Court Opinion

ID: 9526895
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:25:42.509633+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:16.935135
License: Public Domain

Coleman, J.
(affirming in part, dissenting in part). Although I agree with Part II, C of Justice Fitzgerald’s opinion, I do not agree with Part II, A or B.
To the contrary, I would find that the operation of a school playground is a governmental function and so concur with Part A of Justice Ryan’s opinion.
I also disagree with Justice Fitzgerald’s conclusion that in excepting negligent maintenance of *291highways and public buildings from governmental immunity, the Legislature intended thereby to except all "public places”.
The words "highways” and "buildings” have common, historical meanings which I believe the Legislature intended to apply in carving out this assumption of liability from statutory governmental immunity.
As I see it, our problem derives from a desire to circumvent the governmental immunity statute— or eliminate it in effect. To this end, the Court has contrived to establish by-paths (e.gsome theories of nuisance and respondeat superior, novel "governmental function” interpretations and, now, a redefinition of "building”).
So far as personal persuasion is concerned, Justice Ryan’s solution is attractive. The problem is that we do not know where it will lead. It is not difficult to envision future legal (and social) engineering problems as a result of this proposed statutory remodeling, attractive as it may be.
As one of my brothers sometimes prefaces a remark, "If I were God”, I would cause the Legislature to call together representatives of school districts, law enforcement agencies and various other units and levels of government and charge them to meet with financial and tax experts, insurance association members, lawyers and others with knowledge and experience bearing upon the subject of public liability. These people then would recommend to the Legislature what liabilities should be assumed by the people and precisely what and who should be immune.
From these recommendations, plus public hearings and other devices accessible to the Legislature, a more precise act could be presented. The route followed by California prior to the enact*292ment of its detailed governmental immunity act is commendable.1
The more the Court tinkers with the present law of governmental immunity, the deeper we dig ourselves into the mire of litigation and into unknown legal and social hazards. Seven or four — or even three — of us can change the law significantly or bend it a little here and there, but I suspect that we have made more problems than we have resolved.
In addition, there is a myth that insurance can be obtained for any kind of liability no matter how costly. However, this has ceased to be true, if it ever was. We do not know what costs or possible reserves or added taxes will be necessary even now to cover the results of our recent opinions. We do not know the impact upon small schools and communities or counties. We do not know the impact upon public parks and recreation areas and centers, tennis courts, swimming pools, hospitals and a mind-expanding list of other resources, some more necessary than others.
Because there is so much that we do not know, I conclude that it is time to employ judicial restraint and to encourage the Legislature to examine the present course of governmental immunity towards the goal of revising and, minimally, clarifying the statutes.
I would affirm.

 See Kennedy & Lynch, Some Problems of a Sovereign Without Immunity, 36 S Cal L Rev 161 (1963).