Thompson v. Druid City Hospital Bd.

• Decision Date: 31 March 1966
• Docket Number: 6 Div. 242
• Citation: 279 Ala. 314,184 So.2d 825
• Parties: Fred THOMPSON, Jr., Adm'r, v. DRUID CITY HOSPITAL BOARD.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 825

184 So.2d 825

279 Ala. 314

Fred THOMPSON, Jr., Adm'r, v. DRUID CITY HOSPITAL BOARD.

6 Div. 242.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

March 31, 1966.

Ralph R. Williams and Geo. W. Nichols, Jr., Tuscaloosa, for appellant.

Dominick, Roberts & Davidson and Clement, Rosen, Hubbard & Waldrop, Tuscaloosa, for appellee.

SIMPSON, Justice.

Appellant sued the Druid City Hospital, 'an agency of the City of Tuscaloosa and County of Tuscaloosa' to recover damages for breach of contract 'resulting in the death of plaintiff's intestate'. The complaint was amended in an effort to reach appellee's liability insurance coverage as a non-charitable asset of the appellee hospital. Demurrer to the complaint as last amended was sustained. Plaintiff took a nonsuit and this appeal followed.

The appellant admits that under the existing law of this state, as last expressed in Clark v. Mobile County Hospital Board, 275 Ala. 26, 151 So.2d 750, it is firmly established that

"* * * where a county, a accordance with express legislative authority, operates a hospital where its needy may receive care and medical attention, it is performing a governmental duty and, hence, as an arm of the state it is immune from suit by indigent or pay patients for the negligence of its officers or employees unless the act authorizing and empowering the county to operate the hospital expressly makes the county subject to suits for the torts of the officers, agents or servants entrusted with the operation and management of the hospital.'

However, the appellant notes that this court has not had before it the question of what effect, if any, does the procurement of liability insurance have on the traditional immunity.

The Druid City Hospital Board was created by the Legislature of Alabama by Act No. 540 of the 1947 Regular Session. Section 15 of the act provides:

'The Druid City Hospital Board hereby created is, and is to be, taken, treated and construed as, an agency of Tuscaloosa County and the City of Tuscaloosa a construct, equip, carry on, maintain and operate a general public hospital mainly for charity in manner and form permitted and authorized by law, and the Druid City Hospital Board created hereby shall have all the immunities, powers, rights and authority inhering in or conferred upon, hospitals operated by the several counties of Alabama under the law of Alabama.'

We have, therefore, no dispute that the Board is a public agency entitled under the act to the usual immunities. The only...