Thе appellee recovered a judgment against the appellant and its codefendant below, Mina Carollo, for damages in the sum of $9,615.00 alleged to have been sustained while a pay-patient in the City Hospital at Leland, Mississippi. Liability was predicated upon thе claimed negligence of Mina Carollo, while serving as a nurse and employee of thе appellant in said hospital, in failing to raise the bedrail attached to the bed occupied by the appellee, and thereby causing the appellee to fall оut of bed and break her hip. The appeal here is by the City of Leland only.
Among other assignments of error is appellant’s assignment that the trial court erred in not sustaining its motion at the close of the plaintiff’s evidence to exclude the evidence and direct a verdict fоr the City upon the ground that in operating the hospital the City was exercising a governmental funсtion and is, therefore, immune from liability for the negligent acts of its servants and employees. In view of our conclusion that *560 this motion, should have been sustained, we address ourselves to this assignmеnt only.
It is admitted in the pleadings and the proof that the City of Leland is a municipality, and, as such, owned and operated the hospital at the time the appellee sustained her injury. It is nоt charged in the declaration, and it is not contended, that the appellant was not оperating the hospital pursuant to lawful authority. We are, therefore, not concеrned with the question whether the appellant was operating the hospital pursuant to the provisions of Sections 7129-50, 7129-51, and 7129-52, Mississippi Code of 1942, as amended, or other statutory authority. Thаt question is not presented. The question before us is whether or not the operation of the hospital by the appellant as charged by the appellee is the exercisе of a private function or a public or governmental function.
The fact that the legislаture has seen fit to enact legislation authorizing municipalities to acquire and opеrate hospitals and levy a tax upon taxable property for the maintenance and support thereof is a .recognition of the public function to be performed by such municipality in the exercise of such authority.
Further, we think the question presented has been foreclosed by the prior decisions of this Court. In the case of City of Hattiesburg v. Geigor,
< < There are sоme duties the nature of which as governmental is too well settled to be disputed, such as the establishment and maintenance of schools, hospitals, poorhouses, fire departmеnts, police departments, jails, workhouses, and police stations, and the like. In fact, duties connected with the preservation of the peace or health, or the prevention of the destruction of property by fire .are all governmental duties, without question, *561 аnd hence there is no municipal liability for torts in connection therewith, or at least not unless under peculiar circumstances.”
In the case of Bradley v. City of Jackson,
Again in the case of Jones v. City of Amory,
Ibis true, аs argued by the appellee, that none of the above cases involved a hospital, but the pronouncement of the Court in each of said cases is clear and unmistakable to the effect that the operation of a hospital by a municipality is a govеrnmental and not a private function. Hospitals are an aid to the protection of the public health and the preservation of the public health is one of the prime considerations of government. In 39 C.J.S., Health, Sec. 2, it is said: “It is a well recognized principle that thе protection of the public health is one of the first duties of government.”
It follows from what has been said that the judgment of the court below must be, and it is, reversed and judgment rendered here for the appellant.
Reversed and judgment here for appellant.