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Nature of Suit Code: 350
Nature of Suit: Motor Vehicle Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 

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, . • 

FIL : D 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

United States Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

JAN 2 8 1 91 

B-.OBERT L. HOECKER 

ROGER DALE ROOT, individually; ) Clerk 

BARBARA ROOT, individually, ) 

) 

Plaintiffs-Appellants. ) 

) 

and ) 

) 

ROGER ROOT, II, infant, by and through ) 

his Father and next friend, Roger Dale ) 

Root; TIFFANY ROOT, infant, by and ) 

through her Father and next friend, ) 

Roger Dale Root, ) 

) 

Plaintiffs, ) 

) 

v. ) 

) 

BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF THE ) 

COUNTY OF GARFIELD, OKLAHOMA, ) 

) 

Defendant-Appellee. ) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

No. 89-6258 

(D.C. No. 87-1630-T) 

( W. D. Okla . ) 

Before MOORE and BARRETT, Circuit Judges, and SPARR,** District 

Judge. 

**Honorable Daniel 

District Court for 

designation. 

* 

B. Sparr, District Judge, 

the District of Colorado, 

United States 

sitting by 

This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

Appellate Case: 89-6258 Document: 010110080461 Date Filed: 01/28/1991 Page: 1 
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially 

assist the determination of these appeals. See Fed. R. App. P. 

34(a); 10th Cir. R. 34.1.9. The cases are therefore ordered 

submitted without oral argument. 

This is an appeal from summary judgment entered by the 

district court for the defendant board of county commissioners in 

this diversity tort action arising out of a single-vehicle 

accident at a county line correction intersection in rural 

Oklahoma. Plaintiffs-Appellants, Roger Dale Root, a passenger 

seriously injured in the accident, and his wife, Barbara Root, 

claimed the county was liable for its negligence in (1) failing to 

maintain or replace a missing warning barrier at the intersection 

and (2) erecting such a barrier whose nature and location rendered 

it ineffective to warn vehicles of the hazard involved. 1 The 

district court held these two claims precluded under the 

discretionary function and traffic sign exemptions set out in 

Oklahoma's Governmental Tort Claims Act (GTCA), Okla. Stat. tit. 

51, § 155(5) and (15). 

We agree with the district court that plaintiffs' first claim 

fails for lack of evidence that, if the warning barrier was 

actually missing, the county had notice of that fact, as required 

under section 155(15). That the barrier had been knocked down and 

replaced on several occasions prior to plaintiff's accident is not 

1 These analytically divergent claims evidently arise from the 

fact that the evidence regarding the presence of the warning 

barrier at the time of the accident is conflicting. 

2 

Appellate Case: 89-6258 Document: 010110080461 Date Filed: 01/28/1991 Page: 2 
sufficient to demonstrate the county had any notice the barrier 

was missing again at the time of the accident. Moreover, there is 

no evidence indicating that the barrier, if absent at all, had 

been so for such an extended duration to permit an inference of 

notice. See Rogers v. Hennessee, 602 P.2d 1033-36 (Okla. 1979). 

We do not agree, however, that plaintiffs' second claim is 

also barred by the GTCA. A recent decision of the Oklahoma 

Supreme Court, Nguyen v. State, 788 P.2d 902 (Okla. 1990), 

undercuts the district court's application of the discretionary 

function exemption set out in section 155(5) in three respects. 

First of all, Nguyen makes it clear that the controlling 

planning-operational approach, which deems discretionary only 

those decisions that concern the initial adoption of policy, 

properly renders the exemption "extremely limited" in scope. Id. 

at 964-65. Furthermore, by specifically holding that the decision 

to release a psychiatric patient from state care is merely a 

ministerial act, despite the substantial professional judgment 

involved, see id. at 963-64 n.2, Nguyen demonstrates that an 

otherwise ministerial act does not become discretionary simply 

because a large degree of individual judgment, even expert or 

professional, must be exercised in its execution. Finally, the 

opinion expressly recognizes that the governmental-proprietary 

function differentiation driving pre-GTCA decisions, including the 

cases explicitly relied upon by the district court herein, has 

been repudiated. Id. at 966 n.13. 

In accordance with Nguyen, and consistent with such earlier 

decisions as Robinson v. City of Bartlesville Board of Education, 

3 

Appellate Case: 89-6258 Document: 010110080461 Date Filed: 01/28/1991 Page: 3 
' . 

700 P.2d 1013 (Okla. 1985), and Ochoa v. Taylor, 635 P.2d 604 

(Okla. 1981), we conclude that while the initial decision to 

install a warning sign may have been a discretionary matter of 

policy or general planning, the subsequent operational choices 

involved in putting that decision into concrete practice at the 

intersection in question were ministerial. This conclusion is 

supported, rather than undercut, by the GTCA's more specific 

section governing traffic and road signs, section 155(15), which 

allows for governmental liability in connection with the "absence, 

condition, location, or malfunction" of road signs, but 

specifically excludes from that liability the discretionary 

decision whether to place such signs in the first instance. 

Furthermore, to whatever extent this latter section's notice 

requirement is not necessarily satisfied by the county's 

responsibility for the "initial defects" in the warning barrier's 

construction and location, but see Oklahoma City v. Hayden, 37 

P.2d 642, 644 (Okla. 1934), plaintiffs' evidence of prior similar 

accidents at the intersection is certainly pertinent, see City of 

Seminole v. Mooring, 91 P.2d 1091, 1095 (Okla. 1939), and 

precludes summary judgment for defendant at this point in the 

proceedings. 

Accordingly, the district court's grant of summary judgment 

for defendant is AFFIRMED as to plaintiffs' first claim for 

relief, but REVERSED as to plaintiffs' second claim. The cause is 

remanded for further proceedings. 

ENTERED FOR THE COURT 

PER CURIAM 

4 

Appellate Case: 89-6258 Document: 010110080461 Date Filed: 01/28/1991 Page: 4