Harris v. Young Women's Christian Ass'n of Terre Haute, 967

• Decision Date: 04 June 1968
• Docket Number: No. 967,967
• Citation: 14 Ind.Dec. 420,250 Ind. 491,237 N.E.2d 242
• Parties: Sudie HARRIS, Appellant, v. The YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF TERRE HAUTE, Indiana, Appellee. S 82.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Page 242

237 N.E.2d 242

250 Ind. 491

Sudie HARRIS, Appellant, v. The YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF TERRE HAUTE, Indiana, Appellee.

No. 967 S 82.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

June 4, 1968.

Hansford C. Mann, Mann, Mann, Chaney, Johnson & Hicks, Terre Haute, for appellant.

Cox, Zwerner, Gambill & Sullivan, Ernest J. Zwerner, Gus Sacopulos, Terre Haute, for appellee.

LEWIS, Chief Justice.

This case was transferred to the Supreme Court by the Appellate Court of Indiana because of the allegation made by the appellant that the summary judgment statute was void as an infringement of the rulemaking power of the Supreme Court of Indiana.

The appellant was the plaintiff below and brought suit against the appellee for damages for personal injuries sustained when appellant was leaving the appellee's premises where her church had rented a meeting room for a reception for its new pastor.

The issues below were decided in favor of the appellee which was granted summary judgment. This appeal is taken from order of summary judgment. Appellant contends that the Court below granted appellee summary judgment on the ground, among others, that the appellee was immune from the liability by reason of being a charity.

The appellant, Sudie Harris, at the time of her injury was age sixty-five (65) and was a member of the Terre Haute Bible Center. She attended the reception for a new pastor of her Church, which reception was held in The Young Women's Christian Association of Terre Haute, Indiana. The Bible Center had rented a meeting room in The Young Women's Christian Association for the sum of Eleven ($11.00) Dollars. Sudie Harris was not a member of The Young Women's Christian Association, nor had she ever been in the building for any purpose. She was injured by a fall at an exit at The Young Women's Christian Association. She contends the exit was defective.

The appellee answered the complaint, and among other allegations, contends that appellee was an eleemosynary organization, and that as such a not-for-profit organization, was entitled to judgment on the grounds of charitable immunity.

The appellant argues that the doctrine of charitable immunity is 'legally unsound and morally wrong'. The appellant also contends that in the case at bar the appellee is not entitled to avail itself of the doctrine of charitable immunity under the doctrine of Richardson v. St. Mary's Hospital (1963), 135 Ind.App. 1, 191 N.E.2d 337, for the reason that Sudie Harris was not a beneficiary of the alleged charity. Appellant further contends that appellee is not entitled to the doctrine of charitable immunity under the decision of Ball Memorial Hospital v. Freeman (1964), 245 Ind. 71, 196 N.E.2d 274, 9 A.L.R.3d 567, because the injury was caused by the institution itself in its corporate capacity and not by any negligence on the part of its employees.

We will first consider appellant's proposition that charitable immunity is 'legally unsound.' The doctrine has had a long and a changing history in several of these United States. The Supreme Court of Massachusetts, in 1876, was the first American Court to indicate that a charitable institution is not responsible for its torts. McDonald v. Massachusetts General Hospital (1876), 120 Mass. 432. The decision in McDonald (supra) was apparently based upon the English rule that:

'To give damages out of a trust fund would not be to apply it to those objects whom the author of the fund had in view, but would be to divert it to a completely different purpose.' Feoffees of Heriot's Hospital v. Ross (1846), 12 Clark & Fin. 507, 513.

The Supreme Court of Massachusetts, in 1876, was apparently unaware that the doctrine of charitable immunity had been repudiated in the English courts as early as in 1866. Mersey Docks Trustees v. Gibbs, L.R. 1 H.L. 93 (1866). In commenting on this apparent misinterpretation of the English law, Justice Musmanno, speaking for the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, said:

'* * * until 1888, in the case of Fire Insurance Patrol v. Boyd, 120 Pa. 624, 15 A. 553, 1 L.R.A. 417. * * * Justice PAXSON said that the charitable immunity rule 'is hoary with antiquity and prevails alike in this country and in England.' * * *'

'* * * In assumed support of his theory of immunity, Justice PAXSON spoke approvingly of a decision by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts which, in 1876, was the first American court to indicate that a charitable institution is not responsible for its torts. (McDonald v. Massachusetts General Hospital, (supra).) Justice PAXSON apparently did not know, when he lauded the English rule, that England had abandoned it, and apparently was unaware that the Massachusetts court built its decision on a foundation that did not exist.' Flagiello v. Pennsylvania Hospital (1965), 417 Pa. 486, 208 A.2d 193.

Likewise, Indiana apparently followed Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and other states, in adopting the doctrine of charitable immunity or 'qualified charitable immunity'.

In 1942 in President and Directors of Georgetown College v. Hughes, 76 U.S.App.D.C 123, 130 F.2d 810, Justice Rutledge wrote extensively on the doctrine of charitable immunity and pointed out certain factual and legal fallacies in the doctrine. Justice Rutledge said:

'* * * Whether the Good Samaritan rides an ass, a Cadillac, or picks up hitchhikers in a Model T, he must ride with forethought and caution. * * *'

Thus, Judge Rutledge continues:

'* * * Only when an individual institutionalizes his charitable enterprise formally, as by incorporation or possibly creating a trust does he succeed in casting the whole burden of its negligent operation on those it injures.

'It is a strange distinction, between a charitable institution and a charitable individual, dividual, relieving the one, holding the other, for like service and like lapse in like circumstances. The hospital may maim or kill the charity patient by negligence, yet the member of its medical staff, operating or attending without pay or thought of it, dare not lapse in a tired or hurried moment. (Citations.) The institution goes free. The physician pays. * * *'

'The basis of the distinction cannot be charity * * *. If charity should exempt either institutions or individuals, it should be the latter. * * *'

After the decision in President and Directors of Georgetown College v. Hughes, supra, a great many States started to reexamine the doctrine of charitable immunity. For many years, charitable immunity as a doctrine of law enjoyed weight of authority among several States. Since the decision by Judge Rutledge in President and Directors of Georgetown College v. Hughes, supra, the weight of authority has shifted sides and it is the immunity rule which is supported by the fewer jurisdictions.

We grant appellee that by stare decisis charitable immunity is the law of Indiana. We are compelled, however, to agree with the very excellent reasoning of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in Flagiello v. Pennsylvania Hospital, supra, in which the very loquacious Justice Musmanno, speaking for the Court, said:

'Failing to hold back both the overwhelming reasons of rudimentary justice for abolishing the doctrine, and the rising tide of out-of-state repudiation of the doctrine, the defendant hospital and the Hospital Association of Pennsylvania fall back for defense to the bastion of Stare Decisis. It is inevitable and proper that they should do so. Without stare decisis, there would be no stability in our system of jurisprudence.

'Stare decisis channels the law. It erects lighthouses and flys the signals of safety. The ships of jurisprudence must follow that well-defined channel which, over the years, has been proved to be secure and trustworthy. But it would not comport with wisdom to insist that, should shoals rise in a heretofore safe course and rocks emerge to encumber the passage, the ship should nonetheless pursue the original couse, merely because it presented no hazard in the past. The principle of stare decisis does not demand that we follow precedents which shipwreck justice.

'Stare decisis is not an iron mold into which every utterance by a Court--regardless of circumstances, parties, economic barometer and sociological climate--must be poured, and, where, like wet concrete, it must acquire an unyielding rigidity which nothing later can change.'

Appellee further contends that if the law on charitable immunity is to be changed, it should be done by the Legislature and not by this Court. This argument has been presented to a number of jurisdictions, and we agree with the judgment of those Courts that determined that the doctrine of charitable immunity was created not by the Legislature, but by judicial decree, and that it therefore is the proper province of the Court to correct that doctrine if we find that it is not grounded in good morals and sound law. Attempts have been made to have the Legislature of Indiana correct this doctrine by Legislative enactment, but these attempts have failed; and again we are reminded of what was said in an opinion in Knecht v. St. Mary's Hospital (1958), 392 Pa. 75, 140 A.2d 30:

'* * * The Legislature has other things to do besides raking through the leaves of the State Reports to discover which * * * (doctrines) should be incinerated. * * *'

The question of whether the Courts will act by judicial decree and make correction of an erroneous doctrine was presented on the question of charitable immunity to the Supreme Court of the State of Washington in Pierce v. Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital Association (1953), 43 Wash.2d 162, 260 P.2d 765. The Supreme Court said:

'* * * The purported reasons for the absolute rule have been found, on analysis, to be without merit. The true role of the legislature, under...