Page:Parish v. Pitts, 244 Ark. 1239 (1968).pdf/7

Rh Ark. 694, 182 S. W. 2d 683 (1944), are governmental functions. No case of liability for personal injury by a municipality is found in the Arkansas reports. In Arkansas, the immunity of the municipality in the tort field is, in practice, complete at present.

The only mitigation of the rule of governmental immunity in Arkansas has come in the past by legislative action. In 1940 this Court determined that a rural electrical cooperative should be immune from tort liability. Arkansas Valley Cooperative Rural Electric Company v. Elkins, 200 Ark. 883, 141 S. W. 2d 538 (1940). The reasons given were those applied to the governmental activities of a municipal corporation: the cooperative was not organized for profit, but only for the benefit of its members; it has no fund provided by statute out of which to pay judgments; rather, its funds were said to be held in trust, available only for its corporate purposes. Six years later the Legislature reversed that decision of the Court by providing that such organizations should be liable for torts resulting from the negligent acts of its agents, servants and employees. Act 362 of 1947; Ark. Stat. Ann. § 64-1525 (Repl. 1966).

This same General Assembly, by Act 46 of 1947, authorized municipalities and other entities enjoying the rule of immunity to purchase liability insurance covering their tort damages. The sovereign State of Arkansas itself has submitted to a forum in which its tort liability is determined and compensation paid to the injured parties. See Ark. Stat. Ann. § 13-1401 ff. (Repl. 1956), establishing and providing a mode of proceeding before the State Claims Commission. State employees have rights similar to those given private employees by the Workmen's Compensation laws of this State. Ark. Stat. Ann. § 13-1407 ff. (Repl. 1960). Thus we see that the basic injustice of the rule of tort immunity where it has come to the attention of the Legislature has met with dissatisfaction and been curtailed in part. This same "abhorrence of wrong suffered without a forum