Woods v. Colfax Cnty.

• Citation: 10 Neb. 552,7 N.W. 269
• Parties: WOODS v. COLFAX COUNTY.
• Decision Date: 10 November 1880
• Court: Supreme Court of Nebraska

10 Neb. 552

7 N.W. 269

WOODS

v.COLFAX COUNTY.

Supreme Court of Nebraska.

Filed November 10, 1880.

Error from the district court of Colfax county.

Hoxsie, Russell & Chambers, for plaintiff.

C. J. Phelps, for defendant.

MAXWELL, C. J.

In the year 1876 the plaintiff was injured by the breaking down of a public bridge in Colfax county, and brought an action in the district court of that county to recover damages therefor. The defendant demurred to the petition on the ground that the facts stated therein were not sufficient to constitute a cause of action. The demurrer was sustained and the cause dismissed. The plaintiff brings the cause into this court by petition in error. The question presented is whether the county is liable for the neglect of the county commissioners in failing to keep a public bridge in safe condition. If the negligence complained of in the petition and consequent injury to the plaintiff had been occasioned by a natural person or a municipal corporation proper, the right to recover would be unquestioned. But are counties municipal corporations? Municipal corporations may be defined to be bodies politic and corporate created by law for the purpose, primarily, of regulating and administering the local and internal affairs of towns, cities, and villages. Dillon, Mun. Corp. § 9. Such corporations are created principally for the benefit and convenience of the inhabitants composing the corporation, although they are important auxiliaries of the state in the administration of the law. The charters conferring powers, prescribing duties, and imposing burdens must in some way receive the assent of those to be governed by their provisions, and they thus accept the benefits and agree to perform the duties inposed upon them. These corporations have existed from the earliest period of the Roman republic. 2 Kent's Com. 268. But a county is not, in the proper sense of the word, a municipal corporation.

In Riddle v. The Proprietors of the Locks and Canals, 7 Mass. 169, Chief Justice Parsons says: “We distinguish between proper aggregate corporations and the inhabitants of any district who are by statute invested with particular powers without their consent. These are in the books sometimes called quasi corporations. Of this description are counties and hundreds in England, and counties, towns, etc., in this state. Although quasi corporations are liable to information or indictment for a neglect of public duty imposed on them by law, yet it is settled in the case of Russell v. Inhabitants of the County of Devon that no private action can be maintained against them for a breach of their corporate duty unless such action be given by the statute.” To the...