Case Name: Racine T. VERVIK, Individually and on behalf of his minor daughter Sonja Vervik, as Administrator of her Estate v. The STATE of Louisiana, DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAYS; Dezzie O'KEEFE, wife of/and Judson O'Keefe v. The STATE of Louisiana, DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAYS
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1974-03-25
Citations: 302 So. 2d 895
Docket Number: No. 53756
Parties: Racine T. VERVIK, Individually and on behalf of his minor daughter Sonja Vervik, as Administrator of her Estate v. The STATE of Louisiana, DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAYS. Dezzie O’KEEFE, wife of/and Judson O’Keefe v. The STATE of Louisiana, DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAYS.
Judges: BARHAM and CALOGERO, JJ., dissent.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 302
Pages: 895–902

Head Matter:
Racine T. VERVIK, Individually and on behalf of his minor daughter Sonja Vervik, as Administrator of her Estate v. The STATE of Louisiana, DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAYS. Dezzie O’KEEFE, wife of/and Judson O’Keefe v. The STATE of Louisiana, DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAYS.
No. 53756.
Supreme Court of Louisiana.
March 25, 1974.
On Rehearing Oct. 28, 1974.
Rehearing Denied Nov. 27, 1974.
Harold J. Lamy, New Orleans, William M. King, Covington, Dodd, Hirsch, Barker, Meunier, Boudreaux & Lamy, Windhorst, Heisler, DeLaup & Wysocki, Jerome M. Volk, Jr., Fritz H. Windhorst, New Orleans, for plaintiffs-applicants.
Philip K. Jones, Gen. Counsel, Norman L. Sisson, Robert J. Jones, Doran & Kivett, by William J. Doran, Jr., Sp. Asst, to Gen. Counsel, La. Dept, of Highways, Baton Rouge, for defendants-respondents.

Opinion:
SUMMERS, Justice.
These are consolidated tort suits in which plaintiffs seek damages against the Department of. Highways for failing to mark and sign a highway curve.
The suits were instituted by Racine T. Vervik, for himself, individually, to recover medical expense; and on behalf of his minor daughter, Sonja, for her personal injuries, pain and suffering. Dezzie and Judson O'Keefe, the mother and father of Gary O'Keefe the deceased, seek damages for his wrongful death. Judgment for the plaintiffs in the trial court was reversed on appeal to the First Circuit. 278 So.2d 530. We granted certiorari to review this decision. 281 So.2d 751.
The accident occurred on the night of November 14, 1969 between 9:00 and 10:00 o'clock. At the time Gary O'Keefe was twenty years old and Sonja was seventeen. He had been in the merchant marine. She was a premed student at Southeastern.
On the day of the accident, Gary had gone to the Gulf Coast early in the morning to work with a cleanup crew repairing the ravages of Hurricane Camille. About six o'clock that night he and Donald Mc-Lain, a friend, returned to Covington and stopped at a tavern where Gary could call a girl, presumably Sonja. At the tavern they had a coke. At 6:30 Gary was home. After his father helped him put a battery in his 1959 Chevrolet Impala, he went over to Dorothy Signorina's house where Sonja was visiting. His friend Tasso Taylor who was Dorothy Signorina's then fiance was there also. They were all good friends.
About 7 or 8 o'clock Gary left the house with Sonja to take her home. She had called her parents to tell them she was on her way. In order to reach her home, Gary had to detour on Bootlegger Road (La. Highway No. 1085). He had only been on this road once before as a passenger in Taylor's car when he and Sonja were in the back seat. They were proceeding in a westerly direction. The road was dry and normal weather conditions prevailed.
Shortly before the accident Gary rounded a curve in the road to the east of the accident site, driving 45 miles per hour. Upon entering the straightaway he accelerated to 55 miles per hour. When he arrived at the curve in question, he failed to negotiate it, and ran through the curve into the ditch on the opposite side of the road where his vehicle collided with a tree. As a result Gary was instantly killed, Sonja was badly injured and the automobile was demolished.
When the accident occurred the curve in the highway was not marked with a center line, or a solid yellow line at the approach to the curve indicating "no passing". No curve delineators (small reflectors placed on poles at intervals on the shoulder of the road along the outer edge of the curve to delineate its limits) were installed. No curve sign marked the approach to the curve, although one was previously installed but had been missing for several weeks prior to the accident. A curve sign and the curve delineators were installed after the accident.
The only surviving witness to the accident was Sonja. She testified that Gary was driving and she was "fooling with the radio" when the accident happened. She was aware, however, that they were approaching the curve. Realizing that he was accelerating the vehicle's speed, she attempted to warn him. Just as she called out "Gary", the auto ran straight ahead, through the curve and off the highway at 55 miles per hour.
There was no evidence that Gary attempted to negotiate the curve, or that he applied his brakes. He ran through the curve at full speed. After striking a tree the car came to rest 100 yards from the curve's beginning.
The site in question is approximately a five degree curve. At that point the highway is level and the road was in good condition. There were no features in the vi-cinage or peculiarities in the roadway which created any unusual hazards or a trap of any kind. Our examination of a number of photographs of the scene confirms this conclusion.
According to Lacy Glascock, engineer employed by the Department of Highways, a very candid and objective witness, there was nothing unusual or dangerous about the curve. He testified at length concerning the accepted standards established by the Louisiana Department of Highways and by other like agencies throughout the nation. These uniform standards provide that warning signs should be placed at highway curves when the "ball bank test" resulted in a reading of ten degrees at speeds under sixty miles per hour. Tests which he conducted made the curve in question a border line case at sixty miles per hour. He concluded that based upon the manual of accepted standards a sign at this curve would not be required. If he had the decision to make, however, he would place a sign at the curve in an abundance of caution.
Gary's friend Tasso Taylor testified that he had taken this curve in trucks and cars. He had driven his sports car at seventy to seventy-five miles per hour around this curve. Nothing about the curve was unusual or hazardous according to Taylor.
Although several persons living in the vicinity of the curve testified the sign had been missing for several weeks before the accident, none of them reported the fact to the Department or complained to others. Nor does the record establish that the Department or its employees received notice of the absence of the sign. The sign maintenance supervisor for the Department could not believe that the sign had been down for three to five weeks. One of the highway crews would have observed the absence of the sign and reported it to him, he said. Moreover, there was no evidence of any similar accidents during the period when the sign was missing.
The rules applicable to this factual situation, which have often been approved by the courts of Louisiana, are stated as follows :
The Department of Highways is not an insurer of the safety of drivers upon the roads and highways of the State. However, reasonable care requires, and the Department does owe, a duty to the traveling public to erect barricades, signs and adequate markings to warn against extremely dangerous, trap-like hazards, unusual obstructions, perilous conditions or defects in the road.
Especially is this duty imposed where the situation is inherently dangerous, as where there are obstructions or excavations in the way, or the highway terminates abruptly, or there are dangerous curves in the highway, or a bridge has been destroyed; and also where specifically required by statute. See La.R.S. 32:235.
There are no hard and fast rules established in law governing the particular type warning to be given in the various factual situations arising in these cases. It is understood, however, that the warning should be so designed in size and character as to adequately warn and alert the traveling public to the danger ahead. Whether the warning is required, reasonable, or adequate is determined by the place where the danger exists, the nature of the road and the general situation and circumstances surrounding it. All of these factors, together with the kind and speed of vehicles, are to be taken into consideration to determine whether the Department has discharged its duty. Edwards v. State, Department of Highways, 271 So.2d 672 (La.App.1973), cert. denied, La., 274 So.2d 391; Harkins v. State, Dept. of Highways, 247 So.2d 644 (La.App.1971), cert. denied, 259 La. 741, 252 So.2d 449; Christ v. State, Department of Highways, 161 So.2d 322 (La.App.1964), cert. denied, 246 La. 82, 163 So.2d 358; Lejeune v. State Farm Mutual Auto Ins. Co., 107 So.2d 509 (La.App.1959); Smith v. State, Dept. of Hwys., 87 So.2d 380 (La.App.1956); Dowden v. State, Department of Highways, 81 So.2d 48 (La.App.1955); Reeves v. State, Department of Highways, 80 So.2d 206 (La.App.1955), cert. denied, 228 La. 653, 83 So.2d 889; Blashfield, Automobile Law and Practice, ¶ 164.1, 164.4; 60 C.J.S. Motor Vehicles ¶ 192.
A careful review of the record affords no basis for rejecting the conclusion of the Court of Appeal that the plaintiffs' witness Taylor, and the Department's expert Glascock, established by a preponderance of the evidence that the curve was not dangerous as a matter of law. On this finding a sign was not required, and the absence of a sign was not a legal cause of the accident and damage resulting therefrom. We join with the Court of Appeal in concluding that the most probable cause of the accident was decedent's failure to maintain a proper lookout and his failure to keep his vehicle under control.
For the reasons assigned, the judgment of the Court of Appeal is affirmed.
BARHAM and CALOGERO, JJ., dissent.
TATE, J., dissents and assigns reasons.