Page:Parish v. Pitts, 244 Ark. 1239 (1968).pdf/10

1248 Thus neither the judicial nor the legislative processes have been brought to bear on the problem.

The supposed threat to the cities' operations posed by financial responsibility for its torts has ever been a major factor, though not always expressly set forth, upholding the immunity rule. This fear is found in the report of the decision in Men of Devon, supra, wherein it was expressed as "inconvenience to the entire populus", and in Arkansas Valley Cooperative Rural Electric Company, supra, holding later that all funds were subject to a trust for the benefit of the members and to divert them to the satisfaction of tort judgments would be a violation of that trust. However, it is the conclusion of those studies that the fear of curtailment of essential public services or the imposition of tremendous financial burdens on the public, is not founded on fact. In the private sector tort liability is a small item in the budget of any well run enterprise and should prove to be proportionately no greater for the municipality, since it will have available to it the same defenses and means of spreading the risk. 9 Law and Contemporary Problems (1942); Warp, Tort Liability Problems of Small Municipalities, 363; David, Public Tort Liability Administration; Basic Conflicts and Problems, 335; David, Tort Liability of Local Governments: Alternatives to Immunity From Liability, 6 U.C.L.A.L. Rev. 1 (1959); Green, Freedom of Litigation, 38 Ill. L. R. 355. At page 367 of this last work this judicial fear is contrasted with experience; in Wilcox v. Chicago, 107 Ill. 334, 340 (1833), it was said that to subject cities to liability for the operation of a fire department " would most certainly subject property holders to as great, if not greater burdens than are suffered from the damages from fire." Yet, the Illinois Legislature in 1931 imposed liability on the cities for injuries to person and property caused by the negligence of the employees of the fire department. It was thirteen years before a ease appeared in the Illinois Reports in which damages had been assessed against a city under this statute.