Court Opinion

ID: 9749228
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:28:36.759234+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:45.309959
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Me. Justice Roberts:
As the majority opinion makes clear, the issue which the Court is today deciding is not the merits of the doctrine of governmental immunity. That doctrine has been thoroughly discredited and is no longer able to claim the allegiance of those who have given serious consideration to the problem. See, e.g., Borchard, Government Liability in Tort, 34 Yale L.J. 1 (1924); 36 Yale L.J. 1 (1926); Casner and Fuller, Municipal Tort Liability in Operation, 54 Harv. L. Rev. 437 (1941) ; Leflar and Kantrowitz, Tort Liability of the States, 29 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1363 (1954); Smith, Municipal Tort Liability, 48 Mich. L. Rev. 41 (1949) ; Repko, American Legal Commentary on the Doctrine of Municipal Tort Liability, 9 Law & Contemp. Prob. 214 (1942) ; Muskopf v. Corning Hosp. Dist., 55 Cal. 2d 211, 359 P. 2d 457 (1961); Hargrove v. Town of Cocoa Beach, 96 So. 2d 130 (Fla. 1957); Molitor v. Kaneland Community Unit Dist., 18 Ill. 2d 11, 163 N.E. 2d 89, cert, denied, 362 U.S. 968, 80 S. Ct. 955 (1959); Haney v. Lexington, 386 S.W. 2d 738 (Ky. 1964); Williams v. Detroit, 364 Mich. 231, 111 N.W. 2d 1 (1961) ; Spanel v. Mounds View School District, 264 Minn. 279, 118 N.W. 2d 795 (1962).
The issue for decision, therefore, is whether the doctrine of governmental immunity, imposed1 and continued 2 by court decision but now felt to be unresponsive to modern conditions, should be abrogated by judi*110cial action or retained as a matter more properly to be dealt with by the Legislature.
I am aware of the considerations against court action in this area, and I do not find them to be without merit. However, in my view, this Court should no longer avoid responsibility for its past decisions by directing those injured as the result of the negligence of a school district or a municipality, see Graysneck v. Heard, 422 Pa. 111, 220 A. 2d 893 (1966), to the Legislature.
There exists in this Commonwealth a situation which is unconducive to legislative review of the doctrine, since those interests which enjoy the protection of governmental immunity from liability quite naturally oppose legislative consideration of the area. It is the decisions of this Court which have brought about this situation, and it should be by decision of this Court that the situation is corrected. Once we withdraw from the area, the Legislature will have ample opportunity to devote to the problem the study which it well deserves. This, in fact, has been the experience of other jurisdictions whose courts have faced up to the task of disavowing a rule which they no longer, in good conscience, could justify on its merits.3
This Court recently was confronted with an analogous situation concerning the liability in tort of charitable organizations. Flagiello v. Pennsylvania Hospital, 417 Pa. 486, 208 A. 2d 193 (1965). I believe that the issue was properly resolved in that case, and I continue to adhere to the view which I there expressed: “Unwise rules need not be perpetuate forever. Mr. Justice Brandéis was fond of saying that no case was ever settled until it was settled correctly. There is no more arrogance involved in rectifying a *111mistake than in making it in the original instance. I cannot believe that tbe common law tradition, which has served ns so well because of its illuminating ability to adapt and re-examine itself, demands a policy of unyielding adherence to a thoroughly discredited principle.” Flagiello v. Pennsylvania Hospital, supra, at 518, 208 A. 2d at 209.
Accordingly, I dissent.

 Fox v. Northern Liberties, 3 W. & S. 103 (1841).

 Stouffer v. Morrison, 400 Pa. 497, 162 A. 2d 378 (1960), and eases cited therein.

 See, e.g., Cal. Civ. Code §22.3; Ill. Ann. Stat. ch. 34, §301.1; ch. 57 1/2, §3(a); ch. 105, §12.1-1; ch. 122, §§825, 829.