White v. Alabama Insane Hospital

• Decision Date: 24 November 1903
• Citation: 35 So. 454,138 Ala. 479
• Parties: WHITE v. ALABAMA INSANE HOSPITAL.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

35 So. 454

138 Ala. 479

WHITE v. ALABAMA INSANE HOSPITAL.

Supreme Court of Alabama

November 24, 1903

Appeal from Tuscaloosa County Court; J. J. Mayfield, Judge.

Action by James White against the Alabama Insane Hospital. From a judgment for defendant, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

This is an action brought for damages for injuries alleged to have been sustained by the plaintiff in an accident occurring at the coal mines operated on the premises of the defendant for the purpose of furnishing fuel to the hospital. The complaint charges in different counts several acts of negligence. The defendant filed demurrers, all of which were overruled by the court, except the first ground, which set up that the defendant was not liable in damages for the alleged negligence, because it is a state institution established exclusively for a public charitable purpose, viz., the care of the insane of the state, maintained and supported by direct appropriation of the state's moneys, having no stockholders, and not being organized, maintained, or operated for the pecuniary benefit of its board of trustees or any other persons. The court sustained this ground of demurrer. The plaintiff then amended his complaint, and to the amended complaint the defendant refiled the demurrers which it had filed to the original complaint. The action of the court upon these refiled demurrers was the same as it had been upon the originals, viz., the first demurrer was sustained and all the others overruled. The plaintiff declining to plead over, judgment was entered for the defendant.

Henry A. Jones and Robison Brown, for appellant.

Foster & Oliver and Ormond Somerville, for appellee.

TYSON J.

This action is brought under section 1749 of the Code of 1896 known as the "Employer's Liability Act," to recover damages for personal injuries. The complaint contains a number of counts. Objection was taken by demurrer to each of them on the ground that the defendant is a state institution established exclusively for a charitable purpose which was sustained by the trial court. Confessedly, if the defendant is a mere agency of the state in the administration of its governmental affairs, the action is substantially one against the state.

There is a clear distinction between that class of incorporated institutions belonging to and controlled by the state, and private incorporations, in the fact that the only property interest vested in the former belongs to the state. So, too there is a distinction between this class of incorporations and municipal corporations. Note on page 378 of 29 L. R. A. The power of the state to create a body corporate as its agent to carry on certain special kinds of work for its benefit or for the public interest cannot be doubted. And where this power is exercised, the institution thus established is in every sense a state institution, and belongs to the state, although managed and its affairs administered under the supervision of trustees of the body corporate created for that purpose. Who doubts the right of the state to create a corporation for the management of an insane hospital, or a deaf and dumb asylum, or an institution of learning? And where they are created, who has the property interest in these institutions? Clearly the state. In the exercise of its right of sovereignty it established them for public purposes; it donates the property or the funds to purchase it upon which they are built, and supplies the means by which they are maintained and operated. They have no capital stock, or shares held by individuals. Indeed, they have no membership or stockholders. They are not created for profit, but solely as public benefactors, the beneficiaries being the people who compose the state. Should the state through its legislative department, see fit to repeal the act of incorporation and provide some other or different agency or trustee to manage and control such an institution, where is the obstacle in its doing so? It would clearly violate no contractual obligation, or otherwise infringe upon the property rights of any person, for no individual has any personal pecuniary interest in the incorporation as such therefore no right to complain of its destruction. Not even the trustees appointed under the act incorporating the defendant would be pecuniarily affected by a repeal of its charter. No compensation is allowed them for the services they are to render, and they otherwise have no special pecuniary interest either in the continued existence of the corporate...