Opinion
No. 20,293.
Decided July 29, 1963.
Action by minor against school district for injuries allegedly resulting from negligence. Judgment for defendant.
Affirmed.
1. SCHOOLS AND SCHOOL DISTRICTS — Negligence — Liability — Immunity — Stare Decisis. A school district being a subdivision of the state of Colorado is immune from liability for negligence under settled pronouncements of the Supreme Court which it declines to overrule, it not being within the province of the judicial branch of the government to change long established principles of law, such being the function of the legislature.
Error to the District Court of Boulder County, Hon. William E. Buck, Judge.
Messrs. WILLIAMS ZOOK, Mr. ROGER E. STEVENS, Mr. JOHN G. TAUSSIG, JR., for plaintiff in error.
Messrs. HUTCHINSON HUTCHINSON, for defendant in error.
THIS action by a minor, Gerald P. Tesone, through his father and next friend and by the father individually, against School District No. Re-2 in the County of Boulder, seeks to recover damages in tort for injuries alleged to have been sustained by Gerald while practicing basketball in the Louisville High School in Louisville, Colorado.
The trial court dismissed the complaint, ruling that defendant School District as a subdivision of the State of Colorado is immune from liability under what the court found to be the settled pronouncements of this court. Plaintiff in error admits that the holding in City and County of Denver v. Madison, 142 Colo. 1, 351 P.2d 826, and the later case of Liber v. Flor, 143 Colo. 205, 353 P.2d 590, precluded the trial court from ruling otherwise, that such holding constitutes up to the present day the law in Colorado. It is argued that these cases be overruled.
This we decline to do under the pronouncement in the Madison case, supra, wherein we said, "It is not within the province of the judicial branch of the government thus to change long established principles of law. This is the function of the legislature * * *"
The judgment is affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE MOORE specially concurs.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FRANTZ, MR. JUSTICE HALL and MR. JUSTICE PRINGLE dissent.