Title: Marvin Hochstetler v. Elkhart Co. Highway Dept., et al
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 20S05-0703-CV-97
State: Indiana
Issuer: Indiana Supreme Court
Date: June 20, 2007

ATTORNEY FOR APPELLANT 
 
 
 
 
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEES 
Jeffrey J. Stesiak 
Nathaniel M. Jordan 
South Bend, Indiana   
Michael F. DeBoni 
 
Sara J. MacLaughlin 
 
Goshen, Indiana 
 
 
In the 
Indiana Supreme Court  
_________________________________ 
 
No. 20S05-0703-CV-97 
 
MARVIN J. HOCHSTETLER, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Appellant (Plaintiff below), 
 
v. 
 
ELKHART COUNTY HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT, 
ELKHART COUNTY SHERIFF DEPARTMENT, AND 
ELKHART COUNTY COMMISSIONERS 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Appellees (Defendants below). 
_________________________________ 
 
Appeal from the Elkhart Superior Court No. 2, No. 20D02-0209-CT-571 
The Honorable Stephen E. Platt, Judge 
_________________________________ 
 
On Petition To Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 20A05-0602-CV-98 
_________________________________ 
 
June 20, 2007 
 
Shepard, Chief Justice. 
 
 
Riding his motorcycle sometime before 5 a.m. on the night of a substantial storm in 
Elkhart County, appellant Marvin Hochstetler struck a tree that had fallen down across a county 
road.  The trial court granted judgment for various county entities on his negligence suit, 
concluding that the county was immune for losses resulting from temporary conditions of a 
public thoroughfare that result from weather.  We affirm. 
 
 
Facts and Case History 
 
 
At around 1 a.m. on June 12, 2001, Elkhart County was hit by a strong storm that 
produced many fallen trees and limbs and necessitated deployment of various county highway 
crews to begin the clean up.  The county started dispatching crews about 1:30 as calls began 
coming in to the highway garage.  There were eventually fifty-six reports of fallen trees on 
county roads as a result of the storm.  Among these reports, received about 2 a.m., was a call 
about a tree down on County Road Four, north of State Road 120.  It turns out that County Road 
Four is some seven miles long, and State Road 120 does not intersect with it.  Hochstetler 
contends this was a report about the tree he hit. 
 
 
Hochstetler sued the highway department, the county commissioners, and the county 
sheriff, alleging that they were negligent and careless in maintaining the county road.  The 
county defendants moved for summary judgment on the basis of immunity under the Indiana 
Tort Claims Act.  The trial court granted them judgment.  The Court of Appeals reversed.  
Hochstetler v. Elkhart County Highway Dep’t, 855 N.E.2d 731 (Ind. Ct. App. 2006), vacated.  
We granted transfer. 
 
 
Common Law Duty and the Tort Claims Act 
 
 
Indiana law has held for some time that governmental bodies have a common law duty to 
exercise reasonable care and diligence to keep streets in a reasonably safe condition for travelers.  
Higert v. City of Greencastle, 43 Ind. 574 (1873).  Case law about government liability for losses 
resulting from ice or snow, on the other hand, might fairly be characterized as less than a straight 
line.  Compare Johnson v. City of Evansville, 95 Ind. App. 417, 180 N.E. 600 (1932) (generally 
no liability for accumulation of snow and ice), with City of Muncie v. Hey, 164 Ind. 570, 74 
N.E. 250 (1905) (negligent failure to abate accumulation of ice creates liability). 
 
In any event, more recent law established through the Indiana Tort Claims Act recognizes 
that state and local governments may have tort responsibility for damages flowing from 
 
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negligence, but grants immunity for that negligence under certain specified circumstances.  Ind. 
Code Ann. ch. 34-13-3 (West 2007).  Immunity under the act is a question of law to be 
determined by the court.  Mangold v. Ind. Dep’t of Natural Res., 756 N.E.2d 970 (Ind. 2001).  
The party seeking immunity bears the burden of establishing it.  Id.
 
The provision at issue in this litigation creates immunity for losses resulting from “[t]he 
temporary condition of a public thoroughfare . . . that results from weather.”  Ind. Code Ann.      
§ 34-13-3-3(3).  We last explored the application of this section in Catt v. Bd. of Comm’rs of 
Knox County, 779 N.E.2d 1 (Ind. 2002).  In that case, a driver was injured when he struck a 
water-filled ditch in the middle of the road during the early morning hours.  A torrential rain 
overnight had washed out a culvert.  Id. at 2.  The trial court granted summary judgment for the 
county, but a divided Court of Appeals reversed. 
 
We observed in Catt that immunity under this section contains two key concepts, one 
temporal and one causal.  As for the latter, conditions caused “due to weather” distinguish 
themselves from those in which the road condition was the result of, say, poor inspection, design, 
or maintenance.  The act does not bar suits based on this sort of claim.  Id. at 4. 
 
As for whether the condition was “temporary,” we noted that the county had no notice of 
the wash-out until the driver’s accident, that the county highway department was busy on the 
morning after the storm repairing other washed-out culverts of which it was aware, and had 
repaired this particular culvert when it had been washed out on previous occasions.  We said 
these facts sufficed to carry the county’s burden to show it was entitled to immunity.  Id. at 6. 
 
As we noted in Mangold and Catt, 779 N.E.2d at 3, immunity under the act is a matter of 
law for the court.  In the present case, the storm had produced scores of trees and limbs down on 
the roads, county highway crews were on the job, and they were still at work hours after the 
storm had passed in the middle of the night.  There might well be a case in which weather-related 
conditions remained untended for so long a period that it no longer qualified as “temporary.”  
This is not that case.  The trial court was right that these facts sufficed to demonstrate that the 
county was immune. 
 
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Conclusion 
 
We affirm the judgment of the trial court. 
 
Sullivan, Boehm, and Rucker, JJ., concur. 
Dickson, J., dissenting, believing that granting summary judgment to find immunity is improper     
because of genuine issues of fact as to whether the hazard was temporary and whether its 
efficient cause was weather or the government’s failure to monitor and maintain its roads with 
reasonable care. 
 
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