Hargrove v. Town of Cocoa Beach
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Florida |
| Writing for the Court | THORNAL; TERRELL; THOMAS |
| Citation | 96 So.2d 130,60 A.L.R.2d 1193 |
| Decision Date | 28 June 1957 |
| Parties | Ervine HARGROVE, Appellant, v. TOWN OF COCOA BEACH, Florida, a municipal corporation, Appellee. |
Page 130
v.
TOWN OF COCOA BEACH, Florida, a municipal corporation, Appellee.
Page 131
Maurice Wagner and Richard D. Bertone, Daytona Beach, for appellant.
Daniel N. Meadows and Butt & Akridge, Cocoa, for appellee.
Ralph A. Marsicano, Tampa, for Florida League of Municipalities.
THORNAL, Justice.
Appellant Ervine Hargrove, who was plaintiff below, seeks reversal of an order of the trial judge sustaining a motion to dismiss her complaint against the appellee Town in an action seeking damages for the alleged wrongful death of appellant's husband.
To dispose of the case we must determine whether a municipal corporation should continue to enjoy immunity from liability for the wrongful acts of police officers.
Appellant, as plaintiff, alleged that her husband was incarcerated in the town jail while in a helpless condition because of excessive intoxication. She alleged that the jailor locked all the doors and departed, leaving no guard or other attendant on duty; that during the night the cell became filled with smoke resulting in the fatal suffocation of appellant's husband. For the alleged negligence in leaving the jail unattended and the prisoner unprotected against the fire, thereby producing the death of her husband, Mrs. Hargrove sought damages from the City. The trial judge sustained a motion to dismiss the complaint on the theory that the municipality was immune to liability for this type of tort. Reversal of his order is now sought.
The appellant recognizes our prior decisions on the subject and frankly requests us to recede therefrom.
The appellee, of course, cites our own precedents to support the ruling of the trial judge.
We are here faced squarely with an appeal to recede from our previously announced rule which immunizes a municipal corporation against liability for torts committed by police officers. The rule against municipal liability for torts has been the subject of thousands of pages of learned dissertations. We are told that since 1900 well over two hundred law review articles alone have been written on the subject. 1 Innumerable textbooks have made their dontribution, most of them adversely critical.
Page 132
The books are full of decisions of courts covering various aspects of the problem. Our own precedents reveal that this Court has many times had the matter under consideration. Because of these comprehensive discussions of the subject, there is very little that we can now add.Our own present study of the matter leads us to a consideration of the problem as one arising out of an historical recognition of a division of municipal functions into two categories, to wit, governmental and proprietary. It has been held that in the exercise of so-called governmental functions, the municipality is immune to liability. In the exercise of proprietary functions, the municipality has been held responsible for the torts of its agents.
Immunization in the exercise of governmental functions has been traditionally put on the theory that 'the king can do no wrong but his ministers may'. In applying this theory the courts have transposed into our democratic system the concept that the sovereign is divine and that divinity is beyond reproach. In preserving the theory they seem to have overlooked completely the wrongs that produced our Declaration of Independence and in the ultimate resulted in the Revolutionary War. We, therefore, feel that the time has arrived to declare this doctrine anachoristic not only to our system of justice but to our traditional concepts of democratic government.
The immunity theory has been further supported with the idea that it is better for an individual to suffer a grievous wrong than to impose liability on the people vicariously through their government. If there is anything more than a sham to our constitutional guarantee that the courts shall always be open to redress wrongs and to our sense of justice that there shall be a remedy for every wrong committed, then certainly this basis for the rule cannot be supported.
Tracing the rule to its ultimate progenitor we are led to the English case of Russel v. Men of Devon, 2 T.R. 667, 100 Eng.Rep.R. 359 (1788). The Men of Devon decision merely relieved the inhabitants of an unincorporated county from liability for damages resulting from a defective bridge. Aside from the fact that the case involved a county rather than a city, it is interesting to note that we ourselves have refused to follow this historic precedent so far as cities are concerned in the numerous cases in which we have held municipalities liable for negligence in the maintenance of streets and bridges. As early as 1850 in City of Tallahassee v. Fortune, 3 Fla. 19, the Men of Devon decision was very clearly explained and distinguished. Our Court then pointed out that the leading English precedent turned on the proposition that it was an action against all of the people of an unincorporated community having no corporate fund or legal means of obtaining one. The law would not impose the burden on each individual citizen.
The appellee here contends that...
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City of Green Cove Springs v. Donaldson, No. 21223.
...1964, 337 F.2d 691. We hold that it cannot. Since the decision of the Florida Supreme Court in Hargrove v. Town of Cocoa Beach, Fla.1957, 96 So.2d 130, Florida municipal corporations are liable for injuries resulting from the negligence of their agents under principles of respondeat superio......
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Kitto v. Minot Park Dist., No. 9030
...(1971); Spencer v. General Hospital of District of Columbia, 138 U.S.App.D.C. 48, 425 F.2d 479 (1969); Hargrove v. Town of Cocoa Beach, 96 So.2d 130 (Fla.1957); Smith v. State, 93 Idaho 795, 473 P.2d 937 (1970) (proprietary and governmental distinction retained); Molitor v. Kaneland Communi......
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Spencer v. General Hospital of District of Columbia, No. 21493.
...left it to the legislature to eliminate or reform it. 96 U.S.App.D.C. at 366, 226 F.2d at 268. 20 Hargrove v. Town of Cocoa Beach, Fla., 96 So.2d 130, 60 A.L.R.2d 1193 (1957); Molitor v. Kaneland Community Unit District No. 302, 18 Ill.2d 11, 163 N.E.2d 89, 86 A.L.R.2d 469 (1959); McAndrew ......
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Owen v. City of Independence, Missouri, No. 78-1779
...which at length has begun to have its effect"). The seminal opinion of the Florida Supreme Court in Hargrove v. Town of Cocoa Beach, 96 So.2d 130 (1957), has spawned "a minor avalanche of decisions repudiating municipal immunity," Prosser § 131, at 985, which, in conjunction with legislativ......
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Kitto v. Minot Park Dist., No. 9030
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Caporossi v. Atlantic City, New Jersey, Civ. A. No. 581-61.
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Long v. City of Weirton, No. 13155
...N.W.2d 1 (1961); Molitor v. Kaneland Community Unit District No. 302, 18 Ill.2d 11, 163 N.E.2d 89 (1959); Hargrove v. Town of Cocoa Beach, 96 So.2d 130 We wish to note that the instant decision abolishing the doctrine of municipal governmental immunity from tort liability should not be take......
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Clouse ex rel. Clouse v. State, No. CV-99-0023-PR.
...and rule as stated in Porter v. Delmarva Power & Light Co., 488 A.2d 899, 901-02 (Del.Super.Ct.1984); Hargrove v. Town of Cocoa Beach, 96 So.2d 130 (Fla.1957), superseded by statute as stated in Cauley v. City of Jacksonville, 403 So.2d 379, 383-84 (Fla.1981); Campbell v. Indiana, 259 Ind. ......
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Interest Groups, Judicial Review, and Local Government
...for juries by its President, Jacob D. Fuchsberg, "A Brief for the Jury in Civil Cases," New York Times Magazine, March 1, 1964, p. 34. 43 96 So.2d 130 Ibid., 133-34.45 Ibid., 136. 46 Comment of F. Churchill Mellen, City Attorney, Pensacola, Florida, 22 NIMLO Municipal L. Rea. 450 (1958). 97......