Stocker v. City of Nashville
| Decision Date | 01 April 1939 |
| Citation | 126 S.W.2d 339,174 Tenn. 483 |
| Parties | STOCKER v. CITY OF NASHVILLE. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Error to Circuit Court, Davidson County; E. F. Langford, Judge.
Action by Mrs. Theresa Stocker against the City of Nashville for injuries alleged to have been sustained as the result of a fall caused by piece of wire stretched along grass plat on municipal airport. To review an adverse judgment, plaintiff brings error.
Affirmed and suit dismissed.
Elkin Garfinkle and Dan Garfinkle, both of Nashville, for plaintiff in error.
Trabue Hume & Armistead and Reber Boult, all of Nashville, for defendant in error.
The City of Nashville owns a large parklike area lying beyond the City limits, on which it has erected and maintains a municipal Airport, pursuant to the provisions of Chapter 116 Public Acts of 1933 (Williams' Annotated Code, Section 2726.22), the caption and material parts of which are as follows:
Plaintiff alleges that while walking along a pathway through these grounds she struck against a wire stretched along a grass plat in close proximity to the pathway, about six inches high, and was thrown to the ground and injured, for which she sues. A demurrer was sustained by the trial Judge, and plaintiff appealed.
The first ground of the demurrer denied liability of the municipality for negligence in the construction and maintenance of this Airport, or Flying Field. Reliance is had, first, on the provisions of the Act above quoted, and, second, on the proposition that the ownership and maintenance of such an operation is a governmental, as distinguished from a proprietary, function, which excludes liability of the municipality, independent of the statute.
Plaintiff asserts that the Act above quoted is unconstitutional because, first, it violates Article 2, Section 17, which provides that, "no bill shall become a law, which embraces more than one subject; that subject to be expressed in the title", in that the bill embraces two subjects, (1) the legislative declaration that the operation of a municipal airport is a governmental function, and (2) a provision for an exemption from suit, while the caption refers to one of these only. Also, that since the exemption set out in the title is restricted to suits in and about "the superintendent or management" only, and the body of the Act embraces also "construction, maintenance, operation, superintendence, or management", the body of the Act is broader than its caption.
We do not find merit in either of these objections. The Act is confined to but one subject, germane to and clearly suggested by the caption, that is, the exemption of municipalities and their servants from suit growing out of the operation of an airport. The declaration is not independent matter, but merely incident to the enactment, and expressive of the principle on which the enactment rests.
It is next said that the Act creates an arbitrary classification and is, therefore, obnoxious to Article 1, Section 8, and Article 11, Section 8, of the State Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, U.S.C.A. Obviously, there is no discrimination between municipalities of the State, or between municipal airports. Fleming v. Memphis, 126 Tenn. 331, 148 S.W. 1057, 42 L.R.A.,N.S., 493, Ann.Cas.1913D, 1306, holding immunity granted the Taxing District of Memphis arbitrary and unconstitutional legislation because not applicable to other municipalities of the State, is not controlling. The statute before us applies to all Tennessee municipalities alike.
But, the charge is of a discrimination between municipally owned airports and municipally owned electric light plants, etc., the predicate of this theory being that the municipality, in such an operation, is acting in its private, proprietary, rather than its public, governmental capacity.
This theory not only assumes a classification for municipally owned airports which we do not find to have been fixed by any decision of this Court, but is in the teeth of the declaration of the legislature hereinabove quoted.
It has been repeatedly suggested that the line between municipal operations that are proprietary, and, therefore, may be made the basis of suits for tort, and those that are governmental and, therefore, immune, is not clearly defined. In Volume 131 of the Tennessee reports, this Court, in Saulman v Nashville, at page 427, ...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Anderson, By and Through Doss v. Jackson Municipal Airport Authority, 53194
...it would have specifically granted it in the act, and not simply by use of the word "governmental." See Stocker v. City of Nashville, 174 Tenn. 483, 126 S.W.2d 339, 124 A.L.R. 345 (1939). The above holdings are reiterated in Caroway v. City of Atlanta, 85 Ga.App. 792, 70 S.E.2d 126 (1952), ......
-
Anderson v. Jackson Municipal Airport Authority
...it would have specifically granted it in the act, and not simply by use of the word "governmental." See Stocker v. City of Nashville, 174 Tenn. 483, 126 S.W.2d 339, 124 A.L.R. 345 (1939). Thus, we have four well-reasoned opinions from sister jurisdictions which have examined almost identica......
-
Highwoods Properties v. City of Memphis
...for the public good. In its organization, and in the assignment of its powers and duties, the Legislature acts supremely. 174 Tenn. 483, 126 S.W.2d 339, 340 (1939) (quoting MacMullen v. Middletown, 187 N.Y. 37, 79 N.E. 863, 864 (1907)). We have therefore held that "[i]t is elementary that t......
-
Rhodes v. City of Asheville
... ... maintenance, operation, superintendence, or management of any ... municipal airport. ' Stocker v. City of ... Nashville, 174 Tenn. 483, 126 S.W.2d 339, 124 A.L.R ... In the ... case of Mayor & Aldermen of City of Savannah ... ...