees.
POFF and STEPHENSON, JJ., join in dissent.