concluding that city-sponsored ambulance program was governmental, notwithstanding the fact that a fee was charged, where the program “was one which the government took upon itself to meet the urgent needs of the general public”
How later courts described this case
- concluding that city-sponsored ambulance program was governmental, notwithstanding the fact that a fee was charged, where the program “was one which the government took upon itself to meet the urgent needs of the general public”
- noting that ambulance program was “a task undertaken not for the convenience of a few . . .”
- action arose from accident in which passengers were injured while riding in municipal ambulance
- ambulance service is a necessary function imposed by "basic mandate to protect ... [citizens’] health, safety, and welfare” and is not for convenience of a few or for profit but to meet urgent public need
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
ON PETITION TO REHEAR
The plaintiffs, who were the defendants in error in the Court of Appeals, have filed an earnest petition to rehear by which they insist that we erred in our failure to grant their motion to strike the petition for certiorari. The motion is in the following language:
“Come now the Respondents and respectfully move the Court to dismiss the Petition for Certiorari filed herein because the Petition does not comply with the Statutory requirements in that the Petitioners make no complaint with respect to the action of the Court of Appeals. Each of the three Assignments as well as the conclusion, complains only of the action of the Trial Court.”
The assignments of error included in the petition for certiorari are in the same language as those presented to the Court of Appeals. By each of the assignments the plaintiffs in error complain of an act of the trial court. In their petition for certio-rari, however, they said:
“Petitioners, City of Memphis and Robert R. Roberts, feeling aggrieved by the action of the Court of Appeals of Tennessee, in the respects hereinafter shown, respectfully show to the Court
The petition also contains this language:
“On appeal the Court of Appeals overruled all of the petitioner’s assignments of error and affirmed the judgments for the respondents.”
When we consider the language of the petition for certiorari that we have *275 quoted above, along with the assignments filed in the Court of Appeals, and the prayer of the petition “that this Court will enter a judgment reversing the judgment of the Court of Appeals and of the Circuit Court”, we find no difficulty in concluding that the petitioners were insisting that the judgment of the Court of Appeals be reversed on the same grounds they had relied on in the Court of Appeals. By their petition they were assigning as error the action of the Court of Appeals in overruling those assignments and in affirming the judgment of the trial court.
In Case v. Carney, 213 Tenn. 597 , 376 S.W.2d 492 [1964], the Court in an opinion by Mr. Justice Holmes, said:
“The appellee has filed in this Court a ‘Motion to Dismiss Assignments of Error’ upon the ground they do not meet the requirements of Rule 14 of this Court in that the assignments fail to show ‘specifically wherein the action complained of is erroneous, and how it prejudiced rights of the appellant’ and failed to make ‘reference to the pages of the record where the ruling of the court on matters constituting errors of law appears.’ Rule 14(2), 209 Tenn. 793 , 794.
“The Assignments of Errors, Brief and Argument of appellant substantially comply with Rule 14. Furthermore, as pointed out by the present Chief Justice, in speaking for the Court, in Norton v. Standard Coosa-Thatcher Co., 203 Tenn. 649, 658 , 315 S.W.2d 245 , 249:
“ ‘When it appears to the Court that no harm can be done to the one who makes the motion to enforce the Rule and that an injustice would be done by enforcing the Rule, then the Court should use grace and discretion in the administering of the rule.’ ”
The petition for certiorari substantially complied with Rule 14. We overrule the petition to rehear.