Opinion ID: 2297501
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Trull

Text: We first address the trial court's dismissal of the plaintiff's claim against the Town. The trial court decided that our decision in Trull required dismissal of the plaintiff's claim. In Trull, we ruled that a town could not be held liable in negligence for an accident occurring on Route 113, a class II highway, because the town had no control over the road, no duty to repair and maintain it, and, therefore, no duty to warn of icy conditions on it. Trull, 140 N.H. at 581, 582, 669 A.2d 807; see RSA 231:93. Trull is consistent with an earlier case, Hartman v. Town of Hooksett, 125 N.H. 34, 480 A.2d 12 (1984), in which we held that neither a municipality nor its police force had a duty to warn travelers about a defect in a class I state highway. In Hartman, we reasoned that [i]n certain circumstances, a town may be liable for injuries occurring on roads under its control, but not for injuries on roads over which it exercises no control. Hartman, 125 N.H. at 37, 480 A.2d 12. Contrary to the plaintiff's assertions, Trull is directly on point. Like the plaintiff in this case, the Trull plaintiffs argued that the town had a duty to warn of a dangerous condition of which it had actual knowledge. Trull, 140 N.H. at 581, 669 A.2d 807. In Trull, before the accident occurred, a town police officer observed that a vehicle had slid on Route 113 because of black ice. Id. at 580-81, 669 A.2d 807. Shortly after the officer left the area, one of the plaintiffs lost control of his vehicle, which slid across the center line and into another vehicle driven by the other plaintiff. Id. at 581, 669 A.2d 807. We disagreed with the Trull plaintiffs' argument, ruling that the fact that Route 113 is a class II highway was dispositive: Under the common law of this State and the statutory scheme in existence at the time of the accident, we conclude that the town had no duty to warn of icy conditions on a road over which it had no control and no duty to repair and maintain. Id. at 582, 669 A.2d 807. Similarly here, the Town has averred, and the plaintiff has not disputed, that where they intersect in Windham, Routes 111 and 28 are class II and class I state highways, respectively, which the Town does not own and has no duty to maintain. Accordingly, because the Town had no duty to maintain Routes 111 and 28, it also had no duty to warn motorists that the lights at the intersection of these two state highways were inoperable. See id.; see also RSA 231:93. As we concluded in Trull: Where there is no duty to correct a condition[,] there is no actionable duty to warn users of a highway that the condition has not been corrected. Trull, 140 N.H. at 582, 669 A.2d 807. And, [w]hen there is no legal duty, there can be no breach of duty, and no finding of negligence. Id. (quotation omitted). The plaintiff's attempts to distinguish Trull from the instant case are unavailing. He asserts, for instance, that Trull is distinguishable because in Trull, nature directly caused the icy conditions, while in this case, the traffic lights were rendered inoperable because of a power outage caused by an ice storm. We do not find this distinction to be meaningful. Because the plaintiff views Trull as distinguishable from this case, he revives two arguments that we rejected in Trull. First, he argues that municipal police officers had a duty to act, knowing that the lights at the intersection were inoperable and that the intersection was heavily travelled. At oral argument, he explained further that because the Town's police officers travel and regulate traffic on Routes 111 and 28, they had a duty to warn motorists of the dangerous condition caused by the inoperable lights. The Trull plaintiffs made a similar argument, which we rejected. As we explained in Trull, Merely because the town's police officers travel and regulate traffic upon [these] State highway[s] ... does not create a duty to warn the public about a dangerous condition on a state highway. Id. at 582, 669 A.2d 807. Relying upon Restatement (Second) of Torts § 323 (1965), the plaintiff next argues that the Town had a duty to warn motorists because it voluntarily assumed a duty to motorists on Routes 111 and 28 by render[ing] services to the public. We rejected a comparable claim in Trull, explaining that while [t]his court has recognized the general tort principle that one who voluntarily assumes a duty thereafter has a duty to act with reasonable care, the facts alleged by the plaintiffs did not allow us to conclude that the town undertook the task of warning motorists about the icy condition. Trull, 140 N.H. at 583, 669 A.2d 807 (quotation omitted); see Restatement (Second) of Torts, supra § 323, at 135. Likewise, here, on the facts alleged by the plaintiff, we cannot conclude that the Town undertook the task of warning motorists on Routes 111 and 28 of the inoperable traffic lights. Trull, 140 N.H. at 583, 669 A.2d 807; see Hartman, 125 N.H. at 37, 480 A.2d 12. Alternatively, the plaintiff urges us to overrule Trull. The doctrine of stare decisis demands respect in a society governed by the rule of law, for when governing legal standards are open to revision in every case, deciding cases becomes a mere exercise of judicial will with arbitrary and unpredictable results. Jacobs v. Director, N.H. Div. of Motor Vehicles, 149 N.H. 502, 504, 823 A.2d 752 (2003) (quotations omitted). [W]hen asked to reconsider a holding, the question is not whether we would decide the issue differently de novo, but whether the ruling has come to be seen so clearly as error that its enforcement was for that very reason doomed. State v. Quintero, 162 N.H. 526, 539, 34 A.3d 612 (2011) (quotation omitted). Thus, we will overturn a decision only after considering: (1) whether the rule has proven to be intolerable simply by defying practical workability; (2) whether the rule is subject to a kind of reliance that would lend a special hardship to the consequence of overruling; (3) whether related principles of law have so far developed as to have left the old rule no more than a remnant of abandoned doctrine; and (4) whether facts have so changed, or come to be seen so differently, as to have robbed the old rule of significant application or justification. Id. at 532-33, 34 A.3d 612. Although these factors guide our judgment, no single factor is wholly determinative, because the doctrine of stare decisis is not one to be either rigidly applied or blindly followed. Id. at 533, 34 A.3d 612. The plaintiff's sole argument as to why we should overrule Trull is that, in his opinion, it is badly reasoned. Even if we were to agree with the plaintiff, which we do not, merely because an opinion is poorly reasoned does not, in and of itself, justify overruling it. See id. at 538-40, 34 A.3d 612. [P]rincipled application of stare decisis requires a court to adhere even to poorly reasoned precedent in the absence of some special reason over and above the belief that a prior case was wrongly decided. Id. at 539, 34 A.3d 612 (quotation omitted). The determination that an opinion was poorly reasoned is merely the starting point for a stare decisis analysis. Id. Upon concluding that a case was poorly reasoned, the court then invokes the four stare decisis factors to decide whether to adhere to the precedent or overrule it, but the well-reasoned inquiry is not itself part of the analysis. Id. Having failed to brief any of the four stare decisis factors, the plaintiff has not persuaded us that our decision in Trull must be overruled. Cf. Rallis v. Demoulas Super Markets, 159 N.H. 95, 103, 977 A.2d 527 (2009). We, therefore, decline his invitation to do so.