Court Opinion

ID: 9596027
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:45:31.184775+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:07:34.751396
License: Public Domain

COOPER, Justice,
Concurring.
I fully concur in the reasoning of the majority opinion that by the very language of KRS 44.070(1) and KRS 44.072, the Board of Claims Act applies to damages proximately caused by the negligent acts of the “Commonwealth, any of its cabinets, departments, bureaus, or agencies, or any of its officers, agents or employees.” (Emphasis added.) Although KRS 44.071 purports to extend coverage to damages caused by municipalities or their agents with respect to maintenance of state-owned traffic control devices, nothing in the Board of Claims Act purports to extend its coverage to counties or their departments, bureaus or agencies, or any of their officers, agents or employees. I write separately because I further believe that any attempt to apply the provisions of the Board of Claims Act, as presently written, to damages claims against counties or their departments, bureaus or agencies, or their officers, agents or employees (or, for that matter, municipalities or their agents) would be unconstitutional.
KRS 44.100 provides that all awards assessed by the Board of Claims shall be paid by warrants drawn upon the State Treasurer. See, Ky. Const. § 230. Thus, any award by the Board of Claims in favor of a person damaged, as here, by the negligence of a county employee would be paid not from county funds, but from the general funds of the Commonwealth. Section 176 of the Constitution of Kentucky provides:
*902The Commonwealth shall not assume the debt of any county, municipal corporation or political subdivision of the State, unless such debt shall have been contracted to defend itself in time of war, to repel invasion or to suppress insurrection.
Section 177 provides:
The credit of the Commonwealth shall not be given, pledged or loaned to any individual, company, corporation or association, municipality, or political subdivision of the State ....
Section 157a creates an exception:
The credit of the Commonwealth may be given, pledged or loaned to any county of the Commonwealth for public road purposes ....
In Fiscal Court of Scott County v. Davidson, 259 Ky. 498, 82 S.W.2d 801 (1935), our predecessor Court held that “Section 177 of our Constitution forbids the legislature from assuming the payment of, or paying, the ordinary, general debts of counties.” Id., 82 S.W.2d at 802. (The omission of a reference to Section 176 in the opinion may be a typographical error inasmuch as Section 176 appears to provide more explicit authority for this holding than does Section 177.) And in Miller v. Sturgill, 304 Ky. 823, 202 S.W.2d 632 (1947), it was held that a statute requiring the state to pay the premium on a county revenue bond was unconstitutional pursuant to Sections 176 and 177.
The reimbursement of the sheriff by the state for the premium paid by him on the county revenue bond is, in effect, the use of state funds for a purely local county purpose, and violates the letter and spirit of the foregoing sections of the Constitution. Section 157a of the Constitution ... is the sole authorization for the expenditure of state funds for the aid of a county.
Id., 202 S.W.2d at 634.
If any further clarification of this principle is needed, it is found in The Official Report of the Proceedings and Debates of the Constitutional Convention of 1890. In response to a proposed amendment to delete the word “county” from the text of Section 176, Delegate P.P. Johnston of Fayette County, Chairman of the Committee on Revenue and Taxation, explained, inter alia:
I understand the gentleman; but it is the same old plea of general taxation for a local purpose. It is unfair to ask the people of the State to tax themselves for the relief of an individual or a subdivision of the State which, by injudicious measures, have gotten themselves into debt.
Id., Vol. II, p. 2642. The amendment was defeated.1
Clearly, one of the purposes of Sections 176 and 177 was to preclude the General Assembly from enacting legislation authorizing payment of debts and liabilities of counties and municipalities from the state treasury. Thus, as presently written, i.e., that all awards by the Board of Claims are paid from the state treasury, the Board of Claims Act could not apply to a damages claim against a county.
GRAVES and JOHNSTONE, JJ„ join this concurring opinion.

. Although the amendment was obviously defeated, since Section 176 was adopted without the deletion, I am unable to locate in The Official Report of the Proceedings and Debates exactly when this particular amendment was voted down.