retaining governmental immunity for injuries arising from "the performance of functions calling for the highest degrees of discretion and judgment."
How later courts described this case
- retaining governmental immunity for injuries arising from "the performance of functions calling for the highest degrees of discretion and judgment."
- District liable for negligent maintenance of schoolyard fence directly injuring child
- no bar to suit for injuries suffered by pupil as a result of failure by District to repair broken guardrails at public school playground; ministerial act involved
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by James R. Spencer v. General Hospital of the District of Columbia, 425 F.2d 479 (1969)
In support of the judgment appealed from, appellee insists that Elgin v. District of Columbia, 119 U.S.App.D.C. 116, 337 F.2d 152 (1964), is inapposite because it involved improper maintenance of a public school playground, whereas the complaint in this case relates to the provision of medical services in a public hospital.
The opinion
BAZELON, Chief Judge,
concurring:
I join in reversing dismissal of the complaint. In emphasizing the factor of discretion as decisive, the court’s opinion takes a useful step toward modernizing the archaic doctrine of sovereign immunity. In retaining a rigid classification of cases, however, it harbors seeds of the same arbitrariness which presently characterizes that doctrine. In other areas of tort law, the elaborate categorizations of the common law have gradually been replaced by a single rule — that the existence and extent of the defendant’s duty to the plaintiff is to be determined in the context of all the circumstances of the action of which the plaintiff complains. 1 I would decide cases against the sovereign in a like manner, treating the degree of discretion available to Government officials in performance of their office and the public interest in protecting the exercise of that discretion as among the “circumstances of the action” to be considered. 2
. Cf. Daisey v. Colonial Parking, 118 U.S.App.D.C. —, 331 F.2d 777 (1963), and cases cited therein.
. Cf. Muskopf v. Corning Hospital District, 55 Cal.2d 211 , 11 Cal.Rptr. 89 , 359 P.2d 457 (Traynor, J., Cal.Sup.Ct., 1961); Lipman v. Brisbane Elementary School District, 55 Cal.2d 224 , 11 Cal.Rptr. 97 , 359 P.2d 465 (Gibson, C. J., Cal.Sup.Ct.1961). While the suggestion in Lipman corresponding to that made here — that discretion is only one of several factors to be considered (55 Cal.2d at 229, 11 Cal.Rptr. at 99, 359 P.2d at 467) — has since been rejected by the California legislature, Cal.Gov't Code, §§ 815.2, 820.2, the legislature has substituted a solution which reflects its own balancing of the many relevant factors in varying contexts. Cal.Gov’t Code, § 810 et seq.; Cal. Law Revision Comm’n, Recommendation Relating to Sovereign Immunity 807-34 (1963); Cal. Law Revision Comm’n, A Study Relating to Sovereign Immunity 246-83 (1963). See also, Jaffe, Suits Against Governments and Officers: Damage Actions, 77 Harv.L.Rev. 209 (1963); Note, 46 Minn.L.Rev. 1143 (1962); Note, 49 Cal.L.Rev. 400 (1961).