Scott v. City of Indianapolis

• Citation: 75 Ind.App. 387,130 N.E. 658
• Decision Date: 21 April 1921
• Docket Number: No. 10785.,10785.
• Parties: SCOTT v. CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS.
• Court: Court of Appeals of Indiana

75 Ind.App. 387

130 N.E. 658

SCOTT

v.CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS.

No. 10785.

Appellate Court of Indiana, Division No. 1.

April 21, 1921.

Appeal from Superior Court, Marion County; W. W. Thornton, Judge.

Action by Lula Scott against the City of Indianapolis. From judgment for defendant, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Turner, Merrell & Locke, of Indianapolis, for appellant.

Samuel Ashby, Thomas D. Stevenson, Harry E. Yockey, and Dixson H. Bynum, all of Indianapolis, for appellee.

ENLOE, J.

Complaint by appellant for damages for personal injury alleged to have been sustained by reason of the negligence of appellee. The complaint was in one paragraph, to which a demurrer was sustained, and, the appellant electing to abide such ruling, judgment was rendered against her for costs, from which judgment this appeal is prosecuted.

It is alleged in said complaint that on the 3d day of April, 1917, the said city was maintaining a certain hospital, known as the City Hospital; that it had established and was maintaining said hospital under authority of the statutes of the state of Indiana; that in said hospital building was an elevator and elevator shaft; that the bottom of said elevator shaft was four or five feet below the level of the first floor of the first story of said hospital; that said elevator shaft was unskillfully constructed and negligently maintained, in this, that when the elevator was above the first floor an open space was left between said elevator shaft and the adjoining room in said hospital, with no gate, guard, or other protection so placed as to keep and prevent any person from walking into and falling into said elevator pit; that plaintiff had no knowledge of such dangerous condition; that while in said building, on said day aforesaid, and while seeking to find the “office” of said hospital, she went into a poorly lighted room, and stepped into and fell into said pit, whereby she was injured.

The averments sufficiently charge negligence, provided this action, under the facts alleged, can be maintained.

In the case of Benton v. Trustees, 140 Mass. 13, 1 N. E. 836, 54 Am. Rep. 436, which was an action for damages sustained by falling on a stairway of a hospital, the court said:

“The trustees are a body created for the performance of a duty, which, under the authority of the statute, the city of Boston has assumed for the benefit of the public, and from the performance of which no profit or advantage is derived either by the trustees or the city.”

The court held that the action could not be maintained.

In the City of Richmond v. Long's Adm'r, 17 Grat. (Va.) 375, 94 Am. Dec. 461, which was an action for damages on account of the loss of the life of a slave being treated at the City Hospital, and whose life was lost because of the alleged negligence of the hospital attendants, the court said:

“A kindred exemption, and one directly relevant to the present issue, is extended, by virtue of the same principle, to municipal corporations, as constituting a part of the government of the country. This proposition in its terms points to an important distinction. The functions of such municipalities are obviously twofold: First, political, discretionary, and legislative, being such public franchises as are conferred upon them for the government of their inhabitants and the ordering of their public officers, and to be exercised solely for the public good rather than their special advantage; and, secondly, those ministerial, specified duties, which are assumed in consideration of the privileges conferred by their charter. Within the sphere of the former, they are entitled to this exemption; inasmuch as the corporation is a part of the government to that extent, its officers are public officers, and as such entitled to the protection of this principle; but within the sphere of the latter, they drop the badges of their governmental offices and stand forth as the delegates of a private corporation in the exercise of private franchises, and amenable as such to the great fundamental doctrine of liability for the acts of their servants.”

In the case of Murtaugh v. City of St. Louis, 44 Mo. 479, the plaintiff was a nonpaying patient in the City Hospital, and while such suffered injuries, alleged to have been caused by negligence of officials and servants. In passing upon the question before it the court said:

“The general result of these adjudications seems to be this: Where the...