Glenn v. Department of Corrections, 53562

• Decision Date: 09 December 1968
• Docket Number: No. 2,No. 53562,53562,2
• Citation: 434 S.W.2d 473
• Parties: Edgar GLENN, Appellant, v. DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, State of Missouri, Respondent
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 473

434 S.W.2d 473

Edgar GLENN, Appellant, v. DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, State of Missouri, Respondent.

No. 53562.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

Dec. 9, 1968.

Bradley, Noble & Morgan, Charles M. Cable, Kennett, for appellant.

Norman H. Anderson, Atty. Gen., Louren R. Wood, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for respondent.

BARRETT, Commissioner.

Edgar Glenn is an inmate of the Missouri State Penitentiary, serving a term of imprisonment for armed robbery. In November 1966 Glenn instituted this civil action against the Department of Corrections to recover $100,000.00 damages for personal injuries sustained on December 6, 1961. He was engaged in operating a machine for the stamping of automobile license plates. He alleges as grounds of negligence and liability that 'at the order and direction of Defendant's agents, servants and employees acting within the scope of their employment,' the machine evidently being out of repair, he was 'ordered to wire around a safety button' thus rendering the machine unsafe so that when he attempted to insert dies and inadvertently struck the operating button his hands were caught in the machine necessitating the amputation of his fingers. In addition to his allegation of negligence Glenn alleges failure to furnish necessary medical aid and the denial of state and federally protected constitutional rights amounting to 'cruel and unusual punishment and the deprivation of his property without due process of law.' The Department of Corrections, pleading its sovereign immunity, moved to dismiss the action, the court sustained the motion and Glenn has duly perfected an appeal to this court. The essence of his appeal is that the court erred in dismissing his action 'on the grounds that the State of Missouri is immune from suit and liability in tort due to the doctrine of sovereign immunity because said doctrine is an outmoded legal concept, is contrary to Article I, Sections 10 and 14 of the Missouri Constitution (V.A.M.S.) and the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and further because such doctrine should not apply in the particular facts of this case.'

In support of his argument appellant has cited a great mass of material attacking the sovereign immunity doctrine. He urges that the history and rationale of the doctrine be reexamined and that this court 'declare the death of governmental immunity in this State.' For reasons hereinafter indicated it is not necessary to encumber this opinion with even a resume of the mass of material brought to bear in attacking the doctrine of sovereign immunity.

In arguing cruel and unusual punishment the appellant points to State v. Williams, 77 Mo. 310, but his punishment, treatment and the circumstances of his injury are indeed not comparable to the punishment denounced by the court: 'The interdict of the constitution against the infliction of cruel and unusual punishments would apply to such punishments as amount to torture, or such as would shock the mind of every man possessed of common feeling, such for instance as drawing and quartering the culprit, burning him at the stake, cutting off his nose, ears or limbs, starving him to death, or such as was inflicted by an act of parliament as late as the 22 Henry VIII, authorizing one Rouse to be thrown into boiling water and boiled to death for the offense...