Court Opinion

ID: 9719051
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:41:26.594827+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:04.321145
License: Public Domain

Amestoy, C.J.,
concurring. As the majority observes, we are once again confronted with the potential aberration of a town employee being held personally liable for the good faith performance of his duties within the scope of his employment when the employer Town is immune from suit. Although I disagree with the Court’s *276analysis in Hudson v. Town of East Montpelier, 161 Vt. 168, 638 A.2d 561 (1993), I acknowledge that its holding controls the result here, and therefore concur. See O’Connor v. City of Rutland, 172 Vt. 570, 570, 772 A.2d 551, 552 (2001) (mem.) (we do not lightly overturn recent precedent).
I write separately to note that, in addition to the majority’s identification of potential legislative responses to the quandary of exposure of municipal employees to tort liability in situations in which the town is immune from suit (see 173 Vt. at 270-71, 789 A.2d at 968-69), legislative remedies may exist in the narrower context of “snow and ice” or “weather” immunity statutes. Thus, for example, some legislatures have chosen to extend immunity to municipal employees for claims arising from weather conditions on highways. See, e.g., 745 Ill. Comp. Stat. 10/3-105 (2001).
A legislative response which extends immunity to lower-level municipal employees only for “weather” or “snow and ice” is, of course, open to criticism from those who would prefer to see a broader “modernization” of our law on municipal liability. As the dissents of Justice Dooley and Justice Johnson in Hillerby v. Town of Colchester, 167 Vt. 270, 276-94, 706 A.2d 446, 449-60 (1997), amply demonstrate, consensus on the need for change of the law is much easier to reach than agreement on how to change the law. At the very least, however, our decision in this case should prompt the Legislature to exercise the fact-finding and problem-solving process we have previously identified as better suited for this area of the law. Id. at 276, 706 A.2d at 449.
I concur with the majority’s opinion exposing municipal snowplow operators to individual personal liability for a good faith attempt to carry out the duties assigned to them because current law compels the result — not because the result makes sense.