Opinion ID: 2209506
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 20

Heading: State's Breach of Duty

Text: A governmental entity's actual or constructive knowledge of a hazard or dangerous condition coupled with the entity's failure to follow governing statutes, policies, or rules that mandate warning of or correction of the hazard may, in a proper case, provide evidence of the entity's duty to a plaintiff and breach of that duty. For example, in Millman v. County of Butler, 244 Neb. 125, 504 N.W.2d 820 (1993), we held that a county was properly adjudged liable for negligently failing to maintain a bridge and warn of this danger where the bridge, like the highway in the case at bar, was built before safety criteria existed to govern the bridge's design and construction. The actionable negligence in Millman was not the bridge's design, but the county's actual knowledge of the bridge's unsafe condition and failure to warn motorists of the danger, in light of the facts that the county knew as the result of three prior inspections that the bridge was dangerous and did not meet the county's safety specifications and that the evidence indicated that a warning would have induced caution by drivers. A similar analysis was applied in Maresh, supra, wherein this court concluded that the State negligently breached its duty to the plaintiff by, inter alia, the State's failure to follow its own safety standards in marking the edges of a highway made dangerous by construction. On appeal, we agreed with the Maresh trial court that the State's violation of its safety standards was evidence of negligence and stated: The State's failure to comply with its own manual as to channelizing device[s], edge markers, or placement of the object markers in line with the edge of the obstruction, in light of the circumstances presented in this case, is sufficient evidence of breach of duty that it cannot be said the district court was clearly incorrect. 241 Neb. at 513, 489 N.W.2d at 311. See, also, Oldenburg v. State, 221 Neb. 1, 374 N.W.2d 341 (1985) (holding that State knew or should have known that its negligent failure to repair road rut in violation of safety standards rendered plaintiff's automobile accident reasonably foreseeable, thereby giving rise to duty by State and breach thereof). We agree with the trial court that the State breached its duty both as to the ruts in the roadway and as to the concrete headwall.