70 Mo. App. 60 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1897
The defendant, a city of the second class, under the authority conferred by subdivision 14, of section 1255, owned and operated a steam plant for the purpose of providing electricity for the lighting of its streets, parks, public buildings, etc. The plaintiff, a fireman at said plant in the employment of the defendant, while in the performance of the duties of his employment was seriously hurt by slipping and falling
The principal error assigned and relied on by the defendant for a reversal of the judgment is the action of the trial court in disallowing its demurrer to the evidence.
In Donahew v. Kansas City it is said: “There are ordinarily many preliminary questions to be settled before the details of any public work can be arranged-. These are questions which call into force the governmental powers of the corporation. They concern ordinarily the expediency of doing the proposed work, and the general manner in which it shall be done. And upon these and similar questions municipal corpora
In Ulrich v. St. Louis, supra, loc. cit. 148, quoting from 1 Shearman & Redfield on Negligence, section 253, it was said: “To the extent * * * local or special organizations possess and exercise governmental powers, they are, as it were, departments of state; as such, in the absence of any statute to the contrary, they have the privilege and immunity of the state; they partake of the state’s prerogative of sovereignty in that they are exempt from private prosecution for the consequences of their exercising or neglecting to exercise the governmental powers they possess. To the extent that they exercise such powers their duties are regarded as due to the public, not to individuals; their officers are not agents of the corporation, but of the ‘greater public,’ the state. No relation of agency existing between the corporation and its officers with respect to the discharge of these public governmental duties, the corporation is not responsible for the acts or omissions of its officers therein. This is ho more than an application and proper extension of the rule that the state is not liable for the misfeasance of its officers.” “In this case,” further says the court, “the city was simply in the exercise of its public governmental function delegated to it by the state, from the time the first arrest was made until the injury occurred, in enforcing its ordinance enacted to preserve the peace, safety and good order of society, and is no more liable for the negligence of its officers in this respect than the state would be liable for the negligence of its highest officers in the performance of the same class of duties.”
The authorities from which we have quoted and others to which we have referred illustrate and make plain the distinction between those powers of a municipal corporation which are public governmental functions delegated to it by the state and conferred upon it exclusively for the public good, such, for instance, as that to maintain a city workhouse or hospital, or that to abate, prevent and remove nuisances, or that to establish a fire department and to pass ordinances to extinguish fires, or those relating to the public peace and good order, or the suppression of vice and immor
It is plain that the power conferred by the statute upon defendant to provide for lighting its streets, parks, public buildings, etc., belongs to the latter class of powers. The electric plant in question was erected and is maintained for the defendant’s private advantage, and for that reason it occupied no different legal relation to those employed by it in carrying on said plant than if it had been a private corporation or individual. The general public of the state at large has no interest in the plant any more than it has in a system of waterworks owned by a city and by which it furnishes water to its citizens. The defendant, as the owner and operator of its electric light plant, is entitled to all the rights and subject to all the liabilities that would attach at
The defendant contends that the said instruction is defective in omitting therefrom the element that after the city had knowledge of the defective condition of the walk and wall that it was entitled to a reasonable length of time thereafter to make repairs. This rule, while applicable in some cases (Barr v. Kansas City, 105 Mo. loc. cit. 557), is inapplicable to a ease like this where the relation of master and servant exists. It is not necessary in order to entitle a servant to recover for in
The evidence tended to show that the plaintiff had been in the employ of the defendant for only about ten days previous to the time the injury happened and that until then he had never been on top of the boilers and knew nothing of the condition of the wall on which it was necessary for him to walk and from which he fell. The wall had been in the condition it then was for some time, and as to whether the defendant knew of its defective condition or could have known it by the exercise of reasonable care were issues of fact which were fairly left to the jury by the plaintiff’s instruction.
The other errors assigned have been examined and found without merit. It results that the judgment must be affirmed.