Court Opinion

ID: 9667668
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:51:53.265275+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:39.736892
License: Public Domain

GAMMAGE, Justice, concurring.
I concur in the court’s judgment, but I cannot join its opinion. The court’s opinion, in dictum, suggests that the University would not be liable for its negligence if the rapist had been a university employee. The waiver of sovereign immunity of a governmental unit for negligently allowing an assault or any other intentional tort to occur should not turn on whether the actor is a governmental employee or a stranger. Such factors may bear on whether there has been negligence, but they should play no part in whether governmental immunity applies. I would decide this cause on the sole ground that the “intentional tort” exception to waiver of governmental immunity does not apply when the victim’s claim is that the governmental unit negligently permitted or caused the victim to be subject to the actor’s intentional conduct. Rather than struggle to distinguish it, I would expressly disapprove Townsend.