Court Opinion

ID: 9558756
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:16:26.556313+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:34.482977
License: Public Domain

Judge TURSI
specially concurring:
Because I agree that the judgment of the trial court in this matter is correct, I concur in the result. However, because I am unpersuaded that Colorado counties are municipalities subject to liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1982), I write separately.
The resolution of this issue requires a reconciliation of Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978) and Will v. Michigan Department of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 109 S.Ct. 2304, 105 L.Ed.2d 45 (1989). Monell reversed the holding in Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 81 S.Ct. 473, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 (1961) which had held that municipalities are not persons under § 1983.
*1009In reversing Monroe, the Monell court relied upon the legislative histories surrounding the rejection by Congress of the “Sherman Amendment” to the Bill which became the Civil Rights Act of 1871, 17 Stat. 13, the precursor of § 1983. Quoting from the legislative debates, Justice Brennan cites Representative Shellabarger, the principal sponsor of the Act and a supporter of the “Sherman Amendment” as saying that the only serious question remaining was “whether, since a county is an integer or part of a State, the United States can impose upon it, as such, any obligation to keep the peace in obedience to United States laws.” (emphasis in original) Further into the debates, Justice Brennan quotes from Representative Burchard, who in agreement with Representative Poland, stated that “there is no duty imposed by the Constitution of the United States, or usually by State laws, upon a county to protect the people of that county against the commission of the offenses herein enu-merated_ Police powers are not conferred upon counties as corporations; they are conferred upon cities that have qualified legislative power.” Justice Brennan then emphasized that by the latter part of the nineteenth century municipalities in the nature of cities and towns were no longer covered by the umbrella of sovereign immunity. Thus, the clear implication is that cities and towns were not clothed with the sovereign immunity of states and counties.
In Will, Justice White, writing for the majority stated “we consequently limited our holding in Monell to ‘local government units which are not considered part of the State for Eleventh Amendment purposes.’_ Conversely, our holding here does not east any doubt on Monell, and applies only to states or governmental entities that are considered ‘arms of the State’ for Eleventh Amendment purposes.”
There is authority, generally in the form of dicta, which, when addressing the question of diversity under 28 U.S.C. § 1331, has held that a county may be treated as a municipality. See Mt. Healthy City School District Board of Education v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 97 S.Ct. 568, 50 L.Ed.2d 471 (1977); Moor v. County of Alameda, 411 U.S. 693, 93 S.Ct. 1785, 36 L.Ed.2d 596 (1973). However, those decisions also refer to the organic law of the state involved to determine whether a political subdivision is a municipality for purposes of suit.
A review of pertinent Colorado authority, in the latter part of the nineteenth century and to date, convinces me that we have not equated counties with traditional municipal corporations. For example, in Stermer v. Board of County Commissioners, 5 Colo.App. 379, 38 P. 839 (1894), it was held that a county is a quasi-corporation in contradistinction to a municipal corporation and that the distinction between the two classes of public corporation is very clearly drawn. Citing 1 Dill.Mun.Corp. §§ 19, 22, the court held that “a municipal corporation, in its strict and proper sense, is a body politic and corporate, constituted by the incorporation of the inhabitants of the city or town for the purposes of local government thereof.” The court then went on to say:
“[T]he difference between this class of corporations and counties is fundamental and evident. A county is created by the legislature without reference to the will of its inhabitants. It has no power of local government, or independent authority of any kind whatever. Its officers, although elected by its people, are virtually officers of the state, and are charged with the administration and execution of the laws of the state. It is merely a subdivision of the state for the purposes of state government.”
Further, in Board of County Commissioners v. Wheeler, 39 Colo. 207, 89 P. 50 (1907), the court held that:
“[Cjounties, unlike private or purely municipal corporations, are not voluntary bodies corporate. They are involuntary, political, or civil divisions of the state, created by general laws to aid in the administration of the government. They are purely auxiliaries of the state and to the general statutes of the state they owe their creation, and the statutes confer upon them all the powers they possess, prescribe the duties they owe, and impose the liabilities to which they are subject.”
*1010And, in McFerson v. Board of County Commissioners, 78 Colo. 354, 241 P. 733 (1925) the court held that although the term municipal corporation was sometimes used in statutes to include counties, a county was not strictly speaking a municipal corporation and was, therefore, not subject to garnishment under the statute authorizing garnishment against municipal corporations.
Further, at the time of the passage of § 1983, the common law tort liability of municipal corporations generally had not been extended to counties such as those created in Colorado. See Abeyta v. Denver, 165 Colo. 58, 437 P.2d 67 (1968); M & M Oil Transportation, Inc. v. Board of County Commissioners, 143 Colo. 309, 353 P.2d 613 (1960); Fairplay v. Board of County Commissioners, 29 Colo. 57, 67 P. 152 (1901).
For the continuing efficacy of this rule, see Johnson v. Jefferson County Board of Health, 662 P.2d 463 (Colo.1983) quoting from Board of County Commissioners v. Love, 172 Colo. 121, 470 P.2d 861 (1970), in which the court stated:
“A county is not an independent governmental entity existing by reason of any inherent sovereign authority of its residents; rather, it is a political subdivision of the state, existing only for the convenient administration of the state government, created to carry out the will of the state.... As a political subdivision, a county, and its commissioners, possess only such powers as are expressly conferred upon them by the constitution and statutes, and such incidental implied powers as are reasonably necessary to carry out such express powers.”
Therefore, since it is unnecessary to the disposition of this case, I would not extend Monell to Colorado counties.