Opinion ID: 2445730
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Appurtenances and the Maine Tort Claims Act

Text: [¶ 11] [F]or purposes of section 8104-A(2), an appurtenance is an object or thing that belongs or is attached to a public building, and does not include personal property maintained outside the building. Sanford, 2004 ME 73, ¶ 11, 850 A.2d at 329. As an initial matter, it is undisputed that the high school is a public building within the meaning of the MTCA. See Lightfoot v. Sch. Admin. Dist. No. 35, 2003 ME 24, ¶¶ 7-8, 816 A.2d 63, 65-66. In this case, the bleachers are an appurtenance if they (1) belong to the school and (2) are not personal property. [¶ 12] Sanford builds upon case law that had evolved over the previous decade. In Stretton v. City of Lewiston, we determined that an athletic field associated with a high school was not an appurtenance to the high school building for purposes of the MTCA. 588 A.2d 739, 741 (Me.1991). We reached this result despite the fact that the plaintiff was injured during activities being conducted on the public field as part of the regular physical education program. Id. at 739-40. In Kitchen v. City of Calais, we concluded that a raised portion of blacktopped curbing was not an appurtenance to a police station despite the fact that the curbing was created to prevent drivers from parking too close to the station. 666 A.2d 77, 78-79 (Me.1995). [¶ 13] The test, thus, is not a superficial and singular inquiry as to whether something belongs to a building based upon a simple functional connection between the building and the thing in question. In Kitchen and Stretton, the things clearly had a functional connection with the public buildings, but we declined to deem them appurtenances for MTCA purposes. See Kitchen, 666 A.2d at 78-79; Stretton, 588 A.2d at 739-41. If any doubts lingered regarding our rejection of a functional-connection test, Sanford laid them to rest. We stated: [W]e acknowledge that the function-based definition employed by the Superior Court in concluding that the trash bin is an appurtenance is sensible and offers a practical standard. Nonetheless, for the reasons that follow, we decline to adopt a function-based approach and rely instead on a more restrictive understanding of . . . [appurtenance]. Sanford, 2004 ME 73, ¶ 8, 850 A.2d at 328. [¶ 14] We instead decided to apply the well-established definition of a fixture to determine whether an object was an appurtenance. Id. ¶ 9, 850 A.2d at 328-29. Items of personal property, such as trash containers, cannot be considered fixtures and thus could never constitute appurtenances. Id. ¶ 12, 850 A.2d at 329. In Sanford, we observed that the function-based approach would expand governmental liability by including personal property integral to the activities undertaken at a public building. Id. ¶ 11, 850 A.2d at 329.