Court Opinion

ID: 9563357
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:38:58.140985+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:48.685989
License: Public Domain

CROCKETT, Justice
(concurring, but disagreeing in part).
I think this case is correctly decided. But I do not join in what impresses me as a too sharp condemnation of the opinion of Judge Hoyt, which opinion was concurred in by Justices Folland and Moffat in the Fourth District Court case (footnote 2 of main opinion).
It seems to me that inasmuch as those respected judges are not here to defend themselves, we should be restrained and circumspect in criticizing or finding fault, and should do so only if both justified and necessary, neither of which exists here.
The main opinion says that Judge Hoyt’s decision stated:
that if the suit had been against the individual members of. .the Commission, it could have been maintained.
To my mind that connotes that the cause of action would have succeeded against the individual road commissioners.
It is submitted that Judge Hoyt’s decision does not state that the action could be “maintained,” that is, that it could succeed against the individual road commissioners.
Our main opinion herein correctly points out that the actual holding of Judge Hoyt’s decision was that the State Road Commission was not subject to suit because of sovereign immunity. That holding was all the *384case could properly stand for, and undoubtedly was all those knowledgeable judges intended it to stand for. However, as is not infrequently done, perhaps out of some feeling of compassion or concern for the plight of the plaintiffs, and their apparent feeling that they were being wronged by arbitrary and high-handed action of the road commissioners in ruining their property, the court made its correct decision and added the emphasized comment:
In so far as the writ prohibits proceedings . . . against the State Road Commission, the same is made permanent. This, however, should, not be construed to forbid proceedings against individual members of the State Road Commission in case the plaintiffs in the injunction suit ask leave to amend their complaint so as to make the individual members of the State Road Commission parties defendant. [Emphasis added.]
In my judgment this meant nothing more nor less than that the door was left open so that if the plaintiffs should desire to amend, and thought they were able to state and prove a cause of action against the in-vidual members of the Road Commission, that possibility should not be precluded. That proposition I firmly believe is sound enough, and is not properly susceptible of the meaning given by the court’s decision in this case, that on the basis of the showing made in that case “that if the suit had been against the individual members of the Commission, it could have been maintained.”
For the reasons above stated, notwithstanding the admitted desirability of brevity and minimizing conflict in our decisions, I have felt impelled to make these observations as to my reasons for my unwillingness to join in the censure of Judge Hoyt's opinion.