Franklin v. Richlands

• Decision Date: 21 September 1933
• Citation: 161 Va. 156
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: BEULAH FRANKLIN v. TOWN OF RICHLANDS.

Page 156

161 Va. 156

BEULAH FRANKLIN v. TOWN OF RICHLANDS.

Supreme Court of Virginia, Staunton.

September 21, 1933.

Present, Campbell, C.J., and Holt, Epes, Gregory and Browning, JJ.

1. PRISONS AND PRISONERS — Municipal Corporations — Liability of Municipality for Maintenance of Jail. — Municipal corporations are almost always authorized or required to maintain a place for the confinement of persons charged with crime and those convicted of the minor offenses; but the maintenance of such a place of confinement is a purely governmental function, a part of the public duty to suppress disorder and crime, and it is well settled that a municipality incurs no more liability for negligence in connection therewith than in the case of its other governmental duties. In such cases it can make no difference that the injured person was confined in prison for violation of a city ordinance.

2. MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS — Governmental Functions — Liability for Negligence. — It may be asserted, with reasonable assurance of verity, that the courts generally hold that a municipality is not liable for damages to an individual who is injured by the negligence of a servant, officer, or employee of the municipality while he is engaged in the performance of a governmental function.

3. MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS — Governmental Functions — Municipality Stands in Place of State. — Where purely governmental functions are exercised, a city stands in the place of and acts for the State itself and not in a private corporate capacity.

4. PRISONS AND PRISONERS — Liability of Town for Care of Jail — Right to Build Jail Permissive but Not Mandatory. — While towns are authorized to build jails, they are not obliged to do so. These local lockups in towns far removed from county seats are sometimes extremely convenient — it might be said necessary — as places of temporary detention until transportation to county jails can be had. Authority is conferred by the State and the immunities which follow are not limited by the fact that the right to build is permissive and not mandatory.

5. PRISONS AND PRISONERS — Action against Town for Maintaining Unsanitary Jail — Liability of Town — Case at Bar. — The instant case was an action by plaintiff for injuries suffered from confinement in an unsanitary jail. The jail was a one-room structure, filthy, unfit for human habitation and without separate sanitary conveniences for men and women. At least such were the allegations in the motion for judgment. Plaintiff claimed to have been more or less permanently injured, and her motion for judgment set up grounds amply adequate to sustain a recovery, if any recovery could be had. The town demurred to the motion for judgment on the ground that the maintenance of this jail was a governmental function for the improper exercise of which it was not liable.

Held: That notwithstanding the fact that there was no statute compelling the town to maintain a jail, the maintenance of the jail was a governmental function, and the demurrer to the motion for judgment was properly sustained.

Error to a judgment of the Circuit Court of Tazewell county, in a proceeding by motion for a judgment for damages. Judgment for defendant. Plaintiff assigns error.

The opinion states the case.

J. Powell Royall and S. M. B. Coulling, for the plaintiff in error.

R. O. Crockett, for the defendant in error.

HOLT, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

On December 13, 1931, about 11 o'clock at night, Beulah Franklin, a girl under age, together with Willis Cruey, an adult male companion, was arrested by the officers of the town of Richlands, a municipal corporation. They were confined in the local jail or lock-up and were there detained until about 3 o'clock in the afternoon of the following day. This jail is a one-room structure, filthy, unfit for human habitation and without separate sanitary conveniences for men and women. At least such were the allegations in the motion for judgment. It is not necessary to enter into the details. Plaintiff claims to have been more or less permanently injured, and it suffices to say that her motion sets up grounds amply adequate to sustain a recovery, if any recovery can be had at all.

To the notice of motion the town demurred, and as ground therefor said that the maintenance of this jail was a governmental function for the improper exercise of which it was not liable.

If the maintenance of jails is a purely governmental function, a municipal corporation is not liable for negligence in their administration.

"In providing a prison and keeping it in repair, and furnishing supplies for its inmates, it (a municipality) exercises discretionary governmental functions and is therefore not answerable to one who is injured in health or otherwise by the condition of the prison or the failure to furnish proper supplies to the persons confined therein." Note 30 Am. St. Rep. p. 402.

"Municipal corporations are almost always authorized or required to maintain a place for the confinement of persons charged with crime and those convicted of the minor offenses; but the maintenance of such a place of confinement is a purely governmental function, a part of the public duty to suppress disorder and crime, and it is well settled that a municipality incurs no more liability for negligence in connection therewith than in the case of its other governmental duties. Thus a municipality is not liable for the injurious results of confining a person in an insufficiently heated or otherwise unsanitary jail, prison, workhouse, lock-up or calaboose, or for the negligence of the persons in charge of the jail in allowing it to be burned, thus causing the death of a prisoner, or for personal injuries arising out of the work at which the inmate of a prison is put, or from the assaults of other prisoners, even if the public authorities should have known of the danger. In such cases it can make no difference that the injured person was confined in prison for violation of a city ordinance." 19 R.C.L., section 404, p. 1125; 6 McQuillin on Municipal Corporations (2d Ed.) section 2591; 43 Corpus Juris, p. 1168 2, 3 "It may also be asserted, with reasonable assurance of verity, that the courts generally hold that a municipality is not liable for damages to an individual who is injured by the negligence of a servant, officer, or employee of the municipality while he is engaged in the performance of a governmental function." District of Columbia Totten, 55 App.D.C. 312, 5 F.(2d) 374, 376, 40 A.L.R. 1461; Gray Mayor, etc., of Griffin, 111 Ga. 361, 36 S.E. 792, 794, 51 L.R.A. 131; LaClef Concordia, 41 Kan. 323, 21 Pac. 272, 273, 13 Am.St.Rep. 285; Shaw City of Charleston, 57 W.Va. 433, 50 S.E. 527, 528, 4 Ann.Cas. 515; Ulrich St. Louis, 112 Mo. 138, 20 S.W. 466, 34 Am.St.Rep. 372; Lahner Town of Williams, 112 Iowa 428, 84 N.W. 507; Mains Fort Fairfield, 99 Me. 177, 59 Atl. 87; Gullikson McDonald, 62 Minn. 278, 64 N.W. 812; Wilcox Rochester, 190 N.Y. 137, 82 N.E. 1119, 17 L.R.A.(N.S.) 741, 13 Ann.Cas. 759. Unnumbered other cases to the same effect might be cited but it is not necessary. Where purely governmental functions are exercised, the city stands in the place of and acts for the State itself and not in a private corporate capacity.

The situation in North Carolina is somewhat different. The general rule as to non-liability is approved, but it is there held that a city, under the statute, must construct a proper prison and make adequate provisions for the reasonable comfort of prisoners. For failure to so provide it is liable, but it is further said that when such requirements have been met the city is not liable because the fires are not lighted or bed-clothes not furnished. Moffitt Asheville, 103 N.C. 237, 9 S.E. 695, 14 Am.St.Rep. 810.

Plaintiff relies strongly upon Edwards Town of Pocahontas (C.C.) 47 Fed. 268. There, as here, the plaintiff charged that he was confined by the town to a filthy lockup, suffered and was sick. A demurrer to the declaration was overruled by the Federal court. That court conceded that there was no precedent for its finding. In support of its judgment attention was called to the fact that county jails are under statutory supervision and are to be kept in a sanitary...