Bankins v. Police Jury of Calcasieu Parish

• Decision Date: 26 March 1906
• Docket Number: 15,888
• Citation: 116 La. 639,40 So. 925
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: BANKINS v. POLICE JURY OF CALCASIEU PARISH et al

40 So. 925

116 La. 639

BANKINS v. POLICE JURY OF CALCASIEU PARISH et al

No. 15,888

Supreme Court of Louisiana

March 26, 1906

Appeal from Fifteenth Judicial District Court, Parish of Calcasieu Edmund Dennis Miller, Judge.

Action by Benjamin H. Bankins against the police jury of Calcasieu parish and B. E. Miller. Suit dismissed, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Robert Raymond Stone and Morris Reese Stewart, for appellant.

Leland Hugh Moss, Dist. Atty., for appellee police jury.

Charles Arthur McCoy, for appellee Miller.

OPINION

LAND J.

This is a suit against the police jury of the parish of Calcasieu and B. E. Miller, a member of said body, for damages alleged to have been occasioned to plaintiff and his minor son by the giving way of a public bridge over Little river.

The petition alleges that a special road tax of three mills on the dollar had been levied and collected on all the property in Ward Eight of said parish, and the proceeds thereof placed at the disposal of the said Miller as police member.

The petition charges that said defendant Miller willfully neglected and failed, for personal and political reasons, to keep the said bridge in good condition for travel, making only temporary and makeshift repairs at long intervals.

Petitioner alleges that in July, 1905, while his minor son was carefully driving an ox wagon across said bridge, it suddenly gave way and precipitated the oxen, wagon, and boy into the river, to the damage and injury of petitioner's son and property and also to petitioner, who at great risk of his life jumped into the river to save his property and rescue his boy.

The petitioner further charges that said bridge was defective old, and insufficient, to the knowledge of defendants, but that petitioner had no knowledge of its dangerous condition.

Petitioner alleges damage to his property in the sum of $ 175 and to himself and minor child in the sum of $ 1,000 each. He also claims $ 50 for inconvenience occasioned by unnecessary delay in the reconstruction of the bridge.

The suit was dismissed on an exception of no cause of action, and the plaintiff has appealed.

In King v. Police Jury of St. Landry, 12 La.Ann. 858, this court held, in a well-considered opinion, that no remedy is given by statute against a parish for a private injury caused by the absence of bridges or a neglect to keep them in repair.

The court said that the subject-matter was confided by statute to the uncontrolled discretion of the police jury, and that the repair of public roads and bridges, so far as regulated by general law, was intrusted to the management of overseers of roads, with certain directions and under certain penalties.

In conclusion the court said:

"The question of the liability of municipal corporations for the injurious acts of their agents done in the proper scope of their employment is quite different."

In Sherman v. Parish of Vermillion, 51 La.Ann. 880, 25 South, 538, this court held that parishes are not responsible for damages caused by the negligence of police juries in matters in which they have discretion; the reason given being that they represent the state, and not the taxpayers, by whom the damages, if allowed, must be paid.

The two cases above cited are in accord with the great weight of authority in other jurisdictions to the effect that "counties, being subdivisions of the state and instrumentalities of government exercising authority given by the state, are no more liable for the acts or omissions of their officers than the state itself."

Some courts hold that counties are liable under the common law where they are charged with a specific duty and provided with the means of enforcing it, for a negligent breach of duty, "but the very...