Opinion
No. 36358
Decided June 1, 1960.
Negligence — Charitable institutions — Liability — Operation of business enterprise for profit — Not directly related to charitable purpose.
1. Immunity from civil liability for negligence accorded to charitable institutions, including religious organizations, depends upon the actual devotion of the institution to charitable purposes, and a charitable institution is liable for negligence in the operation of a business enterprise for profit not directly related to the purposes for which such institution was organized.
2. A church in conducting a game of chance on its premises for a substantial profit is engaged in a business enterprise and is amenable to a tort action by a patron of the game who sustained personal injuries by a fall when a defective chair, supplied by the church in connection with the game, collapsed.
CERTIFIED by the Court of Appeals for Hamilton County.
The pending cause, being a tort action to recover damages for personal injuries, originated in the Court of Common Pleas of Hamilton County, with Elizabeth Blankenship as plaintiff and the Most Reverend Karl J. Alter, Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, trustee for St. Joseph's Church in Cincinnati, as defendant.
Plaintiff alleges in her amended petition, and evidence presented at the trial of the action shows, that on the evening of August 2, 1952, plaintiff paid an admission charge of $1 to engage in a game of chance known as "bingo" in hopes of receiving some of the prize money awarded winners; that such game, open to the public, was operated by St. Joseph's Church on the church premises for money-raising purposes; and that, as plaintiff sat down in a metal chair supplied by the church and located next to a table, the chair, being defective, collapsed and she was precipitated to the concrete floor whereby she sustained serious and permanent injuries to her spine.
Plaintiff was not a member of St. Joseph's Church and came there on the date mentioned solely for the purpose of playing bingo, which game was regularly conducted at intervals on the church premises. Patently, she was not a recipient of any charity dispensed by the church. It is conceded that Archibishop Alter, in his official capacity, is the trustee of the church and its property.
The cause was tried to the court and a jury and resulted in a verdict and judgment for plaintiff.
On an appeal on questions of law to the Court of Appeals, that court affirmed the judgment, and the judges thereof finding such judgment of affirmance in conflict with a judgment rendered by the Court of Appeals of the Eighth Appellate District in the case of Tomasello v. St. Cecilia's Church, numbered 24673 on the docket of that court, certified the record to this court for review and determination.
Messrs. Hopkins Hopkins and Mr. Gurdon Wilson, for appellee.
Messrs. McIntosh McIntosh, for appellant.
It might be that this case could be decided on the basis that plaintiff was a stranger to any religious or charitable ministrations of St. Joseph's Church and hence was not precluded from maintaining and succeeding in her action. Cullen v. Schmit, 139 Ohio St. 194, 39 N.E.2d 146; annotation, 25 A.L.R. (2d), 181. However, we prefer to place our decision on a somewhat broader ground.
Immunity from civil liability for negligence accorded to charitable institutions, including religious organizations, depends upon the actual devotion of the institution to charitable purposes, and a charitable institution is liable for negligence in the operation of a business enterprise for profit not directly related to the purpose for which such institution was organized. Rhodes v. Millsaps College, 179 Miss. 596, 176 So. 253; Blatt v. Geo. H. Nettleton Home for Aged Women, 365 Mo., 30, 275 S.W.2d 344; Siidekum v. Animal Rescue League of Pittsburgh, 353 Pa. 408, 417, 45 A.2d 59, 63; Tri-State Fair v. Rowton, 140 Tenn. 304, 308, 204 S.W. 761, 762, L.R.A. 1918F, 657; 14 Corpus Juris Secundum, 550, Charities, Section 75. Compare Newman, a Minor, v. Cleveland Museum of National History, 143 Ohio St. 369, 55 N.E.2d 575.
In carrying on the game of bingo for a substantial profit (there was an average of from about 1,000 to 1,500 players at each game session), St. Joseph's Church engaged in a business enterprise disassociated from the purpose for which it was organized. By conducting a business enterprise of the kind described, the church removed itself from the protection it might have claimed as a religious and charitable institution. In other words, by conducting the game of bingo as a large scale moneymaking proposition, the church stepped out of its ordinary and accepted sphere and thereby lost the immunity from tort liability it might have asserted in different circumstances.
It was indicated in the case of McKay v. Morgan Memorial Co-operative Industries Stores, Inc., 272 Mass. 121, 172 N.E. 68, that a charitable institution may be answerable for negligence arising out of its commercial activities conducted for profit, notwithstanding the proceeds of such activities are devoted wholly to charitable purposes. See, also, Rhodes v. Millsaps College, supra ( 179 Miss. 596); and annotation, 25 A.L.R. (2d), 130. Compare Cullen v. Schmit, supra ( 139 Ohio St. 194), wherein recovery was denied plaintiff there for injuries sustained in a fall on the stairs of a church because she was a beneficiary of the church's religious services and "the sale of religious articles in the basement of the church * * * [where plaintiff was going when she fell] was not a commercial enterprise but was held following and in connection with the religious service of the church."
We find no errors in the record prejudicial to the defendant, and the decision rendered by this court in the case of Gibbon, Admr., v. Young Women's Christian Assn. of Hamilton, 170 Ohio St. 280, 164 N.E.2d 563, is not controlling in the instant controversy.
Therefore, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.
WEYGANDT, C.J., TAFT, MATTHIAS, BELL, HERBERT and PECK, JJ., concur.