Opinion ID: 2519215
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Negligence per se for violating AS 28.35.080

Text: Parnell builds her theory of negligence per se around AS 28.35.080(a), a hit-and-run provision that requires any driver involved in an accident that results in death, personal injury, or total property damage to an apparent extent of $2000 or more to notify the police or the Department of Public Safety immediately by the quickest means of communication. In Ferrell v. Baxter , we ruled that general traffic laws can set the standard of a reasonable man and thereby require a finding of negligence in a tort action if the plaintiff can prove that the defendant committed an unexcused violation. [21] But we have also recognized that negligence per se cannot apply in a particular case unless the trial court first determines that the conduct at issue lies within the ambit of the statute or regulation in question. [22] Here, the superior court ruled that Parnell's negligence per se claim failed to meet this standard, concluding that the requirements of AS 28.35.080 were not applicable to the fact situation in this case. The court cited two cases for this conclusion, Wylie v. State and Drahosh v. State , both of which describe the Alaska Motor Vehicle Code's hit-and-run provisions as having two basic purposes: to prohibit hit-and-run driving in order to prevent drivers from escaping liability and to ensure the availability of prompt assistance to motorists in distress. [23] Parnell contends that AS 28.35.080 was intended to protect the motoring public [from] any hazards associated with the accident. But we agree with the superior court's decision rejecting this view and conclude that the court correctly relied on Wylie and Drahosh. Although AS 28.35.080 may well enable the police to protect the public against roadway hazards in many cases, this appears to be a secondary benefit of the hit-and-run statute. If the legislature had viewed roadway hazards as a matter of primary concern, there would have been no obvious reason for it to use the apparent value of property damage as the exclusive measure triggering the duty to report a hazard  an imprecise measure that is bound to result in underreporting when low-damage accidents create obvious hazards and overreporting when high-damage accidents create no hazard. In any event, even assuming that protecting the public from traffic hazards fell within the core purpose of AS 28.35.080, the evidence in this case still would not have supported Parnell's claim of negligence per se. Subsection .080(a) requires an accident involving property damage to be reported only when there is total property damage to an apparent extent of $2000 or more. Here, several invoices and other discovery evidence included with the parties' pre-trial pleadings suggested that Peak made various repairs to Dougherty's pickup and that the total value of the work exceeded section .080's $2,000 threshold. [24] But these documents were largely unexplained, and at least some of the items they listed seem unrelated to Dougherty's collision with the moose. None of the documents were introduced at trial to establish total property damage; indeed Parnell appears to have made no effort to pursue the issue at trial. And undisputed evidence established that virtually all of the damage from the collision occurred on the underside of Dougherty's truck  an area where the damage was hardly apparent. Because AS 28.35.080 imposes a duty on drivers to take immediate action after an accident, the provision's requirement that the value of the damage be apparent can best be understood as referring to property damage that can be readily detected and evaluated by motorists at an accident scene. Here, even viewing the record in the light most favorable to Parnell, we see no reasonable basis for finding that damages to Peak's truck totaling $2,000 or more should have been apparent to Dougherty at the accident scene. Thus, the court correctly ruled that liability on a theory of negligence per se cannot stand.