Opinion ID: 1754118
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: sovereign immunity for dangerous conditions of public property and its exceptions

Text: In Jones v. State Highway Comm'n, 557 S.W.2d 225 (Mo. banc 1977), this Court judicially abrogated common law sovereign immunity in tort. The following year, the legislature re-adopted sovereign immunity, with certain modifications, stating: Such sovereign or governmental tort immunity as existed at common law in this state prior to September 12, 1977, except to the extent waived, abrogated or modified by statutes in effect prior to that date, shall remain in full force and effect; except that the immunity of a public entity from liability and suit for compensatory damages for negligent acts or omissions is hereby expressly waived in the following circumstances . . . Sec. 537.600.1. This provision then sets out two specific situations in which sovereign immunity is waived: where a public employee negligently operates a motor vehicle during the course of employment and thereby causes injury, sec. 537.600.1(1) (the negligent driving exception) and where the injury results from a dangerous condition of public property, sec. 537.600.1(2) (the dangerous condition exception). The latter exception stated in relevant part that sovereign immunity was waived as to: Injuries caused by the condition of a public entity's property if the plaintiff establishes that he property was in a dangerous condition at the time of the injury, that the injury directly resulted from the dangerous condition, that the dangerous condition created a reasonably foreseeable risk of harm of the kind of injury which was incurred, and that . . . a public entity had actual or constructive notice of the dangerous condition in sufficient time prior to the injury to have taken measures to protect against the dangerous condition. In 1985, the general assembly amended section 537.600.1(2) to provide an exception from the waiver of sovereign immunity for a dangerous condition caused by the defective design of a road or highway if the design or construction was in accordance with the state of the art as it existed prior to the re-adoption of sovereign immunity on September 12, 1977, stating: In any action under this subdivision wherein a plaintiff alleges that he was damaged by the negligent, defective or dangerous design of a highway or road, which was designed and constructed prior to September 12, 1977, the public entity shall be entitled to a defense which shall be a complete bar to recovery whenever the public entity can prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the alleged negligent, defective, or dangerous design reasonably complied with highway and road design standards generally accepted at the time the road or highway was designed and constructed. Sec. 537.600.1(2), RSMo Supp.1985 (emphasis added). The meaning of section 537.600.1(2) following the 1985 amendment was at issue in Donahue , which also involved an injury occurring at an intersection where a stop sign had been knocked down and not replaced. Donahue analyzed the case before it as if it were a negligent design case rather than a negligent maintenance case. 758 S.W.2d at 52. Donahue held that the 1985 amendment to section 537.600.1(2) newly waived sovereign immunity for such negligent designs and that the plaintiff there had made a submissible case on that negligent design theory. Id. at 52-53. Although Donahue reached the correct result, it misread section 537.600.1(2) as enacted prior to the 1985 amendment. On its face, the 1978 version of section 537.600.1(2) allowed suits against public entities for dangerous conditions of public property where the other statutory requirements are also met. Nothing in its language suggested this liability did not extend to cases involving design defects in roads and other public property, in addition to other kinds of dangerous conditions of public property. The 1985 amendment confirms that the statutory waiver of sovereign immunity extended to negligent, defective or dangerous design of a highway, for it provided an exception to that waiver for public highways designed and constructed prior to September 12, 1977, if the highway complied with the state of the art at the time it was designed and constructed. Id. This exception would have been unnecessary if the statute had not previously permitted recovery for negligent design. Cases following Donahue have struggled to apply Donahue's negligent design analysis when dealing with stop sign or negligent maintenance cases, and understandably so. [1] This case, which also involves an allegation of the negligent maintenance or failure to repair a downed stop sign, is factually indistinguishable from Donahue , and this Court readily concludes that the negligent design analysis has no application to these facts. To the extent that Donahue or other cases suggest that the statutory provision making a state of the art defense available in certain negligent design cases has any effect on other types of dangerous condition cases, they are inconsistent with this opinion and should no longer be followed.
To benefit from the statutory waiver of sovereign immunity set out in section 537.600.1(2), Mr. Hensley was required to prove four elements: (1) that the property was in dangerous condition at the time of the injury, (2) that the injury directly resulted from the dangerous conditionthat is, that the dangerous condition was the proximate cause of the injury, see Stanley v. City of Independence, 995 S.W.2d 485, 488 (Mo. banc 1999); (3) that the dangerous condition created a reasonably foreseeable risk of harm of the kind of injury that was incurred; and (4) that a public entity had actual or constructive notice of the dangerous condition in sufficient time prior to the injury to have taken measures to protect against the dangerous condition. Jackson County asserts that Mr. Hensley failed to make a submissible case on any of these four required elements. It notes that it presented evidence that the direct cause of Mr. Hensley's injuries was the negligence of the person driving the car in which he was riding and Mr. Hensley's own negligence in failing to wear a seat belt. Jackson County presented evidence that Missouri law requires motorists at unregulated intersections to yield to the traffic coming from the right, sec. 304.351.2, RSMo 2000, and that the driver of Mr. Hensley's car may have been speeding. Therefore, the County argues, the car in which Mr. Hensley was riding should have yielded the right of way to the car that hit it. Missouri law is clear, however, that a failure of the driver to yield would be insufficient in and of itself to negate the [causation] element of the dangerous condition exception . . . [to] the sovereign immunity defense. Williams v. Mo. Hwy & Transp. Comm'n, 16 S.W.3d 605, 612 (Mo. App. W.D.2000). The negligence of the defendant need not be the sole cause of the injury, as long as it is one of the efficient causes thereof, without which injury would not have resulted. Oldaker v. Peters, 869 S.W.2d 94, 100 (Mo.App. W.D.1993). Mr. Hensley presented substantial evidence that it was Jackson County's negligent maintenance of the stop sign that caused his injuries. This included the testimony of two nearby residents that the sign was down at the time of the accident and the testimony of two experienced employees of the Jackson County Department of Public Works itself, each of whom had worked for Jackson County for over 20 years, that a downed stop sign is a dangerous condition that can cause traffic accidents. These two Public Works department witnesses, as well as another Public Works employee who had been with the department for thirty-nine years, also testified that it is an issue of highest importance when a stop sign is down because an accident could happen and people could get injured and that downed stop signs were replaced within a few hours of receiving notice of them. In addition, the driver of the vehicle in which Mr. Hensley was a passenger testified that his practice was to slow down and stop when he saw a stop sign, that he did not see the stop sign, and that he did not slow down. Mr. Hensley also presented testimony that would permit the jury to infer that Jackson County had constructive notice that the sign was down in sufficient time to repair or replace it prior to the accident. One witness testified that the stop sign had been leaning at a 45-degree angle for the entirety of August 2002, and two witnesses testified that the stop sign was completely down from the morning of Friday, August 30, 2002, through the time of the accident on the evening of Sunday, September 1, 2002. Other testimony established that vehicles from Public Works and the sheriff's department traversed the intersection regularly during the time the stop sign was leaning and down. This evidence was sufficient to permit the jury to conclude that the stop sign was down at the time of the accident, that Jackson County had constructive notice that it had fallen down in time to repair or replace it before the accident, that it was reasonably foreseeable that the lack of a stop sign would create a dangerous condition, and that the fallen stop sign caused a dangerous condition and led to the accident. Jackson County notes that it presented contrary evidence that the stop sign did not fall until shortly before the accident and, had it been down earlier, it would have been replaced immediately. But, because the jury found in favor of plaintiff, this Court disregards evidence and inferences that conflict with th[e] verdict in determining whether plaintiff made a submissible case. Dhyne v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co., 188 S.W.3d 454, 456-57 (Mo. banc 2006). Mr. Hensley made a submissible case on each element needed to prove a dangerous condition of public property.