Court Opinion

ID: 9791392
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:10:09.301141+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:35.889879
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Moore
specially concurring.
I concur in the opinion of Mr. Justice Day. In view of the fact that Mr. Chief Justice Frantz in his dissenting opinion has once more seen fit to advocate that we should overrule the considered opinions of this court in at least forty cases extending over a period in excess of eighty-five years, I must again direct attention to certain fundamental principles which I believe would be ignored or violated if a majority of this court were to follow the course suggested by said dissent.
It is asserted that we should now reject the doctrine, heretofore firmly established in the law of this jurisdiction, that municipal corporations are not liable for the negligent acts of their servants committed in the dis*598charge of duties which are governmental in nature. As already indicated, cases far too numerous to mention in detail have upheld this doctrine ever since the State of Colorado was admitted to the Union. Indeed the doctrine was approved by a majority of the court on three separate occasions in a single recent volume of the Colorado Reports, and in a single year, namely 1960, the rule was approved on four occasions, and in each case the arguments advanced in the instant dissenting opinion were presented and rejected by a majority of the court. Some of the cogent reasons why they should have been, and were, rejected are set forth in the majority opinions to which we refer. Denver v. Madison, 142 Colo. 1, 351 P. (2d) 826; Liber v. Flor, 143 Colo. 205, 353 P. (2d) 590; Faber v. Colorado, 143 Colo. 240, 353 P. (2d) 609; Berger v. Dept. of Highways, 143 Colo. 246, 353 P. (2d) 612.
In no opinion of this court has it ever been held that the rule of nonliability of a governmental agency for the negligent acts of its servants in the performance of governmental duties, has in any degree whatever been modified, discarded or minimized. Sentences lifted from the context of opinions dealing with actions ex contractu in situations which do not have the slightest resemblance to the issues involved in tort actions, cannot be given the effect for which my dissenting brethren contend. The statement contained in the dissent that, “There is thus revealed a condition of unquiet flux on the subject. Where once the doctrine had smooth sailing, it is now rocking along in troubled waters,” is without support in any one of numerous Colorado decisions dealing with tort actions, and can only find justification by obiter dicta in opinions deciding actions based on contractual rights and liabilities. The obiter dicta to which reference is made does not have the slightest bearing upon any issue arising in an action for damages based upon negligence, and the pertinence thereof is necessarily limited to actions based upon contract.
We have held repeatedly that if liability is to arise *599against a governmental agency for the negligent acts of its servants engaged in a governmental function, this liability, heretofore unknown to the law of this state, must be a creation of the legislative branch of the government. I repeat again that it is not the function of the judiciary to create confusion and instability in well settled law, nor is it within the province of judges to refuse to apply firmly established principles of law simply because those rules do not conform to the individual judge’s philosophical notion as to what the law should be.
I respectfully submit that there comes a time when the minority should recognize that an issue of law has been decided in this state, and that the rule of stare decisis is applicable to a given situation. I recognize that under some circumstances it is proper for a court to overrule a previous decision and this court has indicated under what circumstances it is proper to do so. None of the reasons heretofore given as a basis for the court’s action in overruling a previous decision are present in the instant case. The reasons which are generally acceptable as a basis for a refusal to be governed by the rule of stare decisis are considered in Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Company v. City and County of Denver, et al., 125 Colo. 167, 243 P. (2d) 397, and the cases there cited.
The dissenting opinion quotes from People v. Schaefer, 129 Colo. 215, 268 P. (2d) 420, the following language:
“With reference to the rule of stare decisis upon which the administratrix relies, suffice it to say that this is not the first time, nor will it be the last, in which we, for definite and valid reasons, have felt obligated to overrule a former decision. * * *”
Here the quotation abruptly stops. But in the opinion referred to the paragraph, after citing authorities, continues: “Courts are not bound to perpetuate errors merely upon the ground that a previous erroneous decision has been rendered on a given question. If it is wrong, it should not be continued, unless it has been so long the *600rule of action, and relied upon to such an extent, that greater injustice and injury will result by a reversal, though wrong, than to observe and follow it.”
The dissent places the emphasis on the phrase “nor will it be the last.” If I were to place an emphasis upon any selected portion of the full statement I probably would underscore the statement that “for definite and valid reasons” this court may disregard the rule of stare decisis. Those reasons which are “definite” and “valid” are not present in the instant case, as will readily appear from reading the decisions cited in the last paragraph of the opinion in People v. Schaefer, supra, and a substantial number of other cases cited in Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Company, supra.
The concluding statement in the dissenting opinion of Mr. Chief Justice Frantz points up the area in which I respectfully part company with him. It is there asserted, “I would have Colorado join the ranks of states which repudiate the doctrine of sovereign immunity.” (Five states seem to have taken this action.) As a matter of individual opinion I might also be pleased to see Colorado “repudiate” that doctrine. However, if that result is to be reached it should be brought about by that branch of the government which is charged with the legislative duties of creating rights and liabilities, and amending and changing the existing law. It should not be accomplished by a usurpation on the part of the judiciary of a power belonging exclusively to the legislative branch of the government in violation of Article III of the constitution, which provides:
“* * * and no person or collection of persons charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any power properly belonging to either of the others, * * *”
Courts are not arbiters of public policy. We are not here dealing with any of the considerations, governmental, sociological or otherwise with which the age old doctrine of sovereign immunity in tort actions is freight*601ed. Whatever views any of us may entertain as to its historical or philosophical worth, we are here limited both by law and conscience to the judicial function of faithfully interpreting and applying the law as we find it. We cannot usurp the legislative power of establishing public policy.
It is interesting to note that several sessions of the state legislature have convened since a minority of the members of this court opened the war on the doctrine of governmental immunity in actions based upon negligent acts of servants of the state. In Denver v. Madison, supra, (January 1960) a dissenting opinion was filed which directed attention to the personal belief of the author that:
“It is a melancholy distortion of the temper of our institutions that the doctrine of immunity ever gained acceptance. Sovereign immunity is just as uncongruous to our way of government as speaking of a squared circle. The reasons for its recognition are baseless, * *
This was an honest statement of one judge’s opinion. But the legislature, which was then in session, was not impressed thereby and the several legislatures which have since convened have not yet been impressed with the “squared circle” argument or any of the other reaons which have been advanced in subsequent dissenting opinions as being grounds for “repudiation” of the rule.
Although the legislature has considered the question and has made exceptions to the application of the rule in certain cases, it has consistently refused to agree that the general rule should be changed. There are substantial arguments available to those who favor a continuance of the well established rule with which the members of the legislature are thoroughly familiar. Even though these arguments do not persuade the dissenters in this case they carry sufficient weight with the members of the legislature to prevent repeal or “repudiation” of the law as it exists today. When successive legislative sessions come and go without amending or doing away with the rule; when hundreds of county commissioners through *602their organization resist a change; when the work of countless members of the boards of school districts throughout the state would be directly affected by a change in the law which would operate retrospectively; when the heavy majority of such board members and many of their constituents are opposed to “repudiation” of the rule on well grounded concepts of public policy; how can it be said with certainty that the rule is so manifestly “unjust” or that it is such an “anachronism” that the judiciary should usurp legislative powers and do away with it?
The majority members of this court have taken the position that the court will not thus usurp the function of the legislative arm of the government. We have repeatedly said with reference to this matter, “It is not not within the province of the judicial branch of the government thus to change long established principles of law. This is a function of the legislature. * * *” Denver v. Madison, supra.
I can characterize the course of action advocated in the dissent in no other terms than “judicial legislation.” The fact that the legislature has failed to do that which some of the members of this court believe it should do, does not transfer legislative authority to the judiciary to alter the law to conform to the individual opinions of judges with relation to what they think the law should be. Such a course would result in the destruction of our fundamental concept of “government by law,” and substitute that of “government by a man, or a few men.” Endless uncertainty and confusion would be the result, and with each new arrival upon the appellate bench the previously well established rules would be subject to re-examination to determine whether they “squared” with the motion of the new judge as to what the law should be.