Tuengel v. City of Sitka, Alaska
| Decision Date | 18 February 1954 |
| Docket Number | No. 6778-A.,6778-A. |
| Parties | TUENGEL v. CITY OF SITKA, ALASKA et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Alaska |
R. E. Robertson (of Robertson, Monagle & Eastaugh), Juneau, Alaska, for plaintiff.
Robert Boochever (of Faulkner, Banfield & Boochever), Juneau, Alaska, for defendants.
The plaintiff seeks to recover damages for personal injuries sustained as a consequence of the alleged negligence of the defendant city, as operator of a hospital, and the defendant Board of National Missions, as landlord.
Plaintiff, a barber, went to the hospital to cut the hair of Cresa, a welfare patient. In response to plaintiff's inquiry, the nurse directed him to Cresa's room, but, as a result of misunderstanding or otherwise, the plaintiff opened the door to the basement and plunged down the stairs to the floor, sustaining the injuries complained of.
In his complaint, plaintiff alleges negligence in several particulars: (1) in respect to the directions given him by the nurse, (2) the absence of any sign on the door indicating that the door led to the basement, (3) lack of adequate illumination in the corridor and over the basement stairway, and (4) improper construction of the door, in that it opened into the basement and over the stairway instead of into the corridor.
The defendant city has moved to dismiss and for a summary judgment on the ground that it is immune from suit as well as tort liability, because the operation of the hospital was in the exercise of a governmental function and because the hospital was a charitable institution. The defendant Board has likewise moved to dismiss the complaint, on the ground that no claim is stated as against it, and for summary judgment on the ground that it is a charitable institution and hence immune from tort liability. Thus the city has invoked both doctrines of immunity — that which clothes municipalities and political subdivisions, as well as that which protects charitable institutions. The first is divided into immunity from suit, based on the medieval notion that the king can do no wrong, and immunity from tort liability.
Immunity from suit is in disfavor in the United States because it is an anomaly in a republic and because of the general recognition of the fact that it is unjust to make the innocent victim of negligence bear the entire loss rather than to distribute the burden among the members of the general public. Notwithstanding the manifest injustice of the doctrine, courts continue to hold political subdivisions immune from suit as well as liability because of the doctrine of stare decisis, Madison v. City and County of San Francisco, 106 Cal. App.2d 232, 234 P.2d 995, rehearing den. 236 P.2d 141. So far as this jurisdiction is concerned, there appears to be no imperative decision that a municipality is immune from suit, or from tort liability in the operation of a charitable hospital, although this Court has recently held that a municipality is immune from suit for acts of commission or omission in the exercise of a governmental function, Carr v. City of Anchorage,...
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