Court Opinion

ID: 9652813
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:32:33.179132+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:54.268993
License: Public Domain

VANCE, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent because I believe there can be no implied waiver of sovereign immunity by the Commonwealth. The waiver must be specific and express.
In Dunlap v. University of Kentucky Student Health Services Clinic, Ky., 716 S.W.2d 219 (1986), a majority of this court held that the enactment of a statute providing for a fund from which the University could satisfy claims or judgments against the University showed (by implication) an intention of the General Assembly to waive the doctrine of sovereign immunity.
The majority in Dunlap was completely wrong in its assessment of the legislative intention, and the General Assembly, at its first opportunity, told us so by the enactment of K.R.S. 44.072 which provided that it is the intention to expressly preserve the doctrine of sovereign immunity except where sovereign immunity is specifically and expressly waived as set forth by statute.
Sovereign immunity is not specifically or expressly waived by the statute under consideration here. The majority continues to attribute to the General Assembly an implied intention to waive sovereign immunity in the face of the explicit declaration by the General Assembly that waiver is not intended unless it is specifically and expressly waived.
The majority disregards K.R.S. 44.072 in this case because it was enacted after the accident which prompted this litigation. K.R.S. 44.072, however, is nothing more than an' explicit expression of the intention of the General Assembly. It tells us that the General Assembly does not intend to waive sovereign immunity by implication; that it is not waived unless a particular statute specifically and expressly waives it. It speaks to the interpretation of statutes already enacted as well as to those which may be enacted in the future.
I believe K.R.S. 44.072 was enacted in response to Dunlap. It tells us that the majority incorrectly interpreted the legislative intent in Dunlap.
We should not persist in a confrontation with the General Assembly about an implication which might be drawn from language used in a statute when the General Assembly has expressly stated no such implication was intended.
GANT and STEPHENSON, JJ„ join in this dissenting opinion.