Title: Ex Parte CSX Transp., Inc.
Citation: 938 So. 2d 959
Docket Number: 1041971, 1050016
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: March 10, 2006

938 So. 2d 959 (2006)
Ex parte CSX TRANSPORTATION, INC.
(In re Shamalita Franklin et al.
v.
City of Athens and CSX Transportation, Inc.)
Ex parte City of Athens.
(In re Shamalita Franklin et al.
v.
City of Athens and CSX Transportation, Inc.)
1041971 and 1050016.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
March 10, 2006.
*960 Morris Wade Richardson and Elizabeth Redding Floyd of Adams &amp; Reese LLP/Lange Simpson, Birmingham, for petitioner CSX Transportation, Inc.
Benjamin R. Rice of Spurrier, Rice &amp; Hall, Huntsville, for petitioner City of Athens.
William D. Davis III of Davis &amp; Associates, P.C., Huntsville, for respondent.
Kenneth Smith, league counsel, Montgomery, for amicus curiae Alabama League of Municipalities, in support of the City of Athens.
George W. Royer, Jr., and Scott W. Faulkner of Lanier Ford Shaver &amp; Payne, P.C., Huntsville, for amicus curiae City of Huntsville, in support of the City of Athens.
Craig S. Dillard and Bart Harmon of Webb &amp; Eley, P.C., Montgomery, for amicus curiae Association of County Commissions of Alabama, in support of the City of Athens.
LYONS, Justice.
Shamalita Franklin, Daphne Johnson, Genny Ervin, and Florene Hanserd-Yarbrough[1] appealed to this Court from a summary judgment entered in favor of CSX Transportation, Inc., and the City of Athens. We transferred the appeal to the Court of Civil Appeals pursuant to § 12-2-7(6), Ala.Code 1975. The Court of Civil Appeals reversed the judgment. Franklin v. City of Athens, 938 So. 2d 950 (Ala.Civ. App.2005). We granted certiorari review; we now affirm.
The Court of Civil Appeals stated the facts and procedural history as follows:
938 So. 2d  at 951-52.
After reviewing the parties' arguments, as well as those of amici curiae appearing on behalf of the City,[2] we conclude that the Court of Civil Appeals correctly reversed the summary judgment as to both the City and CSX.
"The standard by which this Court will review a motion for summary judgment is well established:
Payton v. Monsanto Co., 801 So. 2d 829, 832-33 (Ala.2001) (quoting Ex parte Alfa Mut. Gen. Ins. Co., 742 So. 2d 182, 184 (Ala.1999)).
In reversing the summary judgment in favor of the City, the Court of Civil Appeals stated:
938 So. 2d  at 953-54.
The City and the amici curiae maintain that the Court of Civil Appeals has erroneously imposed upon the City both a duty to maintain a railroad crossing and a duty to warn of a dangerous condition at a railroad crossing. The City argues to this Court, as it did to the Court of Civil Appeals, that because § 11-49-3, Ala. Code 1975, imposes upon a railroad the duty to maintain a railroad crossing and the "the streets between their rails and for 18 inches on each side," the City had no duty whatsoever in this situation. The City and the amici curiae argue that the *963 Court of Civil Appeals has created a theory of dual liability that will impose a significant burden upon the cities and counties of this State, and that this Court rejected the concept of dual liability in Yates v. Town of Vincent, 611 So. 2d 1040 (Ala. 1992).
We do not read the main opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals as broadly as do the City and the amici curiae. We agree with the views of Judge Murdock, expressed in his special concurrence, that the opinion does not impose upon the City the duty to maintain a railroad crossing and the adjacent portion of roadway the railroad is charged with maintaining; rather the opinion merely recognizes that if CSX had allowed a hazard to exist upon a public street without adequately warning the public of that hazard, the City had a duty to warn the public of that hazard if it knew or should have known that the hazard existed. Judge Murdock stated:
938 So. 2d  at 956.
The City and the amici curiae rely heavily upon Yates v. Town of Vincent, supra, in arguing that the City did not have a duty coexistent with that of CSX to warn the public of defects in a roadway. That reliance, however, is misplaced. In Yates, this Court rejected the concept of "jointly exercised traffic control" in holding that the Town of Vincent owed no duty to maintain a stop sign at an intersection of county highways controlled by Shelby County. 611 So. 2d  at 1042-43. Yates supports the argument that the City owed no duty to maintain the railroad crossing or the portion of the roadway immediately adjacent to it, but it does not address the issue whether the City had a duty to warn the public of a defect that existed in a public street if it knew or should have known of the defect.
The Court of Civil Appeals pointed out that the City has a statutory duty pursuant to § 11-47-190, Ala.Code 1975, to warn the public upon learning of any hazard created in a public right-of-way after the hazard has become, or should have become, known to the City. Section 11-47-190 provides:
The Court of Civil Appeals also cited several cases in which this Court discussed a city's duty to warn citizens of hazards in public streets, even if that hazard was created by another. See City of Bessemer v. Brantley, 258 Ala. 675, 679, 65 So. 2d 160, 163 (1953) ("It is the duty of the city to use reasonable care that no such danger shall remain in a public street where people have the right to travel, although it was caused by another."); City of Montgomery v. Moon, 208 Ala. 472, 473, 94 So. 337, 338 (1922) ("'It is the duty of the municipality to guard and protect excavations made in the streets and sidewalks, or in such close proximity thereto as to endanger persons traveling on the street.'" (quoting 6 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations § 2774)); City of Montgomery v. Ferguson, 207 Ala. 430, 433, 93 So. 4, 6-7 (1922) (jury charge that "[m]unicipal corporations are due the traveler upon their public thoroughfare the duty of keeping those thoroughfares to the full width thereof in a reasonably safe condition for travel by night as well as by day," stated the general rule).
We note, as did the Court of Civil Appeals in its main opinion, that although we hold that the City owed Franklin and her passengers a duty to warn of the dangerous condition at the railroad crossing, the existence of that duty would not, in and of itself, be sufficient to allow them to prevail on their negligence claim. Franklin and her passengers must prove the following elements: (1) that the City owed them a duty, (2) that the City breached that duty, and (3) that the breach proximately caused Franklin and her passengers to be injured. See Martin v. Arnold, 643 So. 2d 564, 567 (Ala.1994). The Court of Civil Appeals noted:
938 So. 2d  at 954 n. 1.
We agree with the Court of Civil Appeals that the City owed a duty to Franklin and her passengers to warn them of the danger in the roadway if the City knew or should have known that the danger existed; therefore, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals reversing the summary judgment entered in favor of the City.
In reversing the summary judgment entered in favor of CSX, the Court of Civil Appeals stated:
938 So. 2d  at 954-55.
CSX maintains that the opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals improperly reversed the summary judgment entered in its favor based upon speculation that some unknown person or persons had moved the safety devices from the accident site at some point after the CSX workday ended. CSX takes the position that the evidence is undisputed that the warning devices were in place at the end of the workday and that if they were missing at the time of the accident, they were missing because they had been moved by some unknown person or persons.[3] CSX first argues that in this case, where two competing, but equally reasonable, inferences can be drawn from the facts, choosing one inference over another is engaging in speculation, conjecture, and guesswork. It relies upon Turner v. Azalea Box Co., 508 So. 2d 253, 254 (Ala. 1987), in which this Court held:
CSX, relying upon Thompson v. Lee, 439 So. 2d 113, 115 (Ala.1983), next argues that the any potential liability it has in this case cannot be predicated on the mere fact that Franklin and her passengers had an accident at the construction site. In Thompson this Court held:
Finally, CSX argues that it was not responsible for a third party's criminal conduct, relying upon Ex parte Wild Wild West Social Club, Inc., 806 So. 2d 1235, 1240 (Ala.2001), in which this Court noted:
(Quoting Thetford v. City of Clanton, 605 So. 2d 835, 840 (Ala.1992) (citation omitted).)
As the main opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals points out, and as Judge Murdock elaborates in his special concurrence, despite the affidavit testimony of a CSX employee that the traffic barrels were in place at the end of the workday on the day of the incident involving Franklin's vehicle, the fact that the barrels were found after the accident some distance away from the railroad crossing gives rise to a plausible inference that the barrels were not, in fact, placed at the site when the workday ended. Judge Murdock stated:
938 So.2d at 956-. If indeed the affidavit testimony of the CSX employee was not correct, then inferences other than those advanced by CSX defeat CSX's arguments.
In Turner v. Azalea Box Co., supra, Turner was injured when a wooden pallet broke when he stepped on it. Evidence presented in the case showed that Azalea Box Company was not the only company that had sold pallets to Turner's employer, and no evidence was presented as to which company had manufactured the pallet on which he had been injured. In that case, any determination as to which company had manufactured the pallet would have been speculative. We are not presented here with a similar situation. The fact that the safety devices were found at least a block away from the accident site (see note 4) and were not pushed aside at a point adjacent to the site or had not disappeared completely, makes the inference that they were never put in place on the day of the incident a reasonable one.
Likewise, the inference that the safety devices were never placed at the accident site on the day of the incident distinguishes this case from Thompson and Ex parte Wild Wild West Social Club, Inc., supra. CSX's liability is not predicated on the mere fact that the accident happened and that safety devices were not present at the site, nor is its liability predicated on the criminal acts of a third party. At this *967 stage in the case, several plausible and reasonable inferences can be drawn from the facts presented; therefore, a genuine issue of material fact is presented, and the case is not appropriate for disposition by summary judgment. See, e.g., Prince v. Poole, 935 So. 2d 431 (Ala.2006); Wilkerson v. Johnson, 868 So. 2d 417 (Ala.2003).
We agree with the Court of Civil Appeals that, viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the nonmovants, Franklin and her passengers, we must conclude that a genuine issue of material fact exists and that CSX was not entitled to a summary judgment. Therefore, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals reversing the summary judgment entered in favor of CSX.
The judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals is affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
NABERS, C.J., and WOODALL, SMITH, and PARKER, JJ., concur.
[1]  This plaintiff's name in the Court of Civil Appeals is spelled Florence Hanserd-Yarborough.
[2]  Amici curiae the Association of County Commissioners of Alabama, the Alabama League of Municipalities, and the City of Huntsville have filed briefs in support of the City's position.
[3]  CSX also states in its brief that it accepts the factual allegation that the barricades were absent from the crossing at the time of the accident only for purposes of the summary-judgment arguments and that if this case is tried it will contest the allegation that the safety devices were missing when Franklin drove into the ditch.
[4]  We note that Franklin testified in her deposition that she heard a police officer and another man discussing the fact that the safety devices had been located in a parking lot a block away from the accident site. This discrepancy, however, does not detract from the logic of Judge Murdock's analysis.