Court Opinion

ID: 9551891
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:01:38.476272+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:24:55.415867
License: Public Domain

WALTERS, Judge (dissenting). Section 41 — 4—2, N.M.S.A.1978, is an absolute “Legislative declaration” of the purpose of the Tort Claims Act. It purports to impose liability “within the limitations of the . .. Act ... and in accordance with the principles established in that act.” Subsection B of § 41-4-2 sets forth those principles. Its most salient provision is that [liability for acts or omissions under the Tort Claims Act shall be based upon the traditional tort concepts of duty and the reasonably prudent person’s standard of care in the performance of that duty. It further declares that the standard of care, not the basis for or limit of liability, should be determined with the knowledge that governmental entities have financial limitations which govern and direct to some extent their activities. I do not think that the granting of immunity to all but eight classifications of governmental activity and the employees so engaged is a reasonable classification according to “traditional tort concepts” of duty or the “reasonably prudent person’s standard of care” in performing such duties. See Luna v. Needles Elementary School Dist., 154 Cal.App.2d 773, 316 P.2d 773 (1957). I am unable to comprehend the reasonableness of granting immunity to a schoolteacher who commits a tort in the performance of his duty, and withholding such immunity from a nurse’s aide who allows a patient to fall out of bed because she forgot to raise the bedrails. Or from the laborer who fails to properly fill a pothole in the street and causes a motorist to suffer car damage. I agree with Judge Lopez, and with the myriad of cases and law review articles, commentaries, and notes, that legislation having a rational basis for classification is not to be held unconstitutional as a denial of due process. My dissatisfaction with the legislation here considered is my complete bafflement in finding the rational basis for the classification of activities which the legislature has subjected to liability to the exclusion of others; and the blatant disregard of the legislature to its own “principles established in the act” for the imposition of liability. “Traditional tort concepts of duty” are cemented in the philosophy that a wrongdoer is responsible for the natural consequences of his misconduct. Hicks v. State, 88 N.M. 588, 594, 544 P.2d 1153 (1976). The Act does not aim at responsibility for misconduct; in all but eight areas it excuses him or it from wrongdoing. The “reasonably prudent person’s” standard of care, and the “concepts of duty,” are reduced to nothing more than sanctimonious mummings. The majority opinion says there is a rational basis for reinstatement of partial sovereign immunity, but that does not answer the questions directed to the rational basis' for the classifications. No reasonable explanations are offered, and I cannot glean the rationality of those classifications from the statute itself. That is not to say that there is no rational basis for classification; I say only that none has been pointed out and I am unable to discern a rational pattern in the categories selected by the legislature. .. . Equal protection does not prohibit classification for legislative proposes, provided that there is a rational and natural basis therefor, that it is based on a substantial difference between those to whom it does and those to whom it does not apply, and that it is framed as to embrace equally all who may be in like circumstances and situations. Gruschus v. Bureau of Revenue, 74 N.M. 775, 778, 399 P.2d 105 (1956). Whether classifications are reasonable under the Equal Protection Clause must be determined in light of the purpose of the statute. McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U.S. 184, 85 S.Ct. 283, 13 L.Ed.2d 222 (1964). In McGeehan v. Bunch, 88 N.M. 308, 540 P.2d 238 (1975), in holding a New Mexico statute unconstitutional the Court applied the standard of Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71, 75-76, 92 S.Ct. 251, 253-254, 30 L.Ed.2d 225, 229 (1971): ... [T]he Fourteenth Amendment does not deny to States the power to treat different classes of persons in different ways. [Citations omitted.] The Equal Protection Clause of that amendment does, however, deny to States the power to legislate that different treatment be accorded to persons placed by a statute into different classes on the basis of criteria wholly unrelated to the objective of that statute. A classification must be reasonable, not arbitrary, and must rest upon some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation, so that all persons similarly circumstanced shall be treated alike. I further disagree that immunity is necessary to permit public employees “to take actions which are necessary for the good of the general public” without being subject to judicial review. The commission of a tort, according to traditional concepts of tort, is rarely, to my knowledge, for the public good. Under “traditional concepts of duty,” those are the very acts invariably subject to judicial review. I cannot agree that a statute which wanders so arbitrarily from its stated purpose, without any clue for doing so, withstands appellant’s attack. I would reverse and reinstate the matter in accordance with the ruling of Hicks v. State, supra. My colleagues ruling to the contrary on the issue of the statute’s constitutionality, I respectfully dissent.