People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 November 1895 — No Damages From Counties.. [ARTICLE]

No Damages From Counties..

Last Monday the supreme court of Indiana handed down a very important decision affecting an important case from this county, and reversing the holdings of that tribunal for fifteen years.

■‘ln the case of the board of commissioners of Jasper county against James A. Allman, Allman brought suit against the county to recover damages for the death of his intestate, caused, it was alleged, by the defective approach to a bridge over a water course. He obtayied a judgment in the lower court for $6,000, which the supreme court set aside. The opinion, is by Judge Monks, who holds that “there is no liability by counties for injuries caused by the negligence of its officers in constructing or in repairing or failing to repair bridges over water courses, for the reason that there is no statute covering such liability.” The court says there is no provision in the statute which confers a right of action against the county for the negligent acts of the county or its board of commissioners in the management of the affairs of the county. “No authority,” the court says, “has ever been given the board of county commissioners to appropriate the county funds to pay damages in such cases, nor to levy and collect taxes for any such purposes.” The court says the enforcement of the penal statute and the creation of personal liability, if it does not now exist, for injuries caused by neglect of official duty, would probably be more convincing to the officers than taking the public funds to pay such damages.

The court announces that it bases its action on the broad ground that counties being sub divisions _of the state, are instrumentalities of government and exercise authority given by the state and are no more liable for the acts or omissions of their state officers than the state.” Simon Thompson and R. W. Marshal were the opposing attorneys in the above case, the former for the appellant and the later for the appellee. It is a gratifying decision for Mr. Thompson.