Dugan v. Kansas City, 23884
| Decision Date | 02 December 1963 |
| Docket Number | No. 23884,23884 |
| Citation | 373 S.W.2d 175 |
| Parties | Gary DUGAN, pro aml, Appellant, v. KANSAS CITY, Missouri, Respondent. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Williams, Norton & Pollard, North Kansas City, for appellant.
Herbert Hoffman, City Counselor, Timothy D. O'Leary, Asst. City Counselor, Kansas City, for respondent.
Gary Dugan, a minor, through his next friend, sued the City of Kansas City, Missouri, a municipal corporation, for $10,000 for personal injuries he suffered on August 14, 1962, allegedly as the result of the negligence of the employee-agent ambulance driver of defendant city in transporting plaintiff from the place in defendant Kansas City where he had been in a motor scooter accident to the North Kansas City Memorial Hospital in North Kansas City, Missouri.
The trial court, upon motion, dismissed the petition for the stated reason that plaintiff was not entitled to legal redress against defendant because the petition disclosed defendant municipality was acting in its governmental capacity at the time in question.
The petition alleged that on August 14, 1962, plaintiff was operating a motor scooter at a named intersection in Platte County, Missouri, (in Kansas City) when a motor vehicle crowded him off the road, wrecking his motor scooter and fracturing his right tibia and fibula; that thereafter defendant undertook to transport him from the scene of the accident to the hospital in North Kansas City in an ambulance owned and operated by defendant city at the expense of plaintiff and for the standard charge of $10.00 charged by defendant for this service; that defendant's employees placed him on a stretcher and put him in the ambulance; that although his leg was broken it was not a compound fracture but while being transported to the hospital, defendant through its employees operating the ambulance negligently failed to protect his broken leg and failed to render him any assistance or aid by way of sand bags, straps or other accepted procedure to see that his leg was held firm and rigid during his transportation to the hospital, and that as a direct result of such negligence the fractured leg became a compound fracture and became infected.
Presented on this appeal is the single question of whether it is disclosed on the face of the petition that the city was engaged in the performance of a governmental function in the operation of its ambulance service at the time in question. If the petition so discloses, the trial court correctly sustained the motion to dismiss; otherwise, the motion to dismiss should not have been sustained.
The petition in this case is noteworthy mostly for what it does not allege. Nowhere does it state that the ambulance service provided was a service incident to or connected with the municipal hospital of defendant city, or connected with any public charitable or eleemosynary function of the city. Nor is there any allegation that the ambulance service was or was...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Counts v. Morrison-Knudsen, Inc., MORRISON-KNUDSE
...Burke v. City of St. Louis, 349 S.W.2d 930 (Mo.1961); Dallas v. City of St. Louis, 338 S.W.2d 39 (Mo.1960). Indeed in Dugan v. Kansas City, 373 S.W.2d 175 (Mo.App.1963), the court held that the trial court erred in sustaining a city's motion to dismiss where it was "not possible, without sp......
-
State ex rel. New Liberty Hosp. Dist. v. Pratt
...285 Mo. 222, 225 S.W. 934 (1920); Bailey v. City of St. Louis, 578 S.W.2d 279, 280 (Mo.App.1979) (city ambulance); Dugan v. Kansas City, 373 S.W.2d 175 (Mo.App.1963). Contrary to respondent's suggestion, it is immaterial that the potential plaintiff was a paying patient. Schroeder, 228 S.W.......
-
Gabbett v. Pike County Memorial Hosp., 47855
...contention has been rejected. McConnell v. St. Louis County, 655 S.W.2d 654, 656-57 (Mo.App. banc 1983); and see Dugan v. Kansas City, 373 S.W.2d 175, 176 (Mo.App.1963). Judgment DOWD, C.J., and REINHARD, J., concur. ...