Brown v. Anderson County Hospital Ass'n

• Decision Date: 10 May 1977
• Docket Number: No. 20420,20420
• Citation: 234 S.E.2d 873,268 S.C. 479
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court
• Parties: Lydia Y. BROWN and Charles H. Brown as Administrators of the Estate of William J. Brown, Appellants, v. ANDERSON COUNTY HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION, Respondents.

Page 873

234 S.E.2d 873

268 S.C. 479

Lydia Y. BROWN and Charles H. Brown as Administrators of the Estate of William J. Brown, Appellants, v. ANDERSON COUNTY HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION, Respondents.

No. 20420.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

May 10, 1977.

Isaac Joe, Jr., of Mitchell, Bishop & Joe, Greenville and J. LeVonne Chambers and Louis L. Lesesne, Jr., Chambers, Stein, Ferguson & Becton, Charlotte, for appellants.

H. Grady Kirven, of Watkins, Vandiver, Kirven, Long & Gable, Anderson, for respondents.

Love, Thornton, Arnold & Thomason, Leatherwood, Walker, Todd & Mann, and Pyle & Pyle, Greenville, Joseph R. Young of Young, Clement & Rivers, Charleston, Callison, Tighe, Nauful & Rush, McNair, Konduros, Corley, Singletary & Dibble, and Professor David G. Owen, Columbia, Ronald L. Motley, Barnwell, and Cook, Choi & Yuda, Hilo, Hawaii, Amici Curiae.

RHODES, Justice.

The plaintiffs brought this action in their representative capacity on behalf of the widow and nine children of the deceased, William Joseph Brown, seeking damages for the death of the deceased while he was a patient at Anderson Memorial Hospital. ¹ The defendant asserted several defenses, including that of charitable immunity, and moved for summary judgment. The circuit judge granted the defendant's motion on the ground that the defendant is an eleemosynary corporation and is, therefore, immune from liability for claims based upon the alleged negligence and recklessness of its agents, servants, or employees. From the order granting summary judgment the plaintiffs appeal. We reverse and remand.

On July 20, 1974, Brown was admitted as a patient to Anderson Memorial Hospital. The plaintiffs alleged that, upon admission to the hospital, the deceased was strapped into a bed by the defendant's agents and servants, thereby rendering him completely immobile and helpless. While so restrained, a fire began in his room. During the fire the deceased received severe burns resulting in his death. The plaintiffs alleged that the fire and the subsequent failure to protect the deceased from it were a proximate result of negligent and reckless acts and omissions on the part of various servants, agents and employees of the defendant in a number of particulars as set forth in the Complaint.

We granted the plaintiffs' Petition, filed pursuant to Rule 8, § 10 of the Rules of this Court, to review the earlier decisions of this Court sustaining the defense of charitable immunity in actions of the nature presented to us by this appeal. Additionally, we granted permission to interested parties to intervene as amici curiae and to file briefs with respect to the charitable immunity doctrine. A number of such briefs were filed with this Court and have received consideration.

This appeal presents but one question requiring our decisions: whether the defendant, a corporation not for profit, which has as its purpose the maintenance and operation of a hospital, and whose funds are derived from private donations, public agencies and paying patients, is immune from liability for injuries caused by the negligence and recklessness of one or more of its employees or servants. Stated another way, the issue is whether the doctrine of charitable immunity is a valid defense to the plaintiffs' action.

The decisions of this Court indicate that the present state of the law in South Carolina with respect to charitable immunity is the following: It is contrary to public policy to hold a charitable institution responsible for the negligence of its servants selected with due care, Lindler v. Columbia Hospital, 98 S.C. 25, 81 S.E. 512 (1914), or for servants, agents, employees, or superior officers selected with due care. Vermillion v. Woman's College of Due West, 104 S.C. 197, 88 S.E. 649 (1916). The fact that a patient in a charitable hospital pays for a room and attendance does not render the hospital liable for injuries to the patient caused by the negligence of its servants. Lindler v. Columbia Hospital, supra. The relation of the injured person to the charity is of no importance so that it is immaterial whether the injured person is an employee or invitee of the institution. Vermillion v. Woman's College of Due West, supra. A charitable institution, however, is not exempt from liability for trespass and nuisance arising out of its activities as a lessee. Peden v. Furman University, 155 S.C. 1, 151 S.E. 907 (1930). Nor does immunity extend to a situation where the activity out of which the liability arises is primarily commercial in character and wholly unconnected with the charitable purpose for which the corporation was organized. Eiserhardt v. State Ag. and Mech. Soc. of S. C., 235 S.C. 305, 111 S.E.2d 568 (1959). Churches have also been exempted from liability for negligence, Decker v. Bishop of Charleston, 247 S.C. 317, 147 S.E.2d 264 (1966), holding additionally that procurement of liability insurance by the charity does not create liability to the person injured where the charity is otherwise immune from liability. Finally, where the charity commits an intentional tort, it may not interpose the defense of charitable immunity. Jeffcoat v. Caine, 261 S.C. 75, 198 S.E.2d 258 (1973). ²

Charitable immunity was imported to the United States from England by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in the case of McDonald v. Massachusetts General Hospital, 120 Mass. 432, 21 Am.Rep. 529 (1876):

"(The McDonald case) . . . was the first case in this country declaring charities to be immune from tort liability. It was there held that the funds of a charity are held in trust, the diversion of which courts will not permit. The Massachusetts court, as authority for establishing the rule, cited Holliday v. St. Leonard's, 142 Eng. Reprint 769, decided in England in 1861. The Holliday case had followed dictum by Lord Cottenham, in Duncan v. Findlater, 7 Eng. Reprint 943, handed down in 1839. In 1846, Chancellor Cottenham had uttered similar dictum in The Feoffees of Heriot's Hospital v. Ross, 8 Eng. Reprint 1508. However, the dictum of the Duncan case was overruled in 1866 (Mersey Docks Trustees v. Gibbs, 11 Eng. Reprint 1500), and the Holliday case was reversed in 1871. Foreman v. Mayor of Canterbury, L.R. 6 Q.B. 214. Thus the Massachusetts court resurrected the rule of Holliday v. St. Leonard's 5 years after it was repudiated in England." (Quoted from Parker v. Port Huron Hospital, 361 Mich. 1, 105 N.W.2d 1 (1960)).

Despite the fact of its repudiation in England, the doctrine of charitable immunity gained momentum in this country, and it was, at various intervals, adopted in complete or modified versions in many jurisdictions. However, commencing with the State of Rhode Island in 1879, there began a gradual renunciation of the doctrine, in whole or in part, by the states. Glavin v. Rhode Island Hospital, 12 R.I. 411, 34 Am.Rep. 675. Prosser writes that the demise of charitable immunity has been such that the doctrine is alive and well in its complete form in only three states: Maine, New Mexico, and South Carolina. Prosser, Law of Torts, Section 133 (4th ed. 1971).

While the ground on which the majority of the en banc Court in Lindler v. Columbia Hospital, supra, rested its decision was that it would be against public policy to hold a charitable institution responsible for the negligence of its servants selected with due care, this basis for the decision received little discussion from the majority. This ground was strongly criticized by the dissenters speaking through Justice Fraser, who argued that "It is a principle of law as well as morals, that men must be just before they are generous. There is no higher or more just principle than that a trust fund shall remedy the evil itself has done, before it attempts to remedy the evils done by others". 98 S.C. at 35, 81 S.E. at 515. The logic of this rationale, expressed in 1914, has served as the primary thrust for the decline of the doctrine in many American jurisdictions. ³

The defendant argues that revision or abrogation of the doctrine of charitable immunity in this State should be left to the General Assembly. This Court has stated on several occasions that such a policy should be followed. However, we do not feel that such reasoning should any longer deter us from re-evaluating the doctrine of charitable immunity and determining whether it should be abolished or modified. It must be remembered that this doctrine was not established by legislative enactment but, rather, by opinion of this Court in the Lindler case. It is interesting to observe that in the dissenting opinion of Justice Fraser in Lindler the following appears: "Courts ought not to legislate, but, if they must, then their legislation should be wise and safe." 98 S.C. at 39, 81 S.E. at 517. In adopting the doctrine of charitable immunity, the majority of the Court at that time judicially legislated public policy and carved an exception to the principle of respondeat superior. Although this Court has not taken upon itself the task of modifying the doctrine of charitable immunity until now, the reason for the change of position of this Court is, in part, reflected by the following rationale:

"The law's emphasis ordinarily is on liability, not immunity, for wrongdoing. Respondeat superior has widened it in an institutionally, and to a large extent corporately, organized community. Charity is generally no defense. When it has been organized as a trust or corporation, emphasis has shifted from liability to immunity. The conditions of law and of fact which created the shift have changed. The rule of immunity is out of step with the general trend of legislative and judicial policy in distributing losses incurred by individuals through the operation of an enterprise among all who benefit by it rather than in leaving them wholly to be borne by those who sustain them. . . ." President and Directors of Georgetown College v. Hughes, 76 U.S.App.D.C. 123, 130 F.2d 810 (1...