Court Opinion

ID: 9847675
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:05:03.419507+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:26.608135
License: Public Domain

WINDES, Justice
(dissenting).
I am unable to agree with the majority for the reason that I believe the opinion is 'based upon an erroneous assumption. A judicial decision is only as sound as the assumptions upon which it is founded.
The decision of the majority is bottomed upon the incorrect assumption that appellee school district was engaged in a proprietary function for the reason that under the provisions of section 54-416, subsection 11, A.C.A.1939, it made a charge for permitting the use of its facilities for the limited purposes allowed in said section. If this assumption be unsound, the majority opinion is not legally warranted.
The majority have invoked the familiar rule that municipalities acting in a private or proprietary capacity are not protected by the doctrine of state immunity. I am not prepared to say that the legislature might not properly enact a law that would call for the invocation of this rule against school districts but there is no such legislation in Arizona.
To keep from being led astray in determining whether an activity is proprietary or governmental, we must use the test that all courts use which is that if the undertaking by the municipal corporation is for the public good, it is a governmental undertaking. Wold v. City of Portland, 166 Or. 455, 112 P.2d 469, 473, 133 A.L.R. 1207. In that case the court said:
“The authorities are agreed, however, that when the undertaking by the city is not for the promotion of its own private interests as a corporate entity but for the public good, such undertaking is governmental.”
In applying this doctrine to a school district, it must be kept in mind that school districts are not municipal but are quasi-public corporations and that there is a recognized distinction between a municipal corporation and a school district. A municipal corporation has a dual function, private or proprietary and governmental. 18 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations, section 53.23. A school district has a public function only, that of education. Prescott Community Hospital Commission v. Prescott School District No. 1 of Yavapai County, 57 Ariz. 492, 115 P.2d 160. The general rule is that school districts act only in a governmental capacity and are not liable unless expressly authorized by statute, since the establishment and maintenance of schools is a governmental function. 18 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations, sections 53-05 and 53.93. In the foregoing authority the rule is well phrased:
“The immunity from liability of quasi-public corporations is generally placed upon the ground of their involuntary and public character. They are usually treated as public or state agen*395cies, and their duties are ordinarily wholly governmental. They exercise the greater part of their functions as agencies of the state merely, and are created for purposes of public policy, and hence the general rule that they are not responsible for the neglect of duties enjoined on them, unless the action is given by statute.”
We have announced the same principles for the state of Arizona. School District No. 48 v. Rivera, 30 Ariz. 1, 243 P. 609, 45 A.L.R. 762; Prescott Community Hospital Commission v. Prescott School District No. 1 of Yavapai County, supra. In the Rivera case, supra, we adopted the rule as stated in Indiana in Freel v. School City of Crawfordsville, 142 Ind. 27, 41 N.E. 312, 37 L.R.A. 301, as follows:
“ ‘They are involuntary corporations, organized not for the purpose of profit or gain but solely for the public benefit, and have only such limited powers as were deemed necessary for that purpose. Such corporations are but the agents of the state, for the sole purpose of administering the state system of public education. * * * In performing the duties required of them they exercise merely a public function and agency for the public good for which they receive no private or corporate benefit. School corporations, therefore, are governed by the same law in respect to their liability to individuals for the negligence of their officers or agents as are counties and townships. It is well established that where subdivisions of the state are organized solely for a public purpose, by a general law, that no action lies against them for an injury received by a person on account of the negligence of the officers of such subdivision, unless a right of action is expressly given by statute. Such subdivisions then, as counties, townships, and school corporations, are instrumentalities of government, and exercise authority given by the state, and are no more liable for the acts or omissions of their officers than the state.’ ” (Emphasis supplied.) .
In the same case on the distinction between a school district and a municipal corporation, we stated:
“That there is a difference between the ordinary school district and a municipal corporation, and that the former is purely a state agency as the latter is not, cannot be doubted.”
In the light of these rules, which are unquestionably the law in Arizona, if the collection of the charge herein was for the promotion of the public function for which the school districts are created, the district cannot be said to have been acting in a proprietary or private capacity in making such charge.
A superficial reading of the statute shows clearly that the only purpose of it is to permit the board to allow, under its direction and subject to such conditions as it may prescribe, the use of the school *396facilities as a civic center for public benefit by various organizations such as parent-teachers associations, Boy Scouts or other associations formed for recreational, political, economical, artistic, or moral activities. The authorized use is limited to public, educational and cultural purposes. The use permitted here was to promote the athletic or educational interests of two other school districts, clearly an authorized public use.
The charge made by appellee district is not for the private benefit of the district. It must go into the school fund and cannot be expended by the district for any purpose except educational. Laws 1951, chapter 116, section 1, section 54-617, 1952 Supp. A.C.A. 1939. Under this statute all receipts whether from rentals, operation of cafeterias or any other' sources must go into the county treasury and be spent in the manner as any other school funds. This revenue is derived from an authorized public activity and can be used only for educational purposes. The district board is only carrying out its function as an agency of the state in promoting education, the only purpose for which it was organized. The fact that a school makes incidental charges for various activities does not convert it into a business enterprise. Mokovich v. Independent School District No. 22, 177 Minn. 446, 225 N.W. 292; Johnson v. Board of Road Com’rs of Ontonagon County, 253 Mich. 465, 235 N.W. 221; Daszkiewicz v. Board of Education of Detroit, 301 Mich. 212, 3 N.W.2d 71. In the Mokovich case, supra [177 Minn. 446, 225 N.W. 294], the court said:
“The fact of such charge being made would not appear sufficient to take the district out of its educational functions and convert its activity into one of a business or proprietary character. School districts may make incidental charges for other purposes. They may charge and receive tuition for non-resident pupils, buy and sell school books, receive rent for authorized uses of school buildings, and make other incidental charges. If the fact that such incidental charges are made places liability upon the district, then the rule of nonliability largely disappears.” (Emphasis supplied.)
The Michigan court set forth in the Johnson case, supra [253 Mich. 465, 235 N.W. 223], and approved in the Daszkiewicz case, supra, the rule as follows:
“On this phase of the case it may also be noted that municipal corporations and other governmental agencies when performing a purely governmental function do not lose their immunity from liability for its negligent performance merely because they derive an income therefrom, provided the income is only incidental to the main purpose of so functioning and aimed at covering the cost of the undertaking.” (Emphasis supplied.)
*397If the majority opinion he sound, the •state and all of its agencies are liable as having engaged in proprietary activities when they collect revenues from any source other than taxation and use the same in carrying out their governmental functions. A desire is expressed in the majority opinion not to extend the doctrine of state immunity. It is not a question of extending the doctrine of non-liability. The majority decision has the opposite effect. It is a question of imposing upon the state and its agencies liability for acts committed when performing a governmental function. The statute provides, without distinction as to source, that this class of income be combined with all other income of the district and used for the same purposes, i. e., maintenance of our schools. There is no possibility that the district as distinguished from the public derives any private benefit from this revenue. It derives the same benefit as results from tuition fees, operation of the school cafeteria or any other incidental revenue.
Other states have statutes such as our section 54-416, supra. So far as I have been able to determine, all of those which have passed upon the matter have ruled that a board in charging a fee for giving the public permission to use the school facilities is merely performing a governmental function. Lincke v. Moline Board of Education, 245 Ill.App. 459; Warburton v. City of Quincy, 309 Mass. 111, 34 N.E.2d 661.
Much space is taken up in expressions of disapproval of the law of state immunity when acting in a governmental capacity. It is the law in this and every other state except where waived by statute. Whether we agree with the wisdom of a law should not influence a decision. As stated by one of our most able jurists, the late Judge Baker, when this question was first submitted to the court: “It is our duty to declare the law as we find it, not to make it, even in accord with our own desires or wishes.” State v. Sharp, 21 Ariz. 424, 189 P. 631, 633.
The judgment of the lower court should be affirmed.