Rumsey v. Salt Lake City
Rumsey v. Salt Lake City
Opinion of the Court
Respondent Elbert B. Rumsey brought this action against the appellant Salt Lake City for personal injuries sustained in a swimming pool operated by the City. This appeal is from a jury verdict and judgment thereon in favor of Elbert B. Rumsey.
Appellant seeks reversal of the judgment on three grounds: (1) The failure of respondent Rumsey to plead and prove that the Wasatch Springs Plunge, the swimming pool in which the accident occurred, was operated by the appellant City in a proprietary capacity. (2) That respondent did not prove that the defective condition of the diving board from which respondent was attempting to dive when the accident occurred was the proximate cause of said accident. (3) The court committed prejudicial error in allowing the taking of additional evidence after the verdict of the jury was rendered. This evidence pertained to the issue of whether the Wasatch Springs Plunge was operated in a proprietary or governmental capacity.
Respondent Rumsey alleged in his complaint that he paid an admission fee to swim in the Wasatch Springs Plunge which
A pre-trial hearing was held and in the pre-trial order among the exceptions which were not left for determination at the trial of pleaded issues there appears the following: “1. The parties agree that the plaintiff at the time of his claimed injuries was a business invitee.”
At the close of the trial the City moved for a directed verdict which was denied. After the jury returned a verdict in favor of respondent, the City moved for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict on the same grounds it had moved for a directed verdict, that is, that the evidence was insufficient to sustain a verdict and because the plaintiff had failed to plead and prove that the Wasatch Springs Plunge was operated by the City in a proprietary rather than a governmental capacity. In reply, the respondent then moved the court to-clarify or amend the judgment or grant a new trial on the question of governmental immunity. This motion was supported by the affidavit of respondent’s counsel that the question of sovereign immunity was discussed at the pre-trial conference, and in view of the holdings of this court in two other cases involving the same operation of the Wasatch Springs Plunge by the City, the City admitted that the operation was in a proprietary capacity and therefore sovereign immunity was not an issue in the case.
The court denied the City’s motion but granted respondent’s motion. The case was reopened for the purpose of submitting testimony on the issue of sovereign immunity only. Testimony was elicited from Mr. Rumsey, respondent herein. The City’s commissioner of parks, and the manager of the Wasatch Springs Plunge also testified. The uncontradicted testimony of the witnesses revealed that although the City operated other swimming pools in connection with its parks for which no charge was made for admission, the Wasatch Springs
It is the City’s contention that respondent failed to state a good cause of action because he failed to allege sufficient facts charging it with acting in a proprietary capacity, citing Wade v. Salt Lake City
Respondent Rumsey’s complaint alleged that the City operated Wasatch Springs Plunge, and that he paid an admission fee for entrance. However, whether those allegations were sufficient to state a cause of action against the City or whether it is necessary to allege more facts as to the competitive nature of the operation so that it can be determined from the complaint rather than from evidence produced at trial whether the operation is governmental or proprietary, need not be decided here. As shown above, a pre-trial conference was held in this case. In the
In view of our conclusion that the issue of governmental immunity was disposed of in the pre-trial conference in favor of the respondent herein, whether the court erred in reopening the case to allow evidence pertaining to the manner in which the City operated the Wasatch Springs Plunge is of no concern here. The proceedings could only be surplusage and could not have been prejudicial to any rights of the appellant under the facts disclosed in the record.
Appellant City contends that the evidence was insufficient to sustain the verdict because there was no evidence from which it could be found that the exposed end of the diving board was the proximate cause of respondent’s injuries. We cannot agree.
There was evidence from which the jury could reasonably have found that an employee of the City had noticed at least two months before respondent’s accident that the safety-walk material on the aluminum diving board had worn off and exposed the end to the metal and had made a note calling it to the attention of the manager that such condition could be potentially hazardous. However, no repairs were made until after the accident. The safety-walk material was of a rough texture designed to prevent slipping. Although respondent
Affirmed. Costs to respondent.
. Griffin v. Salt Lake City, 111 Utah 94, 176 P.2d 156; Burton v. Salt Lake City, 69 Utah 186, 253 P. 443, 51 A.L.R. 364.
. Wade v. Salt Lake City, 10 Utah 2d 374, 353 P.2d 914.
. Footnote 1 above; cf. also Ramirez v. Ogden City, 3 Utah 2d 102, 279 P.2d 463, 47 A.L.R.2d 539, in which the facts are distinguishable.
. Rule 16, U.R.C.P.
. State By and Through Road Commission v. Peterson, 12 Utah 2d 317, 366 P.2d 76; Hales v. Peterson, 11 Utah 2d 411, 360 P.2d 822.
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.
The plaintiff demanded and got a jury trial to determine the fact issues, one of the most important of which was whether the City was acting in a proprietary capacity. Rumsey neither pleaded nor proved this fact, which we have said was necessary.
It is no answer to assert that in two previous swimming pool cases we have affirmed the City’s role as proprietor, since each case must stand or fall on its own facts, and no end of stare decisis can establish that a city can’t operate a swimming pool other than in a proprietary capacity.
Nor is it an answer to say that the issue of immunity conclusively was resolved against the City by a pre-trial stipulation that Rumsey was a “business invitee,” — implying that such conclusion of necessity put the City in competition with privately operated pools. Two good reasons refute such conclusion:
1) A person, for example, may be a business invitee when he goes to the city treasurer to pay the tax on the business he operates, but such a circumstance could not ipso facto make the city a businessman under any of the rules incident to a game of musical chairs. The whole thing is a matter of fact, — that’s all, — and Rumsey failed to allege or prove the conditionally precedential required to construct his claim of tortious compensability.
2) Assuming arguendo, that the officials of the city attempted to stipulate away the latter’s immunity, it couldn’t be done, since a government official cannot sell the city’s immunity down the river with impunity.
As to the second trial, the main opinion says it was surplusage because the governmental immunity matter was resolved by stipulation at pretrial. The latter fallacious conclusion followed the equally fallacious
It seems inconceivable to this writer that under the rules, a litigant who gets a jury verdict which is valueless because of failure to plead and prove the factual gist of his cause, could simply ask that another trial be had before a different arbiter of the facts, at a later date, to prove a case he failed to prove before. If my conclusion is correct, and such second trial is abortive, it is inescapable to conclude other than that the burden of a plaintiff to prove proprietary capacity of a city cannot be eliminated in his case in chief, by assuming that counsel on the other side, merely agreeing at pretrial that the plaintiff was a “business invitee,” can thus waive the city’s claim of sovereign immunity and thus give the plaintiff another trial on an essential provable issue.
In my opinion this case should be reversed for lack of pleading and proof at the only legitimate trial that was had.
. Wade v. Salt Lake City, 10 Utah 2d 374, 353 P.2d 914 (1960).
. Tooele v. Elkington, 100 Utah 485, 116 P.2d 406 (1941).
. Ramirez v. Ogden, cited in the main opinion, is different as to facts but not •with respect to charging an admission is concerned. See also Jopes v. Salt Lake County, 9 Utah 2d 297, 343 P.2d 728 (1959).
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Elbert B. RUMSEY, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. SALT LAKE CITY, a Municipal Corporation of the State of Utah, Defendant and Appellant
- Cited By
- 5 cases
- Status
- Published