Title: City of Lynchburg v. Brown

State: virginia

Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court

Document:

Present:  Hassell, C.J., Lacy, Keenan, Koontz, Lemons, and 
Agee, JJ., and Compton, S.J. 
 
CITY OF LYNCHBURG 
             OPINION BY 
 
 
 
SENIOR JUSTICE A. CHRISTIAN COMPTON 
v.  Record No. 042069  
           June 9, 2005 
 
JUDY BROWN 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF LYNCHBURG 
J. Leyburn Mosby, Jr., Judge 
 
 
Code § 15.2-1809 creates immunity from liability for 
ordinary negligence when a city is sued for personal injury 
damages resulting from the maintenance of any park or 
recreational facility.  The statute provides, however, that a 
city shall be liable for gross negligence in the maintenance 
of such an area. 
 
The sole question presented in the appeal in this civil 
action is whether the trial court erred by refusing to rule as 
a matter of law that a city was free of gross negligence under 
the facts of this case. 
 
On October 15, 2001, appellee Judy Brown was injured when 
she fell from a spectator bleacher at Blackwater Creek 
Athletic Park, maintained and operated by appellant City of 
Lynchburg.  She brought this action against the City alleging 
it was grossly negligent in failing to maintain the bleacher 
in a safe condition. 
 
Following a jury trial, the court entered judgment on a 
verdict in favor of the plaintiff in the amount of $37,500.00. 
 
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We awarded the City this appeal to consider the foregoing 
issue. 
 
There is little dispute in the evidence.  Where there is 
conflict and according to settled appellate principles, we 
shall consider the facts in the light most favorable to the 
plaintiff, who comes to this Court armed with a jury verdict 
approved by the trial judge. 
 
The City operates 17 parks covering about 850 acres.  One 
of the parks is the 20-acre Blackwater Creek Athletic Park, 
which includes a lighted softball field. 
 
The bleacher in question was situated along the third 
base line of the ball field and was designed to seat about 30 
people.  The bleacher was free-standing and composed of five 
aluminum "risers" used for seating.  Each riser was about 12 
inches wide and approximately 18 feet long.  Beneath the four 
uppermost risers were metal strips about six inches wide used 
as foot rests. 
 
On the day of the accident, the plaintiff was at the Park 
in "the evening" attending a softball game in which her 
daughter was participating.  "[I]t was dark at that time and 
the lights were on." 
 
The plaintiff had "walked over to the bleachers . . . 
went up the bleachers" and "sat on the next-to-top seat" to 
talk with a friend.  After some time, the plaintiff "got up 
 
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from the middle part of the bleachers . . . , walked down the 
bleachers sort of diagonally" to her left, "got to the very 
last seat on the bleacher, . . . stepped on it and slipped and 
fell off the bleacher." 
 
A light pole was casting a shadow across the bleachers 
and the plaintiff stepped into that shadow.  She said:  "I 
could see the step, but . . . what I thought was a whole step 
ended up not being a whole step.  I could see part of that 
step; I just assumed all of it was there." 
 
A player's parent and a coach described the condition of 
the riser prior to the time the plaintiff fell.  The parent 
said:  "The seating part of the bleachers was bent down on the 
ends, and the walk boards were the same way . . . ."  The 
coach said "that the ends of [the risers] were jagged, the end 
caps were missing . . . ." 
 
The evidence was uncontradicted that the City did not 
have actual notice of the damaged bleacher seat.  Due to the 
number and size of the City's recreational facilities, it did 
not have employees who worked full time at this Park.  
Nonetheless, workers would regularly report to the Park, 
perform "litter policing," grass cutting and trimming, and 
leaf disposal, and then leave.  On the day of the accident, 
four employees were at the Park for 20 man-hours performing 
 
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various tasks, including litter removal, and did not notice 
the bent bleacher. 
 
The City had a policy of recording reports of damage to 
City property or equipment.  Any employee who observed a 
safety hazard or damage to City property was required to 
report it so the deficiency could be corrected.  No complaints 
of damage to the bleacher were recorded or reported prior to 
the incident in question from citizens, employees, or anyone 
else. 
 
City employees testified, observing photos taken after 
the accident, that if the damaged bleacher had been noticed 
prior to the accident, the hazard should have been reported so 
that it could have been repaired.  The City agreed that the 
damage "was open and obvious." 
 
On appeal, the plaintiff argues the trial court correctly 
decided that a jury question was presented on whether the City 
was guilty of gross negligence.  She notes the City "conceded" 
a jury could have found on these facts that it should have 
known of the damaged bleacher.  And, she challenges the City's 
position that only actual, not constructive, knowledge will 
support a finding of gross negligence. 
 
In effect, the plaintiff contends that a finding of 
constructive notice will support such a finding.  She says, 
"even when the defendant does not admit to seeing what was 
 
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'open and obvious,' under the other circumstances of the case, 
it can be found to be grossly negligent for reckless failure 
to see what it should have seen." 
 
Alternatively, the plaintiff argues that "[o]n these 
facts, a jury could find actual knowledge," because the 
evidence placed City employees "on, around, and under the 
bleacher" during a six-month period before the incident. 
 
We disagree with the plaintiff's contentions.  The 
parties debate the applicability of two cases dealing with 
accidents at municipal recreational facilities.  The plaintiff 
relies upon Chapman v. City of Virginia Beach, 252 Va. 186, 
475 S.E.2d 798 (1996), while the City argues that Frazier v. 
City of Norfolk, 234 Va. 388, 362 S.E.2d 688 (1987), controls.  
We agree with the City; this is a Frazier case. 
 
In Frazier, a minor was injured when he fell from the 
rear of an orchestra pit to the basement in Norfolk's Chrysler 
Hall.  At the time, a gap existed between the rear of the pit 
and the front of the stage.  No barriers or railings were in 
place on the rear perimeter of the pit platform. 
 
The city was in violation of its own building code 
because railings were not in place on the pit platform.  
Additionally, the evidence showed that the city possessed 
barriers specifically designed to provide protection against 
falls from the pit.  Also, two years prior to the incident, a 
 
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child had fallen from the pit to the basement when barriers 
were in place. 
 
This Court affirmed the trial court's action in striking 
the plaintiff's evidence.  We held there was a failure to 
establish a prima facie case of gross negligence.  Id. at 393, 
362 S.E.2d at 691. 
 
In that case, we defined "gross negligence" as "that 
degree of negligence which shows an utter disregard of 
prudence amounting to complete neglect of the safety of 
another.  It is a heedless and palpable violation of legal 
duty respecting the rights of others."  Id. (internal 
quotations and citation omitted).  It is want of even scant 
care and amounts to the absence of slight diligence.  Id. 
 
We decided that the "city's failure to install protective 
devices or to post warnings at a platform edge which was open 
and obvious amounts, at the most, to ordinary negligence and a 
failure to exercise reasonable care.  Such acts of omission do 
not rise to that degree of egregious conduct which can be 
classified as a heedless, palpable violation of rights showing 
an utter disregard of prudence."  Id. 
 
In contrast, the Court in Chapman reversed a trial 
court's action in setting aside a verdict for the plaintiff in 
a wrongful death action arising from an accident on the 
boardwalk at Virginia Beach.  The Court held the issue of 
 
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gross negligence was properly submitted to the jury.  252 Va. 
at 191, 475 S.E.2d at 801. 
 
In that case, a child died after becoming entangled in a 
swinging gate made of metal bars which provided access to the 
beach from the boardwalk.  The evidence showed that one 
section of the two-section gate had been broken for at least 
two months before the incident and lay in the sand.  This 
allowed the standing section to swing freely, contrary to its 
normal position of being latched closed and fastened to the 
other section.  Id. at 188, 475 S.E.2d at 799-800. 
 
City employees had been notified on at least three 
occasions prior to the incident that the gate was broken, but 
the gate was not repaired.  A supervisor in charge of 
maintaining the gate made a "deliberate decision" not to order 
the gate repaired or secured at the time the reports were made 
in the fall because most of the City's maintenance on the 
boardwalk " 'is done in the spring prior to the tourist 
season.' "  Id. at 191, 475 S.E.2d at 801. 
 
In discussing the standard of care, we said:  "Deliberate 
conduct is important evidence on the question of gross 
negligence."  Id. at 190, 475 S.E.2d at 801 (internal 
quotations and citation omitted).  We pointed out:  "Under the 
City's own operating procedures, the gates were to be closed 
unless City employees were performing maintenance functions.  
 
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Despite repeated notices by its own employee, the City did not 
take any action.  The decision not to take any action was 
deliberate."  Id. at 191, 475 S.E.2d at 801. 
 
We concluded that "reasonable persons could differ upon 
whether the cumulative effect of these circumstances 
constitutes a form of recklessness or a total disregard of all 
precautions, an absence of diligence, or lack of even slight 
care."  Id. 
 
In the present case, unlike Chapman, there is no evidence 
of deliberate conduct by municipal employees or of a total 
disregard of all precautions by them.  In this case, like 
Frazier, the hazard was open and obvious, and municipal 
employees committed acts of omission by failing to observe the 
damaged bleacher.  This conduct amounted to ordinary 
negligence and a failure to exercise reasonable care.  It did 
not, however, rise to that degree of egregious conduct 
classified as a heedless, palpable violation of rights showing 
an utter disregard of prudence. 
 
Certainly, as the plaintiff argues, a jury could have 
found that the City should have known of the hazardous 
bleacher.  But, under these facts, that is insufficient, 
standing alone, to present a jury issue on gross negligence.  
And, we reject the plaintiff's alternative contention that a 
jury could find that the City had actual knowledge of the 
 
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defective bleacher.  Reasonable persons would have had to 
speculate to reach such a conclusion. 
 
Consequently, we hold that the trial court erred in 
refusing to rule as a matter of law that the plaintiff failed 
to establish the City was guilty of gross negligence.  Thus, 
we will reverse the judgment appealed from and will enter 
final judgment here in favor of the City. 
Reversed and final judgment.