Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/501

465 RESPONSIBILITY OF THE STATE IN ENGLAND 465 The result is that, broadly speaking, the situation is hardly- distinct in its general outlines from that of Great Britain. In eight of the states there is actual constitutional provision against suit; and in sixteen more special privileges are erected as a tribute to its sovereign character.^^ It is, in short, the general rule that a state will not be hable for acts which, were they not, directly or indirectly, acts of the government, would render the doer re- sponsible before the courts.^"" The United States will abuse the patents of its citizens hardly less cheerfully than the British Ad- miralty.^"^ State duties, like prison maintenance^"^ and the repair of roads,^°^ may be done without reference to the neglect of pri- vate interests. The rule goes even further and protects a chari- table institution like an agricultural society from the accidents that happen in the best-regulated fairs.^""* If the state leases an armory for athletic purposes and has failed, through sheer negli- gence, to repair a defective raihng,^"^ it does not, to say the least, seem logical to refuse compensation, especially when damages may be obtained in a similar case from a municipal body.^°® But a sovereign is perhaps unamenable to the more obvious rules of logic. Nor has America made substantial departure from the British practice in regard to ministerial responsibility. Only one case against the head of an executive department seems to exist, and it was decided adversely to the plaintiff .^"^ Nor are purely minis- terial ofl&cials held responsible for actions following upon instruc- tions legal upon their face; ^°^ and that although the officer may be convinced that the instruction in fact breaks the law.^°^ The " Beard, Index of State Constitutions, 1360. 100 Murdock Parlor Grate Co. v. Commonwealth, 152 Mass. 28, 24 N. E. 854 (1890). "1 Belknap v. Schild, 161 U. S. 10 (1896). i<» Moody V. State Prison, 128 N. C. 12, 38 S. E. 131 (1901). '"^ Johnson v. State, i Court of Claims (111.), 208. lo* Berman v. State Agricultural Society of Minnesota, 93 Minn. 125, 100 N. W. 732 (1904). "' Riddoch v. State, 68 Wash. 329, 123 Pac. 450 (191 2). "• Little V. Holyoke, 177 Mass. 114, 58 N. E. 170 (1900). I owe my knowledge of this and the other state cases in America to the brilliant article of Mr. R. D. Maguire, 30 Harv. L. Rev., 20/. 1" Stokes V. Kendall, 3 How. (U. S.) 87 (1845). "8 Erskine v. Bohnbach, 14 Wall. (U. S.) 613 (1871). 109 w^aii J, Trumbull, 16 Mich. 228 (1867); Underwood v. Robinson, 106 Mass. 396 (1871).