Loeffler v. Trustees of Sheppard & Enoch Pratt Hospital
Decision Date | 02 February 1917 |
Docket Number | 5. |
Citation | 100 A. 301,130 Md. 265 |
Parties | LOEFFLER v. TRUSTEES OF SHEPPARD & ENOCH PRATT HOSPITAL. |
Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Baltimore City Court; Robert F. Stanton, Judge.
"To be officially reported."
Suit by Frederick John Loeffler against the Trustees of the Sheppard & Enoch Pratt Hospital, a body corporate. From a judgment for defendant, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.
Argued before BOYD, C.J., and BRISCOE, BURKE, THOMAS, PATTISON URNER, STOCKBRIDGE, and CONSTABLE, JJ.
H Arthur Stump, Jr., and Michael P. Kehoe, both of Baltimore for appellant.
Julian S. Jones, of Baltimore, for appellee.
This suit was brought by the appellant against the Trustees of the Sheppard & Enoch Pratt Hospital, a body corporate, to recover for injuries alleged to have been caused by the negligence of the defendant.
The narr. alleges that the defendant was the owner of the premises known as 121 West Baltimore street, and that the plaintiff was "employed in the fire department of Baltimore City"; that on the 14th of December, 1912, the plaintiff with other members of his company was ordered to the defendant's premises for the purpose of putting out a fire in the rear of its building; that, after the fire had been gotten under control, he was ordered to lower the fire escape; and that in order to do so he stepped on the fire escape, and, while going up the same to lower the ladder, the ladder, because of its defective condition, which was known or should have been known to the defendant, slipped and broke his arm in several places.
The defendant filed the general issue plea and two additional pleas. The second plea avers that the defendant was incorporated by the Act of 1853, c. 274, at the instance of the late Moses Sheppard, of Baltimore City, who by his last will and testament bequeathed and devised to the defendant "large and valuable property" for the purpose of founding and maintaining an asylum or hospital in which the insane poor, and those suffering from mental and nervous diseases, could be treated, and that the late Enoch Pratt, of Baltimore City, died in 1896, leaving a will by which he gave the residue of his estate to the defendant with directions that the income therefrom should be used in the first instance to complete the defendant's buildings and for the erection of such other buildings as would accommodate not less than 200 additional inmates, and that thereafter the income should be devoted to the cure of the indigent insane. The plea then alleges:
The third plea, which alleges that the "defendant is a corporation, duly incorporated under the laws of the state of Maryland, for the charitable purpose of organizing and conducting an asylum or hospital in which the indigent insane, and those suffering from nervous and mental diseases, may be treated," contains substantially the same averments in regard to the sources of the defendant's income, the application thereof, its title to the property 121 West Baltimore street, and the construction of the fire escape.
The plaintiff demurred to the second and third pleas, but the court overruled the demurrer, and, the plaintiff having declined to reply to these pleas, judgment was entered for the defendant. From that judgment, the plaintiff has appealed.
The defense relied on in this case is one that has given rise to much discussion and a great diversity of judicial opinion, not only as to the proper rule in such cases, but also as to the principle upon which it should be based.
In the case of Tucker v. Mobile Infirmary Ass'n, 191 Ala. 572, 68 So. 4, L. R. A. 1915D, 1167, decided in 1915, the Supreme Court of Alabama, dealing with the question as an open one in that state, says:
In that case, the court, after an extended discussion of the cases supporting the several theories mentioned, rejected the doctrine of absolute exemption upon the "trust fund theory," and the theory that the rule of respondeat superior does not apply to such institutions, and, while crediting the theory of "implied assent" with the weight of what it termed the more recent and best considered cases, held that a paying patient in a hospital, "conducted without stock or profit, in which indigent patients are treated without cost," could recover damages for injuries inflicted through the negligence of an attending nurse.
In the case of Downes v. Harper Hospital, 101 Mich. 555, 60 N.W. 42, 25 L. R. A. 602, 45 Am. St. Rep. 427, where it was held that there could be no recovery against an eleemosynary institution for an injury to an inmate caused by the negligent or tortuous acts of its managers or employés, the Supreme Court of Michigan said ...
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