Betts v. Jones

• Decision Date: 30 November 1932
• Docket Number: 438.
• Parties: BETTS v. JONES et al.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

166 S.E. 589

203 N.C. 590

BETTS v. JONES et al.

No. 438.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

November 30, 1932

Appeal from Superior Court, Anson County; Oglesby, Judge.

Action by Laura Betts, administratrix of Eddie Pearl Betts, against Wilson Jones and others. From a judgment overruling a demurrer, defendants appeal.

Affirmed.

If school committeemen acted corruptly or maliciously in employing driver of school bus who lost control of bus resulting in death of child, they became personally liable for damages.

If school committeemen were not actuated by malice or corruption in employing driver of school bus who lost control of bus resulting in death of child, they were not liable.

This is an action against the individual defendants to recover damages for personal injury resulting in the death of the plaintiff's intestate. Shepherd Jones, Luther Brown, and Richard Crowder are the school committeemen of Peachland High School, to and from which pupils are carried in a motor school bus. The committeemen elected Wilson Jones, a son of Shepherd Jones as the driver of the bus over the protest of many of the patrons of the school, who regarded him as reckless and unfit for the position. It is alleged "that on or about the 10th day of March, 1932, at 8:00 A. M. while the said Wilson Jones was driving said school bus, transporting children forty in number on said bus on the way to Peachland High School on a sand clay road known as Mineral Springs, about 3 miles from Peachland, and while operating said bus at a high and reckless rate of speed, to-wit, about fifty miles per hour or more, he lost control of said bus, causing it to plunge from the road into a wide ditch full of water in Brown Creek Swamps, turning the bus over in said ditch in water six feet deep, partially submerging the bus in the water and throwing Eddie Pearl Betts into water, injuring her painfully and to such extent that she died in a few hours after she was rescued from the water."

Among the several alleged acts of negligence is this: That the conduct of the committeemen in the selection of Wilson Jones as driver of the bus was willful, wrongful, malicious, and corrupt.

All the defendants demurred, the school committee on the ground that in employing a driver for the bus, they exercised a governmental function and performed a public duty as an agency of the state for which they are not liable in damages and the defendant Wilson Jones on the ground that in driving the bus he was acting for the committee and was likewise in the exercise of a governmental function for which he cannot be held liable.

The trial court overruled the demurrer, and the defendants appealed.

McLendon & Covington, of Wadesboro, for appellants.

Carswell & Ervin and F. O. Clarkson, all of Charlotte, for appellee.

ADAMS J.

The plaintiff alleges that the school committeemen, disregarding known facts and the repeated protests of many patrons of Peachland High School, in employing Wilson Jones, "secured a driver known to them to be unfit, unsafe, non-dependable, and reckless," and that they acted willfully, wrongfully, maliciously, and corruptly. By demurring, the defendants admit these allegations. Andrews v. Seaboard Air Line R. Co., 200 N.C. 483, 157 S.E. 431; Yarborough v. North Carolina Park Commission, 196 N.C. 284, 145 S.E. 563; Sandlin v. Wilmington, 185 N.C. 257, 116 S.E. 733.

The law as generally administered recognizes a distinction between public duties which are ministerial in character and those which require the exercise of judgment or discretion. This court has held that as...