Page:Parish v. Pitts, 244 Ark. 1239 (1968).pdf/12

1250 shown that the cities can bear the financial burden of their own torts, neither is it demonstrated that they are unable to do so. An exemption of this magnitude to the usual rule of law leading to a just result in tort can no longer be continued because of speculative fears by the Court of financial disaster to cities. The injustice wrought by the immunity rule on the individual's rights is clear and certain; its justification must be no less so.

Beginning with Florida in the year 1957, ten American jurisdictions have reviewed and rejected the doctrine of governmental immunity for political subdivisions and entities, Hargrove v. Town of Cocoa Beach, Fla., 96 So. 2d 130 (1957); Molitof v. Kaneland Community Unit District, 18 Ill. 2d 11, 163 N. E. 2d 89 (1959); McAndrew v. Mularchuk, 33 N. J. 172, 162 Atl. 2d 820 (1960) (active wrong-doing only); Muskopf v. Corning Hospital District, 55 Cal. 2d 211, 359 Pac. 2d 457 (1961); Williams v. City of Detroit, 364 Mich. 231, 111 N. W. 2d 1 (1957); Holytz v. City of Milwaukee, 17 Wis. 2d 26, 115 N. W. 2d 618 (1962); Spaniel v. Mounds View School District, 264 Minn. 279, 118 N. W. 2d 795 (1962); Fairbanks v. Schiable, Alaska, 375 Pac. 2d 201 (1962) (interpreting statute permitting suit against local government unit and refused to apply "proprietary-governmental" test); Rice v. Clark County, 79 Nev. 253, 382 Pac. 2d 605 (1963); Haney v. City of Lexington, Ky. 386 S. W. 2d 738 (1964).

Of sovereignty as a reason for holding political subdivisions immune to suit, it is generally agreed in those decisions that cities and other such entities are not the state, and it is only to the state that the high attribute of sovereign immunity should properly be attributed. Generally governmental immunity is traced to the medieval concept that "the king can do no wrong", a notion which is entirely foreign to and at variance with the basic principles of government in America. Whether the rule of governmental immunity is traceable to the medieval concept that "the king can do no wrong" or