holding governmental agents responsible for enforcing statutory requirements when they possess actual knowledge of a statutory violation, fail to take corrective action despite a statutory duty to do so, and the plaintiff is within the class the statute intended to protect
How later courts described this case
- holding governmental agents responsible for enforcing statutory requirements when they possess actual knowledge of a statutory violation, fail to take corrective action despite a statutory duty to do so, and the plaintiff is within the class the statute intended to protect
- describing the “duty to all, duty to no-one” doctrine as a form of sovereign immunity
- allowing a broad definition of special class, including person killed after inspector failed to disconnect blatant electrical safety violation; safety ordinance was for the benefit of special class, persons residing within the ambit of the danger involved
- noting both explicit and implicit exceptions to the general rule that statutory duties are owed to the public as a whole
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Stafford, J.
(concurring specially in the dissent) — I concur with that portion of the dissent which questions the advisability of holding a city liable for inaction of its employees under the facts herein.
Under the attendant circumstances disconnection of the offending electrical system, without the required notice, would have amounted to a trespass by the city employees. How such can rise to the dignity of a duty to act, on the part of a city, is difficult to accept.