City of Richmond v. Long's Adm'rs

• Decision Date: 18 April 1867
• Citation: 58 Va. 375
• Parties: THE CITY OF RICHMOND v. LONG'S adm'rs.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

58 Va. 375

THE CITY OF RICHMOND v. LONG'S adm'rs.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

April 18, 1867

1. Public officers of the government, in the performance of their public functions, are not liable for the misconduct negligence or omissions of their official subordinates.

2. Municipal corporations, in the exercise of their political discretionary, and legislative authority, are not liable for the misconduct, negligence or omissions of the agents employed by them.

3. Municipal corporations, in discharge of ministerial or specified duties assumed in consideration of the privileges conferred by their charter, are liable for the misconduct negligence or omissions of their agents; and this though there be the absence of special rewards or advantages.

4. The city of Richmond is not responsible for the loss of a slave admitted into the city hospital, on the ground of the negligence of its agents at the hospital.

This was an action in the Circuit court of Richmond, brought by C C. Long, and on his death revived in the name of his administrators, against the city of Richmond, to recover the value of a slave, who it was alleged had lost his life through the carelessness and negligence of the agents of the city. The declaration alleged that in April, 1855, a slave named Ben, the property of the plaintiff, was duly admitted into the hospital of the city, to be cared for and treated for the disease of small-pox or varioloid, in pursuance of the ordinance of the city, & c. And that the city had carelessly and negligently suffered and permitted the said slave to escape from the hospital and wander off, whereby he lost his life.

On the trial the defendant demurred to the evidence. It appeared that the physician having pronounced the slave to be laboring under incipient small-pox, application was made to the proper city authorities, and an order was given for his reception into the hospital. He was accordingly received there late in the night, being then in a state of delirium, and was placed in a room in the second story of the building, and a male nurse of the hospital was appointed to attend on him. In the morning the door of the room was found locked on the outside, but on entering the room the slave was gone, and the window was raised: this window was some twenty feet from the ground. He was soon afterwards found dead some miles from the hospital; and the inquest found that he came to his death by exposure to cold; being insane. By the ordinance of the city the expenses of patients in the hospital were to be paid by them or their masters.

The jury having found a verdict for the plaintiff for $516.50, damages, subject to the demurrer to evidence, the court gave a judgement in his favor, for that sum; and thereupon the city of Richmond applied to this court for a writ of error which was awarded.

Daniel, for the appellant.

Cannon, for the appellees.

RIVES J.

It is usually unsafe and hazardous to seek to classify adjudicated cases upon any complex question of law, and to extract from them rules of general application. So much of the reasoning in such cases is due to their diversities, that error is likely to creep into any generalization of them, and vitiate the results of an analysis that would ambitiously seek to reduce them to a system, and tempt the incautious inquirer to overlook the differences of fact that modify and control their application. It is, therefore, wiser in the main to investigate and decide each case upon its own peculiar state of facts, than by too general statements or deductions to incur the risk of being betrayed into too abstract reasoning. Still it is possible and advisable to sift the reasonings of judicial decisions, and eliminate from them leading principles to guide and control us in legal investigations, provided we fail not to weigh and estimate essential distinctions between them; and admit the discriminations, which the change of facts requires.

So numerous are the cases upon the liability of official superiors for the misconduct or tortuous neglect of their subordinates, that while perfectly sensible of the danger of generalizing upon them, I deem it best to approach the examination of this record by an attempt to classify the more important of these cases upon certain broad and general principles, that must be clearly understood and established and applied in the decision of this appeal.

I shall avoid any minute analysis, and shall pursue the ramifications of this interesting doctrine no farther than it shall seem to me necessary to the ends of this cause. In this way I propose to escape the mischiefs to which I have pointed, and to procure valuable guides in the conduct of the argument.

The doctrine of liability in such cases has been tersely stated by Ld. Brougham, in the following simple language: " The rule of liability and its reason I take to be this; I am liable for what is done for me and under my orders by the man I employ, for I may turn him from that employ when I please; and the reason that I am liable is this, that by employing him I set the whole thing in motion; and what he does being done for my benefit and under my direction, I am responsible for the consequences of doing it." It is thus seen that this principle is distinctly predicated of the relation of principal and agent or master and servant; but where this relation does not exist, and a contractor intervenes, it is held to be a case of independent, substituted responsibility intercepting legal recourse against the superior. The application, however, of this distinction has been found a matter of great nicety and perplexity; and as it has no bearing that I perceive upon this record, I am saved the necessity of referring to or descanting upon the numerous cases that cluster upon this point. Confusion dwells upon it; and it must be left to future decisions to shed light upon it and dispel the uncertainty in which it is held.

Another exemption from this liability, exists in behalf of all public officers of the government in the performance of their public functions, including all grades of officers, whose trust proceeds from and whose responsibility is due to the government. Their immunity from all liability for the misconduct, negligence and omissions of their subordinates, rests upon motives of public policy, the necessities of the public service and the perplexities and embarrassments of a contrary doctrine. Still, these officers are held responsible for their own acts in the abuse or transgression of their authority, or in default of proper and reasonable care in the choice of their agents or in the superintendence of them in the discharge of their allotted duties. But it is now firmly established that the doctrine of respondeat superior does not apply to them. Lane v. Cotton, Ld. Raym. R. 646; Whitfield v. Lord Le Despencer, Cowp. R. 754; Dunlop v. Monroe, 7 Cranch's R. 242; & c. & c.

A kindred exemption, and one directly relevant to the present issue, is extended, by virtue of the same principle, to municipal corporations, as constituting a part of the government of the country. This proposition in its terms points to an important distinction. The functions of such municipalities are obviously two-fold; first, political, discretionary and legislative, being such public franchises as are conferred upon them for the government of their inhabitants...