Hughes v. PRESIDENT AND DIRECTORS, ETC.

• Decision Date: 04 June 1940
• Docket Number: No. 88895.,88895.
• Citation: 33 F. Supp. 867
• Parties: HUGHES v. PRESIDENT AND DIRECTORS OF GEORGETOWN COLLEGE.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

33 F. Supp. 867

HUGHES v. PRESIDENT AND DIRECTORS OF GEORGETOWN COLLEGE.

No. 88895.

District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia.

June 4, 1940.

Emmett L. Sheehan and Maurice H. Lanman, Jr., both of Washington, D. C., for plaintiff.

Henry I. Quinn, of Washington, D. C., for defendant.

PROCTOR, Justice.

The plaintiff, Susan M. Hughes, was seriously and permanently injured in Georgetown University Hospital while about her duties as a nurse specially employed by a paying patient. A jury by special verdict found the injury to have resulted from negligence of a student nurse in the regular employ of the hospital. The defendant corporation is an eleemosynary institution. The hospital is one of the charitable activities conducted by it. An insurance policy protects defendant from any loss legally imposed in a tort action to the extent of $25,000, besides the costs of defense.

Several defenses are urged against a judgment upon the verdict. The basic contention is made that defendant as a charitable institution is altogether immune from liability for torts of its employees in the course of their work, and alternatively that the plaintiff was a beneficiary of the charity and as such excluded from recovery against the institution.

The argument for total immunity hinges upon the early English rule, based upon the so-called "trust fund theory" that recognition of liability would operate to wrongfully divert trust funds donated for charity. Duncan v. Findlater, 6 C. & F. 894, Feoffees of Heriot's Hospital v. Ross, 12 C. & F. 507, Holliday v. Vestry of St. Leonard, 11 C.B., N.S., 192. The doctrine found some support in this country led by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts in McDonald v. Massachusetts General Hospital, 120 Mass. 432, 21 Am.Rep. 529. It has met with favor by this court. Mattson v. Columbia Hospital, Law 65825, Bauer v. Childrens' Hospital, Law 73184, Sundheimer v. Georgetown College, Law 83333. However, there is no controlling decision in this jurisdiction. The theory upon which the rule is grounded requires its universal application. It admits of no exception. Recipients of the charity and strangers thereto must be treated alike. All are barred. Hamburger v. Cornell University, 240 N.Y. 328, 338, 148 N.E. 539, 42 A.L.R. 955; Andrews v. Y. M. C. A., Iowa, 284 N.W. 186, 189. The doctrine met with opposition in England and was finally repudiated by the House of Lords in the related cases of Mersey Docks, etc., and Gibbs v. Pierce, 11 H of L. Cases 686. It has often been severly criticised and rejected in this country. Andrews v. Y. M. C. A., supra, 284 N.W. 189 and cases cited. Our courts have turned to other and varying theories which, in their final analysis, appear to rest upon the dictates of public policy. Ettlinger v. Trustees of Randolph Macon College, 4 Cir., 31 F.2d 869, 870. A review of American cases shows a steady tendency to draw away from the concept of total immunity by distinguishing between beneficiaries and strangers to the charity. Thus, today we find the great weight of authority exempting charitable institutions from liability to recipients of the benefits extended by a charitable institution. Judge Parker says in the case just cited, "It is significant that almost without exception the courts, while giving different reasons for the rule, have not hesitated to apply it where the one seeking to enforce liability against a charitable institution is one who has accepted benefits from it." 31 F.2d at page 872. See also Andrews v. Y. M. C. A., supra, 284 N.W. at page 192, 10 Amer. Jur. p. 692. Strong considerations of natural justice dictate that one who receives and succors the sick and injured ought not be mulcted in damages by the recipient of his kindness for some careless act of a servant. Upon this concept has grown the idea of differentiating between beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries, so that today the great weight of authority favors immunity only as against beneficiaries of a charity. Thus a principle has been established which I am convinced is sound and just. I do not think immunity should go further. I agree with the second circuit court of appeals that "whatever may be the correct doctrine where the injured plaintiff is a recipient of the bounty of an eleomosynary institution, * * * we have no difficulty in deciding that irresponsibility should not be extended to the tortious infliction of damage upon strangers." Henry W. Putnam Memorial Hospital v. Allen, 2 Cir., 34 F.2d 927, 929.

The present case then is reduced to the question was plaintiff a stranger to the charity? For ...