City of Detroit v. Laughna

• Decision Date: 04 October 1876
• Citation: 34 Mich. 402
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: The City of Detroit v. Patrick Laughna. [*]

34 Mich. 402

The City of Detroit v. Patrick Laughna. ^[*]

Supreme Court of Michigan

October 4, 1876

Submitted on Briefs June 15, 1876

Error to Wayne Circuit.

Judgment reversed, with costs of both courts.

D. C Holbrook, for plaintiff in error cited: Fisher v Boston, 10 Mass. 57; Hafford v. New Bedford, 16 Gray 297; Jewett v. New Haven, 38 Conn. 368; Walcott v. Inhab. of Swampscott, 1 Allen 101; Buttrick v Lowell, 1 Allen 172; Small v. Danville, 51 Me. 359; Wharton on Negligence, § 191; Shearman & Redfield on Negligence, 163-6.

B. T. Prentis, for defendant in error, cited: Johnson v. Municipality, 5 La. An., 100; Highway Comrs. v. Martin, 4 Mich. 557; Detroit v. Corey, 9 Mich. 165; Bailey v. Mayor of N. Y, 3 Hill 531; Detroit v. Blackeby, 21 Mich. 84; Barton v. Syracuse, 36 N. Y., 54; West v. Brockport, 16 N. Y., 161; Henley v. Mayor, etc., 5 Bing 91; Mayor of Lynn v. Turner, Cowp., 86; Rochester W. L. Co. v. Rochester, 3 N. Y., 463; Hutson v. Mayor, 9 N. Y., 163; Sheldon v. Kalamazoo, 24 Mich. 383; Park Comrs. v. Common Council, 28 Mich 228; Oliver v. Worcester, 102 Mass. 449; Eastman v. Meredith, 36 N. H., 295; Lloyd v. Mayor, 5 N. Y., 369.

OPINION

Campbell, J:

Laughna recovered a judgment against the city of Detroit for personal injuries which resulted from his being compelled by the officers of the House of Correction to take a cold bath under improper conditions and subsequent improper exposure in a cold cell. It is to be presumed that his treatment was such as to deserve condemnation, inasmuch as he was awarded substantial damages. The case is brought into this court to determine whether the city is responsible for the misconduct of the prison officers.

We have not been able to discover any principle on which that liability can be maintained. The city, indeed, built the prison, and has an interest in its finances, as it is responsible to a certain degree for its expenses; but after the house was built under provisions of the city charter, which may or may not have been legally sufficient to provide for its future management, the legislature, either discovering defects, or, more probably, recognizing the manifest impropriety of allowing a prison to be managed by a city council, passed a statute which removed any doubt concerning the legal position of that establishment. On the 15th of March, 1861, an act was passed entitled "An act to establish the Detroit House of Correction and authorize the confinement of convicted persons therein."

By this act the government of the prison was pet under the control of a board of inspectors, of whom three were to be appointed by the common council, on the nomination of the mayor, and in addition to these, the mayor and the chairman of the board of state prison inspectors were made ex officio members. The regulation and discipline were to be under rules adopted by the board, leaving the council no voice except concerning the approval of rules relating to salaries and compensation of officers and employes. There is no very important power which the council can exercise without the concurrence of the inspectors, except in the selection of the superintendent, whose powers and duties are all governed by the act of 1861 and the general laws of the state. Any interference whatever by the common council, either in the selection of inferior officers or in the internal management of the prison, would be unlawful and nugatory.

While it has at various times in legal experience been customary to allow and sometimes to compel prisons to be built and maintained by larger or smaller municipal corporations, yet all criminal prisons are and must be public and not private places of detention, and no imprisonment can be lawful that is not authorized by public laws. In England it is settled that all prisons, by whomsoever kept, are the king's prisons (2 Inst., 100, 589; Ex parte Evans, 8 T. R., 172), and no new prison can be erected except by act of parliament.--2 Inst., 705.

The whole subject of personal liberty is one of general state concern, and...