Whittaker v. St. Luke's Hospital

• Decision Date: 29 December 1908
• Citation: 117 S.W. 1189,137 Mo. App. 116
• Parties: WHITTAKER v. ST. LUKE'S HOSPITAL.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

117 S.W. 1189

137 Mo. App. 116

WHITTAKER v. ST. LUKE'S HOSPITAL.

St. Louis Court of Appeals. Missouri.

December 29, 1908.

Rehearing Denied April 20, 1909.

CHARITIES (§ 45)—LIABILITY FOR TORTS—INJURY TO EMPLOYÉ.

A charitable institution, whether public or private, is not liable for its torts, though the person injured is its employé.

Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court; Geo. H. Shields, Judge.

Action by Annie Whittaker against St. Luke's Hospital. Judgment for defendant. Plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

W. H. & Davis Briggs, for appellant. F. J. McMaster, for respondent.

GOODE, J.

This action was instituted against the respondent, a hospital in the city of St. Louis, to recover damages for an injury suffered by appellant, while an employé in the institution, in working with an ironing machine or mangle, which was operated by steam power. It is alleged the machine was out of order, in that a guard, designed to prevent the operator of the machine from getting a hand caught between two revolving cylinders, was not in its proper place, and did not protect the operator, and, further, because the lever designed to stop the machine when in motion was out of repair and would not work. It is alleged, further, these conditions were known to respondent, or could have been known to it by the exercise of reasonable care, and in consequence of them appellant, while working with the machine, got her hand caught between the two cylinders and badly injured. We need not state the facts more fully. The appeal comes here from an order overruling a motion filed by appellant to strike out portions of the answer which, in effect, set up the defense that respondent is a charity, and not answerable in damages for injuries caused by the negligence of its trustees or servants. Appellant's brief says: "The sole question on this appeal is whether a charitable institution is liable for its torts to an injured employé." This concession relieves us of the duty to inquire whether or not respondent is a charity, though we apprehend there would be no difficulty in holding it is on the facts stated in the answer. After reading numerous decisions on the question thus propounded by appellant, we conclude that, according to the weight of authority, respondent ought not to be held liable. The question is one on which the courts have been fertile in drawing subtle distinctions, many of them irrelevant to the point for decision, or, at least, leading to no principle by which the diverse conclusions reached can be reconciled.

It is conceded by appellant's counsel that, if she had been hurt while receiving the benefit of the charity as a patient in the institution, respondent would not be liable; but, as she was a servant, it is asserted a different rule should obtain, and the corporation should be made to respond for the negligence of its officers or servants in permitting the machine with which she worked to be out of repair. A precedent for this contention is Bruce v. Church, 147 Mich. 246, 110 N. W. 951, 10 L. R. A. (N. S.) 74, a case weakened as authority by the difference of opinion among the judges regarding the ground of liability, and not easy to reconcile with prior decisions of the same court. The adjudications of the question have been exhaustively reviewed in most of the opinions dealing with it, and it would serve no useful purpose for us to go over them again. They will be cited, however, for the convenience of the reader. In some instances charitable institutions have been exonerated from liability for the negligence of their officers, trustees, and servants because they were agencies of the government, and in other instances because their funds were donated for use, in ways of charity, by individuals, and to take them to pay damages would be a diversion of the trust. Of the former class of cases we cite Williamson v. Industrial School, 95 Ky. 251, 24 S. W. 1065, 23 L. R. A. 200, 44 Am. St. Rep. 243; Benton v. Hospital, 140 Mass. 13, 1 N. E. 836, 54 Am. Rep. 436; Murtaugh v. St Louis, 44 Mo. 479; Maia v. Eastern State Hospital, 97 Va. 507, 34 S. E. 617, 47 L. R. A. 577; Fire Ins. Patrol v. Boyd, 120 Pa. 624, 15 Atl. 553, 1 L. R. A. 417, 6 Am. St. Rep. 745. It will be seen, on reading the opinions in cases where the defendants were instrumentalities of the government, that the principle on which they were held not liable was, at bottom, much the same as the principle on which private charitable institutions, in some of...