Carbon County School Dist. No. 2 v. Wyoming State Hosp.

• Decision Date: 02 May 1984
• Docket Number: No. 83-179,83-179
• Citation: 680 P.2d 773
• Parties: 17 Ed. Law Rep. 676 CARBON COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 2, Appellant (Plaintiff), v. The WYOMING STATE HOSPITAL, Dr. William N. Karn, Jr., Superintendent of the Wyoming State Hospital, and Members of the Staff of the Wyoming State Hospital, herein referred to as John Doe and Jane Doe, Appellees (Defendants).
• Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Page 773

680 P.2d 773

17 Ed. Law Rep. 676

CARBON COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 2, Appellant (Plaintiff), v. The WYOMING STATE HOSPITAL, Dr. William N. Karn, Jr., Superintendent of the Wyoming State Hospital, and Members of the Staff of the Wyoming State Hospital, herein referred to as John Doe and Jane Doe, Appellees (Defendants).

No. 83-179.

Supreme Court of Wyoming.

May 2, 1984.

George E. Powers, Jr., of Godfrey & Sundahl, Cheyenne, for appellant.

A.G. McClintock, Atty. Gen., Gerald A. Stack, Deputy Atty. Gen., and Allen C. Johnson, Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellees.

Before ROONEY, C.J., and THOMAS, ROSE, BROWN and CARDINE, JJ.

ROONEY, Chief Justice.

This appeal is from an order dismissing the complaint of appellant under Rule 12(b)(6), W.R.C.P., for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted inasmuch as appellant school district did not have standing to sue appellee state agency for a tort or to sue its agents for a tort committed while they were acting in the scope of their employment.

We affirm.

For the purposes of acting on a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), the court must accept the facts alleged in the complaint as true. Moxley v. Laramie Builders, Inc., Wyo., 600 P.2d 733, 734 (1979). The district court summarized these facts as follows:

" * * * one John Lambert committed an act of arson on November 23, 1980, the fire he set destroying an elementary school located in Hanna, Wyoming, the property of the plaintiff school district; that Mr. Lambert was an individual who has been in the Wyoming State Hospital for treatment and care both voluntarily and involuntarily at various times in 1976, 1979, 1980 and 1982, that he has a long history of mental, behavioral and physical illness characterized by repeated examples of antisocial, destructive acts, including acts of arson and was known or should have been known to constitute a danger to the safety of persons and properties of others as well as of himself; that he was admitted to the Wyoming State Hospital by a voluntary commitment on or about January 30, 1980 and was allowed to return to his home for a visit on October 9, 1980, which visit was to have terminated on October 14, 1980 with his return to the Wyoming State Hospital; that on October 10, 1980, the mother of John W. Lambert informed the staff of the Wyoming State Hospital that she was discontinuing the medication which had been prescribed for his treatment, and that on October 14, 1980, he did not return to the Wyoming State Hospital but remained in his home town of Hanna, Wyoming; that on October 24, 1980, he was given a complete discharge from the Wyoming State Hospital and no provision was made for follow-up study, evaluation of his mental or medical status, continuation of necessary medication or course of treatment, care or observation and no notice of the discharge was made to any local authorities; that notice of the claim of the plaintiff was filed with the state auditor's office on October 20, 1982 and also mailed to Dr. Karn, superintendent of the state hospital and Dale MacDonald, business manager of the state hospital, on October 20, 1982; specifically, the plaintiff alleges that Dr. Karn as superintendent of the defendant state hospital violated his duty to exercise reasonable care when he permitted, allowed, authorized, acquiesed [sic] in, or participated in the discharge of John W. Lambert at a time when he knew, should have known, or was chargeable with the knowledge that John W. Lambert posed an unreasonable risk of injury to the persons and property of others as well as of himself."

Our holding in State v. Board of County Commissioners of Johnson County, Wyo., 642 P.2d 456 (1982), is controlling in this case. In the Johnson County case, we held that:

"A county is a political or civil division of the state, created to aid in the administration of government.

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"Accordingly, the County cannot sue the State, its creator, in the absence of a specific constitutional or statutory provision authorizing such an action. * * *

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" * * * Counties are not sovereign entities. * * * They are part of the state itself. One cannot sue himself. * * *

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" * * * The County being a division of the State, it cannot sue the State." Id. at 457, 458.

In its opinion letter the trial court cited and quoted from Wyoming cases and from encyclopedia definitions and descriptions of "school districts" and "counties" ¹ in reaching the conclusion that "In the light of all the previous text discussions and definitions of counties and school districts, it appears difficult, if not impossible, to make a distinction between counties and school districts for the purpose of permitting one, but not the other, to maintain a suit against the state. Both are defined as subdivisions of the state, created by the state, for the purpose of better administering the policies of the state within certain governmental functions."

We agree. School districts are political subdivisions of the state. They are part of the state itself. West v. School District No. 9, Platte County, 37 Wyo. 36, 258 P. 583 (1927).

Appellee Wyoming State Hospital is an agency of the state created by statute at the mandate of the state constitution. See § 25-1-201, W.S.1977; Art. 7, § 18, Wyoming Constitution.

Appellant...