Title: MCCATHERN v. CITY OF OKLAHOMA CITY
Citation: 2004 OK 61, 95 P.3d 1090
Docket Number: 
State: Oklahoma
Issuer: Oklahoma Supreme Court
Date: July 6, 2004

MCCATHERN v. CITY OF OKLAHOMA CITY Annotate this Case MCCATHERN v. CITY OF OKLAHOMA CITY 2004 OK 61 95 P.3d 1090 Case Number: 98735 Decided: 07/06/2004 As Corrected: July 13, 2004 THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA DEBORAH MCCATHERN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF OKLAHOMA CITY, Defendant-Appellee, ON CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS, DIVISION III ¶0 Plaintiff alleged bodily injury when she tripped on a raised sprinkler head located adjacent to the sidewalk at city hall. She sought to recover from the city. The District Court, Oklahoma County, Vickie L. Robertson, Judge, gave summary judgment to the city. The Court of Civil Appeals, Division III, affirmed. Certiorari was granted earlier and the cause remanded to COCA for its reconsideration in light of the most recent applicable law on premises liability. Upon remand, COCA reversed its earlier decision. On certiorari previously granted upon the city's petition, THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS' OPINION IS VACATED; THE TRIAL COURT'S SUMMARY JUDGMENT IS REVERSED AND THE CAUSE REMANDED FOR FURTHER PROCEEDINGS TO BE CONSISTENT WITH TODAY'S PRONOUNCEMENT. Rex D. Brooks, Oklahoma City, for Appellant, William R. Burkett, Municipal Counselor, Orval Edwin Jones, Assistant Municipal Counselor, and Jami Jarnigan, Assistant Municipal Counselor, Oklahoma City, for Appellee. ¶1 This certiorari presses two questions for our decision: (1) Did the terms of 51 O.S. Supp. 1984 § 155(13), the Governmental Tort Claims Act (GTCA), which is urged to have enlarged the range of government's immunity from liability for negligent inspections, also alter the common-law principles of liability that bind the government? and (2) Did the trial judge err by giving summary judgment to the city? We answer the first question in the negative and the second in the affirmative. I. ANATOMY OF THE LITIGATION ¶2 Deborah McCathern (McCathern or appellant) alleges injuries sustained from a fall on 20 March 2001 when she tripped over an irrigation-system sprinkler head located adjacent to a sidewalk on the lawn of city hall, a government building owned by Oklahoma City (city or appellee).2 She filed a negligence-based claim urging the city failed to maintain its premises with due care. McCathern asserts that although the irrigation system was not in use at the time of her injury, its head had not receded and was protruding two or three inches above the lawn. The sprinkler head is located immediately adjacent to a sidewalk corner. A type of decorative grass, commonly called "monkey grass or Liriope," surrounds the sprinkler head. McCathern presented proof (by evidentiary materials) that the ornamental grass was last cut back approximately three weeks earlier and that the city had performed repairs on the irrigation system around the same time.3 ¶4 The Court of Civil Appeals (COCA), Div. III, concluded the city was immune from liability and affirmed the trial court's summary judgment. Its opinion was bottomed on an earlier COCA pronouncement, Reynolds v. Union Public Schools. ¶5 During the pendency of her certiorari we promulgated Moran v. City of Del City. ¶6 COCA refused to authorize additional briefs, concluding the trial tribunal's summary judgment was improper (based on the urged post-1984 § 155(13) exemption). The city's two additional arguments, presented at nisi prius but not reviewed earlier, were then examined. COCA (1) rejected the city's argument that the protruding sprinkler head constituted a "trivial defect" and (2) ruled the evidentiary materials provided to the trial court tendered a disputed issue of whether the protruding sprinkler head could have been readily seen. Vacated was COCA's earlier decision affirming summary judgment and the cause was remanded for further proceedings to be consistent with the second opinion. The city's certiorari petition was then granted. II. ARGUMENTS ON CERTIORARI ¶7 The city contends that the trial court's summary judgment in its favor was proper because (1) an examination of antecedent § 155(13) legislation reveals the 1984 amendment enlarged the inspection immunity by diminishing a municipality's proprietary duty to inspect for defects in its own premises, (2) the city had no notice that the sprinkler head had not receded, and it was hence under no common-law duty to repair the defect or warn the public of its existence and (3) the defect, if it did exist as McCathern claims, is trivial, and the city is therefore relieved from any liability for the occasioned harm. ¶8 McCathern responds: (1) the city's argument dealing with earlier legislation presents a matter of first impression, and because it was not raised at nisi prius it may not be reached by this court, (2) the GTCA is the exclusive remedy regardless of whether the offending activity is governmental or proprietary,7 (3) the city had sufficient notice of the malfunctioning sprinkler head to be charged with its knowledge and for liability to attach, and (4) the trial court's summary judgment is devoid of support in the submitted evidentiary material. Because the trial court's disposition was effected by summary judgment, the issues on review stand before us for de novo examination.8 III. A. WHEN IT AMENDED THE TERMS OF 51 O.S. 1981 §155(13), THE LEGISLATURE DID NOT ABROGATE THE DUTY OF CARE THAT A MUNICIPALITY - QUA LANDOWNER - OWES UNDER THE COMMON- LAW RULES OF PREMISES LIABILITY ¶9 The city urges that a review of the pre-1984 §155(13) inspection immunity is necessary to understand the legislature's intent when drafting the 1984 exception. A consideration of statutory intent in light of antecedent legislation, according to the city, merits reconsideration or perhaps modification of the court's Moran pronouncement. ¶10 McCathern first contends that because the city's legislative-intent argument was never presented to the trial court it is not reviewable here.9 Today's cause reaches us on certiorari.10 Review of a COCA opinion by certiorari presents a matter of judicial discretion.11 It is granted by a majority of the court when there are special and important reasons.12 We granted certiorari and permitted supplemental briefing in order to pass upon the city's legislative-intent argument. ¶11 In the course of the review process the city did not know that the antecedent of §155(13) would become an issue. It arose after McCathern first petitioned for certiorari and was necessitated by the court's intervening pronouncement in Moran. The district court could not have known about this change in jurisprudence until after its summary judgment for the city. Before its re-examination of Moran, COCA chose not to allow supplemental briefs and, in accordance with our direction, reviewed its earlier decision in this case by the standards of Moran. This concatenation of events created, in essence, an issue not correctable by any other tribunal. The ensuing process thrusts on the city an element which militates in favor of permitting it to present the legislative-intent argument for the first time before an appellate tribunal. We hence accept supplemental briefs in support of this argument. To do less would impair a litigant's opportunity to meet a new issue and limit the city's right to be heard.13 ¶14 The city's argument is, in essence, that the duty of care it owes an individual must turn on our construction of the legislature's intent when amending § 155(13) in 1984. ¶15 The common-law doctrine of sovereign immunity was abrogated in 1983 by Vanderpool v. State. ¶16 The city's argument is unconvincing. Our review of the statutory texts show no intent to reduce the duty of care that is to be exercised by a political unit qua landowner. ¶17 The central principle embodied by the GTCA is that private tort law is neither abridged nor enlarged by that act. ¶18 Neither do we see a jurisprudential basis for modifying the common-law premises liability to lower municipal responsibility for substantial defects. The city's advanced argument for seeking relief - that the burden of having "constructive notice" of defects will have a detrimental impact on city operations and "actual notice" will provide a better, more workable standard - reflects a policy the city prefers but not that which we may divine as established by the GTCA. If the common law is to be abrogated or modified, it must be done by creation of clearly expressed legislative immunity, not by the court's fiat. In sum, the standard of care to which a municipality is to be held in premises liability remains unaltered by the 1984 version of the GTCA. B. AN IRRIGATION-SYSTEM SPRINKLER HEAD LOCATED ADJACENT TO A SIDEWALK DOES NOT, AS A MATTER OF LAW, CONSTITUTE A TRIVIAL DEFECT ¶19 The city urges that COCA erred by limiting application of the "trivial defects" doctrine to paved areas such as sidewalks. It contends that slight defects are not actionable under premises liability standards regardless of where they occur. ¶20 A municipality will not be liable for every defect or obstruction in its public ways. C. BECAUSE THE CITY COULD HAVE RAISED AT NISI PRIUS (BUT DID NOT DO SO) LACK OF NOTICE OF THE MALFUNCTIONING SPRINKLER HEAD, WE REFRAIN FROM REVIEWING THIS ISSUE ¶22 The city's final argument is that it lacked notice of the malfunctioning sprinkler head. Lack of notice is an on-the-merits defense against the claim. It may be raised by pleadings, by argument presented at a hearing or by tendering appropriate evidentiary material. Here it was neither pled nor called to the trial court's attention as a disputed issue on the merits during the court's summary process of adjudication. Because this issue, unlike the city's legislative-intent argument, could and should have been raised before the trial court, we decline to depart from our usual course to permit its review here.52 IV. SUMMARY ¶23 The city's argument - that the legislature's 1984 enlargement of the GTCA's §155(13) inspection immunity to include all property inspected by and qua governmental units also altered the common-law standards of premises liability then applicable to these cases - is hollow. Abrogation of the common law must be explicit, unambiguous and the government's immunity conferred by doubt-free language. Our review of the tendered statutory text reveals no divinable indicia of intent to reduce the duty of care imposed upon municipal landowners by the common law. Neither do we find validity in the city's contention that a raised sprinkler head adjacent to a sidewalk constitutes, as a matter of law, a slight or trivial defect for which the city bears no liability to one injured by the part's failure to recede. ¶24 On certiorari previously granted upon the city's petition, the Court of Civil Appeals' opinion is vacated; the trial court's summary judgment is reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings to be consistent with today's pronouncement. ¶25 WATT, C.J., OPALA, V.C.J., HODGES, KAUGER, BOUDREAU and EDMONDSON, JJ., concur. ¶26 LAVENDER, HARGRAVE and WINCHESTER, JJ., dissent. FOOT