Franklin v. Town Of Richlands

• Decision Date: 21 September 1933
• Citation: 170 S.E. 718
• Parties: FRANKLIN. v. TOWN OF RICHLANDS.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

170 S.E. 718

FRANKLIN.

v.TOWN OF RICHLANDS.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

Sept. 21, 1933.

Error to Circuit Court, Tazewell County.

Action by notice of motion for judgment by Beulah Franklin against the Town of Richlands. Judgment for defendant, and plaintiff brings error.

Affirmed.

Argued before CAMPBELL, C. J., and HOLT, EPES, GREGORY, and BROWNING, JJ.

J. Powell Eoyall and S. M. B. Coulling, both of Tazewell, for plaintiff in error.

R. O. Crockett, of Tazewell, for defendant in error.

HOLT, Justice.

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 lockup, 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. page 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 gov ernmental 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, lockup 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., § 404, p. 1125; 6 Mc-Quillin on Municipal Corporations (2d Ed.) § 2591; 43 Corpus Juris, p. 1108.

"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 pf the municipality while it is engaged in the performance of a governmental function." District of Columbia v. Totten, 55 App. D. C. 312, 5 F.(2d) 374, 376, 40 A. L. R. 1461; Gray v. Mayor, etc., of Griffin, 111 Ga. 361, 36 S. E. 792, 794, 51 L. R. A. 131; LaClef v. Concordia, 41 Kan. 323, 21 P. 272, 273, 13 Am. St. Rep. 285; Shaw v. City of Charleston, 57 W. Va. 433, 50 S. E. 527, 528, 4 Ann. Cas. 515; Ulrich v. St. Louis, 112 Mo. 138, 20 S. W. 466, 34 Am. St. Rep. 372; Lahner v. Town of Williams, 112 Iowa, 428, 84 N. W. 507; Mains v. Fort Fairfield, 99 Me. 177, 59 A. 87; Gullikson v. McDonald, 62 Minn. 278, 64 N. W. 812; Wilcox v. 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 nonliability 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 bedclothes not furnished. Moffitt v. Ashe-ville, 103 N. C. 237, 9 S. E. 695, 14 Am. St. Rep. 810.

Plaintiff relies strongly upon Edwards v. Town of Pocahontas (C. C.) 47 F. 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 fed-eral 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 condition. To them all county prisoners may be sent. Towns are given permission to establish local jails or lockups, but are not obliged to do so, and for their general supervision there is no statutory guide. It was therefore said that the town which was not obliged to establish a jail did so at its peril and was liable for its negligent conduct.

It is still true that, while towns are authorized to build jails, they are not obliged to do so (Code, § 3030), but may use the county jail (Code, § 2S56), and it is also true that no provision is made under general law for their supervision, but it can hardly be argued that, where no care is demanded by statute, some additional burden is assumed. It is a substitute for no common-law requirements. These local lockups in towns far removed from county seats are sometimes extremely convenient-- we might say 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.

In Tindley v. City of Salem, 137 Mass. 171, 50 Am. Rep. 2S9, the court said:

"There are many provisions of statute, by which all municipal corporations must do certain things, and may do certain other things, in each instance with a view solely to the general good. In looking at these provisions in detail, it is impossible to suppose that the Legislature have intended to make this distinction a material one in determining the question of corporate liability to private actions. For example, towns must maintain pounds, guide-posts, and burial-grounds; and may establish and maintain hospitals,...