Opinion ID: 846036
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Governmental Immunity and the Highway Exception

Text: The governmental tort liability act (GTLA) [13] broadly shields a governmental agency [14] from tort liability if the governmental agency is engaged in the exercise or discharge of a governmental function. [15] The act enumerates several exceptions to governmental immunity that permit a plaintiff to pursue a claim against a governmental agency. [16] This case concerns what is known colloquially as the highway exception. That provision states, in pertinent part: [E]ach governmental agency having jurisdiction over a highway shall maintain the highway in reasonable repair so that it is reasonably safe and convenient for public travel. A person who sustains bodily injury or damage to his or her property by reason of failure of a governmental agency to keep a highway under its jurisdiction in reasonable repair and in a condition reasonably safe and fit for travel may recover the damages suffered by him or her from the governmental agency . . . . The duty of the state and the county road commissions to repair and maintain highways, and the liability for that duty, extends only to the improved portion of the highway designed for vehicular travel and does not include sidewalks, trailways, crosswalks, or any other installation outside of the improved portion of the highway designed for vehicular travel. [17] The GTLA provides its own definition of highway, which is a public highway, road, or street that is open for public travel and includes bridges, sidewalks, trailways, crosswalks, and culverts on the highway. [18] This definition of a highway excludes alleys, trees, and utility poles. [19] Beyond defining the term highway, the GTLA does not define these additional terms. It also does not define shoulder or include shoulder among the list of features such as bridges and sidewalks that are deemed to be part of a highway. The scope of the highway exception is narrowly drawn. Under its plain language, every governmental agency with jurisdiction over a highway owes a duty to maintain the highway in reasonable repair so that it is reasonably safe and convenient for public travel. However, when the governmental agency is the state or a county road commission, as is the case here, the Legislature constricted the scope of the highway exception by limiting the portion of the highway covered by that exception. For these agencies, the highway exception does not extend to an installation outside the improved portion of the highway such as a sidewalk, trailway, or crosswalk, although these features are included in the general definition of a highway. The duty of these agencies to repair and maintain does not extend to every improved portion of highway. It attaches only to the improved portion of the highway that is also designed for vehicular travel. As we discuss later in this opinion, such narrowing of the duty supplies important textual clues regarding the Legislature's intent concerning whether a shoulder falls within or without the protection afforded by the GTLA. Although the specific issues considered in Nawrocki v. Macomb Co. Rd. Comm., [20] are not before us today, that case is particularly instructive in this case. [21] In Nawrocki, this Court reconciled several of our previous inconsistent highway exception cases, and clarified the scope of the governmental agency's duty under the highway exception. We held in Nawrocki that if the condition is not located in the actual roadbed designed for vehicular travel, the narrowly drawn highway exception is inapplicable. . . . [22] Put differently, the highway exception creates a duty to maintain only the `traveled portion, paved or unpaved, of the roadbed actually designed for public vehicular travel.' [23] Our focus, then, consistent with Nawrocki, is determining whether a shoulder is actually designed for public vehicular travel.