Opinion ID: 2359642
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Considerations of Public Policy

Text: (9) We ask next whether the public policy factors identified in Rowland the moral blame attached to the defendant's conduct, the policy of preventing future harm, the extent of the burden to the defendant and consequences to the community of imposing a duty to exercise care with resulting liability for breach, and the availability, cost, and prevalence of insurance for the risk involved ( Rowland, supra, 69 Cal.2d at p. 113)justify creating a duty exception immunizing drivers from potential liability for negligently stopping their vehicles alongside freeways. We conclude such an exception is not clearly supported by public policy. ( Id. at p. 112.) The overall policy of preventing future harm is ordinarily served, in tort law, by imposing the costs of negligent conduct upon those responsible. The policy question is whether that consideration is outweighed, for a category of negligent conduct, by laws or mores indicating approval of the conduct or by the undesirable consequences of allowing potential liability. While a driver who negligently stops his or her vehicle alongside a freeway does not act in an especially blameworthy manner, Ralphs concedes its driver could be ticketed where, as here, the area was marked for emergency parking only. More to the point, no state or federal law encourages or authorizes drivers to stop their vehicles alongside an interstate highway in order to eat a meal, take a nap, make a nonemergency telephone call, or conduct other personal business. Stopping alongside the freeway for such discretionary purposes is hardly a heinous act, but neither does it receive any special legal protection. The parties dispute whether parking along a highway without exigent reason violates Vehicle Code section 21718, subdivision (a), which generally prohibits unnecessarily parking or stopping a vehicle upon a freeway. Ralphs contends the prohibition applies only to the freeway's traffic lanes, [10] while plaintiff argues it applies to the freeway shoulder as well. [11] We need not decide the issue, as the question before us is only whether there is any state policy, such as would clearly justify an exception to the general duty of ordinary care, promoting or protecting the activity of parking alongside freeways for nonemergency purposes. We can discern no such state policy. Nor would recognizing negligence liability place heavy burdens on those in Ralphs's circumstances or on the broader community of freeway users. As noted earlier, Ralphs's driver safety manager testified the company already prohibited its drivers from making nonemergency stops alongside the freeway. In general, drivers will be able to find rest areas, truck stops, or other parking areas near freeway exits where meals can be eaten, telephone calls made, luggage rearranged in the vehicle, and so on. (In the present case, as previously noted, Horn could have stopped at either of two truck stops in the immediate vicinity. (See ante, at p. 778, fn. 6.)) In unusual circumstances where no such exits are available for long stretches, a stop alongside the freeway is less likely to be found negligent. Ralphs argues that creating a common-law duty to avoid stopping near a freeway for nonemergencies would adversely impact roadway safety because tired or hungry drivers, uncertain whether or not their situations qualify as an emergency, might continue driving even when it is unsafe to do so. This argument materially misstates the issue. The question is not whether a new duty should be created, but whether an exception to Civil Code section 1714's duty of exercising ordinary care in one's activities, including operation of a motor vehicle, should be created. And the duty at issue is not one of avoiding all nonemergency freeway stops, but the duty to use reasonable care in choosing whether, when and where to stop alongside a freeway. This duty applies in both emergencies and nonemergencies, though the degree of urgency created by the circumstances is, of course, likely to be crucial in determining whether the driver exercised reasonable care. Moreover, as just discussed, tired or hungry drivers generally have the option of exiting the freeway and stopping to eat or rest where their vehicles will not pose a potential danger to other drivers. Because the duty at issue is only that of ordinary care, our rejection of the exemption Ralphs seeks does not mean all parking alongside freeways can result in negligence liability; whether the duty of ordinary care has been breached depends on the particular circumstances, including those aggravating or mitigating the risk created and those justifying the decision to stop on the shoulder or median rather than exit the freeway. Ralphs offers no support for its assertion that juries cannot be trusted to weigh these considerations under the particular facts of each case, as they do in deciding negligence generally. Finally, Ralphs maintains recognizing a duty to exercise care in parking alongside a freeway would have far-reaching consequences, allowing for potential liability for a driver who parks alongside a suburban or rural road or a landowner who places a fixed object such as a light post or mailbox next to a road if these vehicles or objects were later hit by a drunken or drowsy motorist on the road. Ralphs's parade of horribles is unpersuasive for two reasons. First, the consequences Ralphs posits do not follow from declining to create an exemption from potential liability here. As plaintiff observes, freeways are radically different in their purpose and design from other public roads, making extrapolation of liability rules from freeways to other urban, suburban, or rural roads an uncertain exercise at best. Second, the consequences posited are not necessarily absurd or unthinkable. California juries and courts have, in certain circumstances, imposed liability for collisions where the defendant has negligently parked a vehicle, or negligently placed an obstacle such as a street light pole, along a road other than a freeway. (See, e.g., Laabs v. Southern California Edison Co. (2009) 175 Cal.App.4th 1260 [97 Cal.Rptr.3d 241] [light pole installed too close to curb]; Flynn v. Bledsoe Co. (1928) 92 Cal.App. 145 [267 P. 887] [truck parked at wrong angle on an urban street].) Whether or not all such cases were correctly decided, recognition of potential liability for placement of obstacles alongside roadways is clearly not the radical expansion Ralphs claims it is. The Court of Appeal majority below similarly claimed that potential liability, if recognized here, would have no end. The dissenting justice's response was a cogent one: [T]he majority asks, `If a duty is imposed under the facts of this case, where does it end?' [Citation.] In turn, I ask: If a duty is not imposed under the facts of this case, then where does it begin? Indeed, one might ask under what circumstances Ralphs would have us recognize a duty of ordinary care in stopping alongside a freeway, if not in these. If stopping 16 feet from the traffic lanes exempts a driver from the duty of care, does the same hold for parking six feet from the lane? Six inches? If we are to create immunity for a truck driver stopping for a few minutes to have a snack, should we also do so for one who decides to sleep for hours by the roadside rather than pay for a motel room? Would the categorical exemption Ralphs seeks still apply if a tractor-trailer driver parked an inch from the traffic lanes, on the outside of a curve, leaving the rig there all night without lights? To ask these questions is to see why a categorical exemption is not appropriate. The duty of reasonable care is the same under all these circumstances; what varies with the specific facts of the case is whether the defendant has breached that duty. That question, as discussed earlier, is generally one to be decided by the jury, not the court. [12]