Williams v. Louisville Industrial School of Reform

• Decision Date: 27 January 1894
• Citation: 24 S.W. 1065,95 Ky. 251
• Parties: WILLIAMS v. LOUISVILLE INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL OF REFORM.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

24 S.W. 1065

95 Ky. 251

WILLIAMS v. LOUISVILLE INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL OF REFORM.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

January 27, 1894

Appeal from court of common pleas, Jefferson county.

"To be officially reported."

Action by Walter Williams, by one Thomas, his next friend, against the Louisville Industrial School of Reform, to recover damages for personal injuries caused by the cruel acts of defendant's servant. From a judgment sustaining a demurrer to and dismissing the petition, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Samuel B. Kirby and Geo. Weissinger Smith, for appellant.

T. L Burnett, for appellee.

HAZELRIGG J.

The appellee, the Louisville Industrial School of Reform, was created a body corporate by an act of the general assembly in 1854, under the name of the Louisville House of Refuge. Its object and business was to take charge of such youths as might be committed to it, and care for their moral and physical training and education. It was a charity, and its purpose was reformation by training its inmates to habits of industry, and by instilling into their minds the principles of right living, to the end that they might become useful citizens of the state, rather than fill its prisons and poor-houses. The incorporators and their successors are under the control and oversight of the legislature, and are mere instrumentalities of the commonwealth. The state interposed in behalf of neglected and abandoned children within its confines in its capacity of parens patriae, and assumed the guardianship of such children as were committed to the institution. It was an agency of the state, and maintained by taxation and state aid. The appellant, a boy of 10 years of age was committed to the care, control, and restraint of the institution, and his petition, brought by his next friend Thomas, alleges that without fault on his part one of the servants and employes of the appellee, and known by it to be incompetent and unfit for such service, struck and beat the appellant in such cruel and inhuman manner that he was caused great suffering in mind and body, and was permanently injured and damaged, etc. To this petition a general demurrer was sustained, and the petition dismissed. The correctness of this judgment is the question on this appeal, and, while it has not been determined directly, the general principles are well established. The functions of the institution are governmental. As said in Farnham v. Pierce, 141...