Kisielewski v. State

• Decision Date: 23 June 1961
• Docket Number: No. A--566,A--566
• Citation: 68 N.J.Super. 258,172 A.2d 203
• Parties: Mary Ann KISIELEWSKI, Plaintiff, v. STATE of New Jersey, State of New Jersey State Home for Girls, Anne T. Riker, President, Helen Sheley, Superintendent, Mary S. McNatt, Eleanor Ligett, Blanche Vaile and Bernice McGlynn, Defendants.
• Court: New Jersey Superior Court — Appellate Division

Page 258

68 N.J.Super. 258

172 A.2d 203

Mary Ann KISIELEWSKI, Plaintiff, v. STATE of New Jersey, State of New Jersey State Home for Girls, Anne T. Riker, President, Helen Sheley Superintendent, Mary S. McNatt, Eleanor Ligett, Blanche Vaile and Bernice McGlynn, Defendants.

No. A--566.

Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division.

Argued May 29, 1961.

Decided June 23, 1961.

Albert A. Sann, Jersey City, for plaintiff.

Eugene T. Urbaniak, Deputy Atty. Gen., for defendants (David D. Furman, Atty. Gen., attorney).

Before Judges FOLEY, LEWIS and HERBERT.

The opinion of the court was delivered by

FOLEY, J.A.D.

We granted leave to appeal from an interlocutory order of the Law Division denying a summary judgment in favor of the State Home for Girls and the individual defendants. The trial court entered judgment in favor of the State of New Jersey upon the ground of its governmental immunity. The parties have agreed that we consider the matter upon the basis of the affidavit, briefs and appendix submitted on the motion for leave to appeal.

This is a negligence case. The complaint alleges that in May 1956 plaintiff, an inmate of the State Home for Girls, was severely burned while working in a kitchen at the institution, the skirt of her dress having been ignited by a pilot light of a stove. It may be surmised that the particular kitchen was in a building at the Home known as Dixon Cottage, but there is no specific allegation in the complaint to that effect.

The complaint describes the individual defendants as follows:

Anne T. Riker president of the Home,

Helen Sheley superintendent,

Mary S. McNatt head supervisor of Dixon Cottage,

Bernice McGlynn assistant supervisor,

Blanche Vaile head supervisor of the kitchen of Dixon Cottage,

Eleanor Ligett supervisor of the kitchen of Dixon Cottage.

Defendants McGlynn, Vaile and Ligett are alleged to have been working directly under the control of defendant McNatt at the time of the accident.

Plaintiff charges in her complaint that, contrary to 'instructions, rules and regulations, the pilot light on the said kitchen stove was lit' while she was preparing lunch, defendant Ligett being present; and that plaintiff was wearing 'an everyday dress with a flair skirt,' her regulation uniform having been taken from her by Blanche Vaile the day before in order that it might be hemmed. The negligence she alleges against the defendants 'jointly and severally' is that (1) they failed 'to warn plaintiff of the inherent danger and of the harmful propensities of the pilot light'; (2) they maintained a nuisance; (3) they failed to maintain the stove in proper repair; and (4) they failed to exercise care and diligence in the hiring of 'proper and competent help.'

While the moving papers addressed to the trial court described the motion as one for 'summary judgment' (see R.R. 4:58), in reality it was a motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim, as provided by R.R. 4:12--2(e).

Admitting that the individual defendants were 'either officers or employees' of the State Home for Girls, it was argued that (1) the State itself, and the State Home for Girls as an agency of the State, were both cloaked with governmental immunity, and (2) the individuals, as 'pulic officers performing a public duty under a public statute * * * in the absence of a showing of fraud or malice, are immune from civil liability.'

The trial judge, as already indicated, dismissed the case against the State of New Jersey, but denied the motion of the State Home for Girls. We think he should have granted this motion, and now so order. This institution was created as a part of the comprehensive jurisdiction invested in the Department of Institutions and Agencies under R.S. 30:1--1 et seq., N.J.S.A. It is purely an administrative subdivision of the government, having none of the autonomous attributes of authorities such as the New Jersey Highway Authority which, though created as aids to the State in furtherance of the State's duties to the people, in total effect are self-sustaining corporations...