Court Opinion

ID: 9689111
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:20:03.50511+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:44.789235
License: Public Domain

McCown, J.,
concurring.
The doctrine of governmental immunity from tort liability in the United States has been considered and challenged for decades. As foundation articles in the 1920 era, see Borchard, Government Liability in Tort, 34 Yale L. J. 1, 6, and Hamo, Tort Immunity of Municipal Corporations, 4 Ill. L. Q. 28, 42.
The governmental-proprietary distinction initially developed in connection with municipal corporations or quasi corporations of the state, as a means of constricting the area of immunity or broadening the area of liability, was extended to the state itself. See Annotation, State’s immunity from tort liability as dependent on gov*21ernmental or proprietary nature of function, 40 A. L. R. 2d 927.
The rationale behind the “governmental-proprietary” dichotomy is that when a public entity is involved in a governmental function, it is immune from tort liability, but when involved in a proprietary function, it loses the cloak of immunity. The terms “public, sovereign, political, state, mandatory, essential, discretionary, legislative” have been used interchangeably with “governmental.” The terms “private, corporate, quasi-private, nongovernmental, nonessential, ministerial, commercial, permissive” have been used interchangeably with “proprietary.” See, Rebko, American Legal Commentary on the Doctrines of Municipal Tort Liability, 9 Law and Contemporary Problems, 214, 218; 2 Harper & James, Torts, § 29.5, p. 1620. These terms might be called liability or nonliability labels.
During the past 10 years judicial opinions in increasing volume have shifted from a process of whittling away to a much sharper attack, including complete abrogation of the doctrine in several states, which, in most instances, has been followed by legislative reaction. See, Some Thoughts on the American Law of Governmental Tort Liability, 20 Rutgers L. Rev. 710 (1966); The Role of the Courts in Abolishing Governmental Immunity, Duke L. J. (1964), 888.
The governmental-proprietary distinction is unsatisfactory. The consequences of immediate and complete abrogation of the doctrine, with all of its ramifications, is likewise unsatisfactory. The former, however, does provide a case-by-case modification of the doctrine of governmental immunity in the traditional pattern of solution.
The dissents here indicate the basic judicial conflict is no longer in the area of whether the old doctrine of governmental immunity from tort liability is obsolete, but only with the question of the responsibility and power of the courts to reform it. For a thorough dis*22cussion of the relative responsibilities of courts and legislatures in this area, see Peck, The Role of the Courts and Legislatures in the Reform of Tort Law, 48 Minn. L. Rev. 265.
Justice Schaefer of the Supreme Court of Illinois has expressed the problem of precedent and policy most effectively. “Precedent speaks for the past; policy for the present and the future. The goal which we seek is a blend which takes into account in due proportion the wisdom of the past -and the needs of the present. Two agencies of government are responsible for the proper blend, but each has other responsibilities as well. The legislature must deal with the ever increasing details of governmental operations. It has little time and little taste for the job of keeping the common law current. The courts are busy with the adjudication of individual controversies. Inertia and the innate conservatism of lawyers and the law work against judicial change.” 34 U. Chicago L. Rev. 3, 24.
While the majority opinion here does- not constitute an immediate and complete abrogation of the entire doctrine of governmental immunity in Nebraska, its implications suggest the desirability of legislative action.
Spencer, J., joins in this concurrence.