Court Opinion

ID: 9790015
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:45:13.392704+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:25.299129
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Frantz
dissenting:
Neither the opinion of Mr. Justice Moore nor that of Mr. Justice Doyle contains doctrine that has true moorings in our common law. The opinion of Mr. Justice Doyle goes contra to the well-established rule that a municipally operated hospital is immune from liability for tort, enunciated in those cases which follow the doctrine of sovereign immunity in matters governmental. See 25 A.L.R. (2d) 203 for the universality of the rule.
In recognizing the sovereign immunity doctrine but denying its application to a municipally operated hospital, Mr. Justice Doyle would stay the inevitable interment of an anachronistic rule. Indeed, I thought we had seen the demise of the rule in our pronouncements in Racing Commission v. Racing Association, 136 Colo. 279, 316 P. (2d) 582, and Stone v. Currigan, 138 Colo. 442, 334 P. (2d) 740.
*10His opinion is really an example of the destruction of a rule by inchmeal. This court, and other courts as well, have via inch-by-inch, case-by-case attrition, been bringing about the gradual extinction of sovereign immunity. So far as I am concerned, I would forthrightly break from a doctrine, as I thought we already had, that should have died aborning.
Immunity of government from liability for a tort, on the theory of sovereignty, is a vestige of the absolutism of monarchical days in England and on the continent of Europe. “Rex non potest peccare” — the King can do no wrong — was once a maxim of the law of England. It developed from the esteem in which the Crown was held. Sovereignty, pre-eminence, perfection and perpetuity were deemed the principle attributes of the Crown. Broom’s Legal Maxims, (9th Ed. by Byrne), page 30 et seq.
This relic of the past and of a form of government antithetical to ours, except during our early history when English colonies were established on the Eastern shores of this continent, had its genesis in the theory of the divine right of kings.
Woven into the texture of regal immunity was the inapplicability of the doctrine of respondeat superior. “The city was immune from liability because the doctrine of respondeat superior was held to be inapplicable. This was a rudimentary survival of the maxim, ‘The King can do no wrong.’ ” Evans v. Berry, 262 N.Y. 61, 186 N.E. 203, 89 A.L.R. 387, per Judge Pound. As a palliative this obsolete doctrine of immunity was enlarged to signify that “the king can do no wrong, but his ministers may.” Hargrove v. Town of Cocoa Beach, (Fla.) 96 So. (2d) 130, 60 A.L.R. (2d) 1193.
In eloquent terms the Crown and all its attributes were repudiated by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. We are reminded in the Declaration of Independence that men are endowed by their “Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, *11and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ...” A new form of government, a republic functioning under a constitution, was established in 1787. A state — Colorado — pursuant to the enabling act adopted a constitution in 1876.
That Declaration and these constitutions recognized that the primary purpose of government is the protection of the person and property of men. “The rights of life and personal liberty are natural rights of men. ‘To secure these rights,’ says the Declaration of Independence, ‘governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.’ The very highest duty of the States, when they entered into the Union under the Constitution, was to protect all persons within their boundaries in the enjoyment of these ‘unalienable rights with which they were endowed by their Creator.’ Sovereignty, for this purpose, rests alone with the States.” United States v. Cruikshank et al., 92 U.S. 542, 23 L.Ed. 588.
In view of the purpose of government as established by these documents, it is difficult to understand why the sovereign immunity doctrine ever became so solidly en-grafted on the body of our law. Perhaps the statement of Edwin M. Borchard in “Government Liability in Tort,” 34 Yale Law Journal 1, explains it: “The reason for this long continued and growing injustice in Anglo-American law rests, of course, upon a medieval English theory that ‘the King can do no wrong,’ which without sufficient understanding was introduced with the common law into this country, and has survived mainly by reason of its antiquity.” (Emphasis supplied.)
Predication for the doctrine of immunity expanded: “In the final analysis the immunity rests upon three grounds; first, the technical rule that the sovereign is immune from suit; second, the ancient idea that it is better that the individual should suffer an injury than *12that the public should suffer an inconvenience; and third, that liability would tend to retard the agents of the city in the performance of their duties for fear of suit being brought against the municipality.” “Distinction Between Governmental and Proprietary Functions of Municipal Corporations,” by Doddridge, 23 Mich. L. Rev. 325.
Much of the common law of England has become the common law of Colorado, and this by virtue of C.R.S. ’53, 135-1-1, which provides:
“The common law of England, so jar as the same is applicable and of a general nature, and all acts and statutes of the British parliament, made in aid of or to supply the defects of the common law prior to the fourth year of James the First, excepting the second section of the sixth chapter of forty-third Elizabeth, the eighth chapter of thirteenth Elizabeth, and ninth chapter of thirty-seventh Henry the Eighth, and which are of a general nature, and not local to that kingdom, shall be the rule of decision, and shall be considered as of full force until repealed by legislative authority.” (Emphasis supplied.)
Bringing into focus the doctrine of municipal immunity, since that is our immediate problem, we again advert to the excellent dissertation in 23 Mich. L. Rev. 325. The author says:
“The theory is that the municipal corporation has a dual function, one exercised as a mere agent of the State in the process of government, the other private in its nature in that it is exercised for the particular benefit of the corporation and its inhabitants as distinguished from those things in which the whole state has an interest. If acting in its governmental capacity, the municipality is not liable in tort for either a non-feasance or a misfeasance, because in so acting it is but the agent of the State and is so far a part of the State that it partakes of the sovereignty of the State in respect to immunity from suit. Concisely stated: the State is sovereign, the sovereign cannot be sued without its consent, the *13municipality is a mere agent of the State, q.e.cl, the municipality cannot be sued unless the State shows its consent by legislation. But, if the municipality is acting in its proprietary capacity, for the particular benefit of the inhabitants of the locality, it is not acting as an agent of the State but is merely exercising a privilege granted by the State and therefore does not partake of the immunity of the State.”
It is a melancholy distortion of the temper of our institutions that the doctrine of immunity ever gained acceptance. Sovereign immunity is just as incongruous to our way of government as speaking of a squared circle. The reasons for its recognition are baseless, and when the reason for a law disappears, the law should no longer be given effect.
“Reason is the soul of the law, and when the reason for any particular law ceases, so does the law itself.” Biggerstaff v. Zimmerman, 108 Colo. 194, 114 P. (2d) 1098; Rains v. Rains, 97 Colo. 19, 46 P. (2d) 740.
The Crown and its attributes never had a beginning in Colorado. The divine right of kings never became the divine right of government, either federally or in the state. These notions concerning the Crown of England are strange and alien to our system of government.
Our common law transposed the old order of rights and duties between government and the individual. As already noted, the primary duty of government is to protect the right of the person and his property, but in a controversy growing out of a tort committed by the government against a citizen, the doctrine of sovereign immunity reverses the relationship of duty and right. Instead of protecting the individual in his right to life, the State protects the collective body, the people, against the claim of the individual, although the people through their agent may have committed a tort seriously injuring the individual. Thus, sovereign immunity violates the primary duty of government toward the individual in *14that it disregards natural rights and duties and is contrary to the spirit of federal and state constitutions.
Sovereign immunity finds no shelter in C.R.S. ’53, 135-1-1. In fact, it is inferentially excluded as a part of the common law of this state. The only common law of England made a part of the common law of Colorado is that part which may be applicable and which is not local to England. It would only labor the point to elaborate further upon the basis of the archaic rule granting sovereign immunity. Where a common law rule of England is not applicable and where it is local to that kingdom it has no force in this state. Biggerstaff v. Zimmerman, supra; Rains v. Rains, supra.
The other two grounds for sovereign immunity are so well exploded in the “Comment Note” in 120 A. L. R. 1376 that I quote therefrom liberally:
“The mere statement of the second ground condemns it. True democratic principles do not countenance the doctrine that it is better that an innocent individual should suffer a great injury without remedy than that the community at large should be subjected to the risk of slight inconvenience. As indicated in an earlier annotation, the damage resulting from the wrongful act of the government should be distributed among the entire community constituting the government, where it could be borne without hardship and where it justly belongs, rather than imposed entirely upon the single individual who suffers the injury. See the annotation in 75 A.L.R. 1196. The rule of immunity leaves the burden where fate casts it. No greater element of blind chance, and little more of injustice, would be involved if the law required that the damage sustained by the injured person be paid by another individual selected by lot.
“The third ground is purely argumentative; and, so far as the argument goes, it supports the opposite rule as much as it does the doctrine of immunity. For it may be urged that the recklessness of municipal employees and officers needs to be ‘retarded,’ and if the abrogation *15of municipal immunity would operate as a deterrent upon the negligence of such persons, it would serve a highly desirable end.”
Text writers are in unison in condemning the doctrine of sovereign immunity. It is no exaggeration to say that in excess of two hundred law articles have been written excoriating the doctrine as an anachronism in America. As suggested above, unfortunately the retreat from this doctrine is almost imperceptible. Apparently courts of the several states are awaiting action by their legislatures to extirpate a rule that should never have gained root in this country.
I believe that this court should do that which was done in the case of Hargrove v. Town of Cocoa Beach, supra. In a well reasoned opinion immunity was held to be no longer the law in Florida. The court said:
“Immunization in the exercise of governmental functions has been traditionally put on the theory that ‘the king can do no wrong but his ministers may.’ In applying this theory the courts have transposed into our democratic system the concept that the sovereign is divine and that divinity is beyond reproach. In preserving the theory they seem to have overlooked completely the wrongs that produced our Declaration of Independence and in the ultimate resulted in the Revolutionary War. We, therefore, feel that the time has arrived to declare this doctrine anachoristic [sic] not only to our system of justice but to our traditional concepts of democratic government.
“We therefore now recede from our prior decision which hold that a municipal corporation is immune from liability for the torts of police officers. Affirmatively we hold that a municipal corporation may be held liable for the torts of police officers under the doctrine of respondeat superior. * * *
“Subject to the limitations above announced, we here merely hold that when an individual suffers a direct, *16personal injury proximately caused by the negligence of a municipal employee while acting within the scope of his employment, the injured individual is entitled to redress for the wrong done. * * * ”
This court has held that the doctrine of sovereign immunity is no longer in effect in Colorado. At least I thought that the axe truly had been laid to the root of the tree. Mr. Justice Hall declared in Racing Commission v. Racing Association, supra: “In Colorado ‘sovereign immunity’ may be a proper subject for discussion by students of mythology but finds no haven or refuge in this court.” In another case, Stone v. Currigan, supra, Mr. Justice Hall in clearest language stated: “The decision in the Montezuma case is predicated on the doctrine that a county is merely an arm of the state; that the state is sovereign and as such is, unless expressly named therein, immune from sanctions imposed by statutes. The doctrine of sovereignty in Colorado is in limbo, only the memory lingers on. Sequiturs that emanated from the doctrine such as ‘immunity from suit,’ ‘immunity from paying interest,’ ‘immunity from the statute of limitations,’ etc., have with the demise of the doctrine become non-sequiturs. * * * ”
I am for a declaration by this court to the effect that sovereign immunity should never have been recognized in Colorado since the foundation for the rule never existed in this state. Hence, I would affirm the judgment.
I am authorized to say that Mr. Justice Hall concurs in this opinion.