Opinion ID: 2519215
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Parnell's Appeal

Text: As already mentioned, the superior court ruled before trial that if Dougherty created a hazardous condition on the highway, he owed a duty of due care to remove the hazard or warn other motorists of the danger but also ruled that whether Dougherty actually created the hazard raised disputed questions of fact for the jury. This ruling comports with section 321 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts, which states: If the actor does an act, and subsequently realizes or should realize that it has created an unreasonable risk of causing physical harm to another, he is under a duty to exercise reasonable care to prevent the risk from taking effect. [1] On appeal, Parnell argues that the superior court erred in refusing to instruct that Dougherty and the driver of the oncoming car  John Doe  both owed a duty of due care if they both participated in creating the hazard. Before considering this argument or Peak's response, we must briefly describe its factual and procedural background. After the superior court ruled that the issue of duty was governed by a standard similar to the one set out in Restatement Section 321, Parnell submitted a proposed instruction seeking to inform the jury that a duty of due care arises if a driver, by his actions, or in combination with others, creates or participates in the creation of a hazard in a roadway. (Emphasis added.) The court declined to give Parnell's proposed instruction, and instead simply instructed the jury that Dougherty owed a duty of due care if he created a hazard or hazardous condition on the highway. The issue of joint participation in creating a hazard surfaced again after the jury began its deliberations. The court received a note from the jury foreperson seeking to clarify the jury instructions defining negligence. The note specifically focused on the last paragraph of Instruction No. 23. That paragraph and the one immediately before it described the elements of duty and breach that the jury needed to find in order to hold Peak liable for Parnell's damages or, conversely, to absolve Peak of negligence: If you find it is more likely true than not true that Marvin Dougherty created a hazard or hazardous condition on a highway, then Marvin Dougherty had a duty to take reasonable actions to remove the hazard or warn others of its presence. If you find that Marvin Dougherty created a hazard or hazardous condition on a highway and failed to take reasonable actions to remove the hazard or warn others of its presence, then you must find that Peak was negligent. If, on the other hand, you find that Marvin Dougherty did not create a hazardous condition on a highway then you must find that Peak was not negligent. OR, if you find that Marvin Dougherty created a hazardous condition AND took reasonable actions to remove the hazard or warn others, then you must find that Peak was not negligent. In light of the jury note seeking to clarify the last of these two paragraphs, Parnell renewed her earlier request for a supplemental instruction to inform the jury that a hazard could be created by the combined actions of more than one driver; specifically, Parnell proposed to answer the jury's question with a supplemental instruction stating: A person creates a hazard on the roadway if they strike a moose and either directly or in combination with another vehicle striking the moose cause the moose to become a hazard in the roadway, even if the striking of the moose [occurred] due to no fault of the motorist. The superior court declined to give the supplemental instruction, electing instead to respond to the jury's note by simply referring back to the original instructions defining negligence and a hazard or hazardous condition on a highway. The court's response stated: Marvin Dougherty had a duty to act with reasonable care as defined in Instruction 21 if he created the hazardous condition on the highway as defined in Instruction 25. Parnell now asserts that an instruction on the issue of joint creation was crucial because undisputed evidence showed that Dougherty's truck and the John Doe vehicle were involved in near simultaneous collisions with the moose. Parnell reasons that, although these circumstances make it clear that both vehicles substantially contributed to the moose's presence on the highway, the precise extent of each vehicle's contribution to the hazard remained unknowable, thus precluding any definitive determination as to which vehicle actually killed or disabled the moose. Parnell takes the position that the jury reasonably could have found that both drivers participated in creating the hazard and that both owed a duty of due care toward other motorists. Parnell faults the trial court for declining to give the instruction she proposed before trial and the supplemental instruction she proposed in response to the jury's post-trial request for clarification of Instruction 23. She insists that, by failing to clarify the meaning of created a hazard, the instructions became highly misleading because they left the jury with the false impression that it faced an all or nothing choice as to which driver actually killed or mortally wounded the moose. In Parnell's view, then, the court's failure to give her proposed supplemental instruction deprived her of the right to inform the jury of her theory of the case. Peak responds that the court correctly instructed the jury that Dougherty had a legal duty to remove the moose or warn others of its presence only if Parnell proved that Dougherty created the hazard himself by actually killing or mortally wounding the moose. In effect, then, Peak insists that the jury was properly told that Dougherty owed no duty to protect Parnell from harm unless the jury found that he was the actual, or but-for, cause of the moose's presence on the highway. In Peak's view, a joint participation instruction like the one proposed by Parnell would unjustifiably expand the Restatement's duty by imposing potential liability on any driver who happened to run over an animal carcass, unless the driver stopped and proceeded to remove the hazard or warn other motorists of its presence. Peak's response to Parnell's argument mistakenly shifts the focus of the inquiry to whether the moose had already been sufficiently disabled so as to be an existing hazard when Dougherty struck it. But what is at issue here is not who caused the moose's carcass to be in the road, but rather who had the duty to warn the public of the hazard thus created. Generally, the law of torts imposes no duty on a person to protect others from harm by a third party. [2] But as we have recognized in earlier cases, [3] section 321 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts carves out an exception to this rule by imposing a duty of care when an actor does an act, and subsequently realizes or should realize that it has created an unreasonable risk of causing physical harm to another. [4] The controversy here turns on the precise meaning of section 321's language requiring that the actor's act must have created the ensuing danger. Because the proper interpretation of created raises a question of duty, we must answer this question by focusing on the protective policies underlying section 321, not by supporting an analysis designed to decide issues of proximate causation. [5] On prior occasions we have emphasized that duty is at heart a question of policy centering on the basic relationship between the parties rather than on the nature of their conduct on a given occasion. Particular conduct becomes important only when a duty is imposed[.] [6] Here Peak has argued that section 321 should be construed to mean that the danger posed by the moose carcass's presence on the highway could have been created only by the driver whose vehicle actually killed or disabled the moose. In our view, Peak's attempt to equate the creation of a hazard with what amounts to the requirement of but-for causation unduly restricts the scope of the duty contemplated by section 321 and undermines that provision's basic purpose. As the facts of this case illustrate, hazardous conditions can often reflect the actions of multiple actors. In such cases, however, the immediate circumstances surrounding the hazard's creation will frequently make it difficult to tell exactly which actor and actions primarily caused the new danger; and in many such cases, definitive proof of actual or primary causation might never be found. In these situations, a rule that hinges the hazard-creating actors' duty of due care on proof of but-for causation would invite all involved actors to disclaim any duty until the question of causation could be resolved. The purpose of the duty established in section 321 is to encourage immediate efforts to avoid future harm. It would make little sense, and would frustrate the duty's purpose, to interpret section 321 as hinging the imposition of the duty on causational determinations that commonly require careful investigation and often prompt considerable debate. Nor does the plain language of section 321 compel such a narrow definition of its phrase referring to an act that creates a hazard. The section describes two key ingredients required to establish creation. The first is affirmative action on the part of the actor: the duty can attach only when the actor does an act. [7] The second is the actor's awareness (objectively measured) of a substantial potential for resulting danger: the duty can attach only when the actor realizes or should realize that an unreasonable risk of causing physical harm to another has resulted from the act. [8] As section 321's own text describes its creation requirement, then, a hazard can be created by multiple actors when each actor actively participates in the circumstances immediately surrounding the creation of a hazard and each actor realizes that these circumstances have resulted in a condition that poses a substantial risk of physical harm to others. Peak advances no sound reason for limiting section 321's duty in cases involving multiple actors to the actor who can be proved to be the but-for cause of the hazard. Although Peak insists that Parnell's joint-creation theory would require any driver who hit a carcass to stop and remove it or warn others of its presence, Parnell actually advances, and the evidence supports, a much narrower theory. At trial it was undisputed that Dougherty and the John Doe driver both struck the moose, which at some point in time came to rest in the middle of the roadway, and the evidence, including eyewitness testimony, indicated that the two drivers hit the moose almost simultaneously. Indeed, the superior court itself recognized that the evidence would have allowed the jury to find that a combination of the two cars . . . took out the moose. In light of this evidence, the point at issue here is not whether a motorist who happens to see  or merely run over  an already existing roadway hazard can be found to have created the hazard. Rather, Parnell's theory of the case presents a more limited question: who bears the duty when two motorists both take substantial actions that combine to create the hazard? In this unique situation, as we have noted, the crucial policy issue becomes whether the protective duty imposed by section 321 should fall to both drivers based on their active participation and actual awareness of resulting danger, or just to the driver who, in retrospect, might be determined to be the primary cause of the hazard's existence. In our view, the policies underlying section 321 weigh heavily in favor of imposing the duty on both drivers. In arguing for a narrower interpretation of section 321, Peak relies on Udy v. Custer County, [9] which simply recognizes the general principle that a motorist who passes by an existing roadway hazard owes no duty. [10] Udy is unremarkable, and Peak's reliance on it is misplaced. In contrast, Parnell cites two cases that offer substantial guidance on this question: Zylka v. Leikvoll [11] and Montgomery v. National Convoy & Trucking Co. [12] Like Parnell's case, both Zylka and Montgomery addressed situations involving traffic hazards arising from the combined actions of two motorists; in each case, the court recognized that the defendant's substantial participation in creating the hazard sufficed to trigger a duty of due care even though the same hazard arguably might have existed without the defendant's participation. [13] On balance, considering the record, the parties' arguments, and these authorities, we conclude that when the combined actions of two actors result in a hazardous condition, section 321 allows each to be treated as having created the hazard so long as each actor's conduct substantially contributed to the resulting hazard and each actor realizes the resulting danger of serious harm to others. We also conclude that Parnell was entitled to an instruction to clarify the scope of the disputed duty. We have previously recognized that a plaintiff is generally entitled to a jury instruction consonant with the theory of her case if the evidence supports the plaintiff's theory. [14] We have further recognized that, when a jury expresses confusion and seeks clarification as to the applicable law, it is the trial court's duty to guide the jury with a lucid statement of the relevant legal criteria. [15] Here, Parnell's primary theory of liability against Peak was her theory of joint creation: she claimed that John Doe and Dougherty both struck the moose within moments of each other and left its carcass on the highway, that Dougherty realized that the carcass exposed other motorists to a substantial risk of harm, and that these circumstances justified assigning a duty of due care to Dougherty because he had participated in creating the hazard. In keeping with this theory, Parnell proposed an instruction describing her claim as being that Marvin Dougherty struck a moose, thereby creating or participating in the creation of a hazardous situation. Her instruction also proposed to inform the jury that under the law applicable to the case, a duty of due care arises if a driver, by his actions, or in combination with others, creates or participates in the creation of a hazard in a roadway. In our view, by emphasizing that a duty of due care can be owed by a driver who either creates a hazard individually or participates in the creation with another driver, Parnell's proposed instruction effectively made the point that both Dougherty and John Doe could be found to have created the hazardous condition, even though the same hazard might have existed if only one or the other had struck down the moose. The trial court's instructions did not otherwise make this point. In keeping with Peak's narrow view of section 321's creation requirement, the instructions actually given by the trial court appeared to offer the jury an either-or choice: on the one hand, Instruction 23 informed the jury of Parnell's claim that Dougherty had created the hazardous condition and stated that she could prevail against Peak only if she proved that Dougherty created the hazardous roadway condition; on the other hand, Instruction 24 told the jury of Peak's claim that John Doe had created the hazard, directing the jury to find John Doe negligent if Peak proved this theory. The jury may have understood these instructions to imply that only one actor could have legally created the hazard. The instructions effectively validated Peak's position that section 321's creation requirement hinged on a finding that Dougherty was the but-for cause of the moose carcass's presence on the highway. Peak maintained in its closing argument that the jury could find that Dougherty created the hazard only if Parnell proved that John Doe's vehicle had neither killed nor mortally wounded the moose. By contrast, although the instructions did not completely prevent Parnell from arguing joint creation, her attorney was constrained to confine this argument to the narrow theory that both drivers might have hit and killed the moose simultaneously  a theory that would have required the jury to find that both drivers were the actual cause of the hazard because they killed the moose at the same moment. Even when the jury later requested clarification of Instruction 23's final paragraph, which barred the jury from finding Peak negligent unless it found that Dougherty had himself created the hazard, the trial court declined Parnell's request to inform the jury that Dougherty could have created a hazard either directly or in combination with another vehicle. Accordingly, the jury was never adequately informed that Dougherty could be found to have created the hazard even if his own actions might not actually have killed or incapacitated the moose. In determining whether the jury was properly instructed on the applicable law, we review the trial court's rulings de novo. [16] An instruction that sets out an incorrect or incomplete statement of the applicable law amounts to reversible error only if it causes substantial prejudice to a party  that is, only if it can be said that the verdict may have been different had the erroneous instruction not been given. [17] When evaluating whether there has been prejudicial error with regard to jury instructions, the reviewing court must put itself in the position of the jurors and determine whether the error probably affected their judgment. [18] Applying these principles, we conclude that if the jury instructions had made it clear that but-for causation is not a strict prerequisite to imposing a duty under section 321, the jury may have returned a different verdict. Accordingly, we hold that the failure to instruct the jury on Parnell's theory of the case amounted to reversible error; at a minimum, Parnell's proposed supplemental instruction should have been given in response to the jury's specific request to clarify the meaning of Instruction 23.
Before trial Parnell unsuccessfully moved for summary judgment against Peak on the issue of liability, asserting that she was entitled to judgment as a matter of law on a theory of negligence per se. After the evidence closed at trial, Parnell unsuccessfully moved for a directed verdict and judgment notwithstanding the verdict on the same grounds or, alternatively, on the basis of the common law factors set out in D.S.W. v. Fairbanks North Star Borough School District. [19] Parnell now renews these arguments on appeal. [20]
Parnell builds her theory of negligence per se around AS 28.35.080(a), a hit-and-run provision that requires any driver involved in an accident that results in death, personal injury, or total property damage to an apparent extent of $2000 or more to notify the police or the Department of Public Safety immediately by the quickest means of communication. In Ferrell v. Baxter , we ruled that general traffic laws can set the standard of a reasonable man and thereby require a finding of negligence in a tort action if the plaintiff can prove that the defendant committed an unexcused violation. [21] But we have also recognized that negligence per se cannot apply in a particular case unless the trial court first determines that the conduct at issue lies within the ambit of the statute or regulation in question. [22] Here, the superior court ruled that Parnell's negligence per se claim failed to meet this standard, concluding that the requirements of AS 28.35.080 were not applicable to the fact situation in this case. The court cited two cases for this conclusion, Wylie v. State and Drahosh v. State , both of which describe the Alaska Motor Vehicle Code's hit-and-run provisions as having two basic purposes: to prohibit hit-and-run driving in order to prevent drivers from escaping liability and to ensure the availability of prompt assistance to motorists in distress. [23] Parnell contends that AS 28.35.080 was intended to protect the motoring public [from] any hazards associated with the accident. But we agree with the superior court's decision rejecting this view and conclude that the court correctly relied on Wylie and Drahosh. Although AS 28.35.080 may well enable the police to protect the public against roadway hazards in many cases, this appears to be a secondary benefit of the hit-and-run statute. If the legislature had viewed roadway hazards as a matter of primary concern, there would have been no obvious reason for it to use the apparent value of property damage as the exclusive measure triggering the duty to report a hazard  an imprecise measure that is bound to result in underreporting when low-damage accidents create obvious hazards and overreporting when high-damage accidents create no hazard. In any event, even assuming that protecting the public from traffic hazards fell within the core purpose of AS 28.35.080, the evidence in this case still would not have supported Parnell's claim of negligence per se. Subsection .080(a) requires an accident involving property damage to be reported only when there is total property damage to an apparent extent of $2000 or more. Here, several invoices and other discovery evidence included with the parties' pre-trial pleadings suggested that Peak made various repairs to Dougherty's pickup and that the total value of the work exceeded section .080's $2,000 threshold. [24] But these documents were largely unexplained, and at least some of the items they listed seem unrelated to Dougherty's collision with the moose. None of the documents were introduced at trial to establish total property damage; indeed Parnell appears to have made no effort to pursue the issue at trial. And undisputed evidence established that virtually all of the damage from the collision occurred on the underside of Dougherty's truck  an area where the damage was hardly apparent. Because AS 28.35.080 imposes a duty on drivers to take immediate action after an accident, the provision's requirement that the value of the damage be apparent can best be understood as referring to property damage that can be readily detected and evaluated by motorists at an accident scene. Here, even viewing the record in the light most favorable to Parnell, we see no reasonable basis for finding that damages to Peak's truck totaling $2,000 or more should have been apparent to Dougherty at the accident scene. Thus, the court correctly ruled that liability on a theory of negligence per se cannot stand.
Parnell alternatively contends that the superior court erred in declining to find liability as a matter of law based on the policy factors listed in D.S.W. v. Fairbanks North Star Borough School District. [25] But this alternative theory is unavailing. The D.S.W. analysis serves to determine whether a common law duty should be recognized where none otherwise exists. For this reason, we have observed in other cases that an analysis under D.S.W. becomes appropriate only [i]n the absence of any other source of a duty of care (imposed, for example, by statute, contract, or doctrine of law). [26] Here, as we have already seen, the superior court properly determined that the issue of duty in this case was governed by the legal rule set out in section 321 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts. Accordingly, this case provides no occasion to undertake an analysis under D.S.W. in search of a new duty.