Opinion ID: 2099999
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Heading: babbitt.

Text: The accident in Commonwealth, Transportation Cabinet v. Babbitt, et al., No.2003-SC-0556-DG, 172 S.W.3d 786 (Ky.2005) occurred on Interstate Highway 75 (I-75) in Madison County, Kentucky, at approximately 6:10 p.m. on November 17, 1989. Judy Logsdon was operating a Skamper motor home in the right southbound lane of I-75 with her husband, Larry Logsdon, her daughter and son-in-law, Cecelia [1] and Michael Bender, and the Benders' two infant children as passengers. Logsdon encountered a construction zone between mile point (M.P.) 88 and M.P. 77 where Allen Company, a paving contractor, was repaving the southbound lanes pursuant to a contract with the Transportation Cabinet. The paving of the highway, itself, had been completed, and both southbound lanes were open to traffic. However, reconstruction of the right shoulder of the highway was incomplete, and the white edge line between the right southbound lane and the ten-foot-wide paved shoulder had not been repainted. An acceleration lane from a roadside rest area merges with the right southbound lane just prior to M.P. 82. There were no rumble strips [2] at the point of merger or on the paved portion of the shoulder for 310 feet south of that point. To the right of the paved shoulder is a five-to-six-foot-wide earthen shoulder, then a drop-off to a ditch at the base of a rough-cut rock wall. The total distance from the outside edge of the right southbound lane to the rock wall is twenty-seven feet. Mrs. Logsdon testified that she perceived the acceleration lane leading from the rest area to be a third southbound lane of highway and began driving to the right to make room for faster-moving traffic. She drove across the paved shoulder onto the earthen shoulder, then into the ditch where the motor home impacted with the rock wall. The mostly plywood body of the vehicle essentially disintegrated as it scraped along the rock wall before its chassis returned to the traveled portion of the highway. Larry Logsdon, Cecelia Bender, and Michael Bender were ejected from the vehicle, causing serious physical injuries to Mr. Logsdon and the deaths of Cecelia and Michael Bender. Mr. Logsdon and the Benders' estates brought civil actions in the Madison Circuit Court against Mrs. Logsdon, Allen Company, and Skamper Corporation, the manufacturer of the motor home, and this action in the Board of Claims against the Transportation Cabinet. [3] The claimants alleged that the Cabinet was negligent in failing to repaint the right edge line of the highway and replace the rumble strips, both of which would have warned Mrs. Logsdon that she was driving on the shoulder of the highway, and in failing to erect a guardrail between the shoulder and the drop-off to the ditch, which may have prevented the motor home from impacting the rock wall. In 1989, the Transportation Cabinet generally adhered to guardrail guidelines established in the Guide for Selecting, Locating, and Designing Traffic Barriers, published in 1977 by the American Association of Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), and the more recent Roadside Design Guide published in 1988 by AASHTO. However, since neither publication was officially adopted by statute or regulation, adherence to the guidelines was both unofficial and unrequired. AASHTO recommends a minimum clear zone of thirty feet between the edge of the roadway and a roadside hazard, a distance deemed sufficient to permit the operator of a run-off-road vehicle to regain control of the vehicle before reaching the hazard. The clear zone at the site of Logsdon's accident was only twenty-seven feet  and that included the ditch line. The Cabinet's expert testified that AASHTO recommends that guardrails not be erected if the surface of the rock wall is smooth, because an impact with the wall would cause no more damage than an impact with a guardrail, and the presence of the guardrail, itself, further reduces the width of the clear zone. He further testified that if the surface of the rock wall is rough-cut, as here, AASHTO provides that whether to erect a guardrail is a judgment call. AASHTO also recommends erection of a guardrail between the roadway and a drop-off within the clear zone if the slope of the drop-off exceeds a ratio of 4:1, the degree of slope from which a vehicle is deemed unable to recover. There was evidence that portions of the drop-off to the ditch adjacent to the rock wall at this accident site exceeded a slope ratio of 4:1. The Cabinet argued that the shoulders were still under construction and that the contract called for a final slope ratio of 4:1. The Board of Claims found that the Roadside Design Guide required the Cabinet to erect a guardrail between the highway and the rock wall, and that its failure to do so constituted negligence. Babbitt v. Commonwealth, Transp. Cabinet, No. 90-1313, slip op. at 3 (Ky. Bd. of Claims, July 15, 1999). However, at another point, the opinion states that [t]he Plaintiffs have not proven negligence on the part of the Defendant. Id. at 10. The Board also concluded that Mrs. Logsdon's negligence was a superseding cause that relieved the Cabinet of any liability. Id. The Madison Circuit Court reversed and remanded with directions to make findings with respect to damages and comparative fault, concluding that the Board was bound by its apparent previous findings of negligence on the part of both Mrs. Logsdon and the Cabinet. Babbitt v. Commonwealth, Transp. Cabinet, No. 99-CI-00892, slip op. at 2-3 (Madison Cir. Ct., June 5, 2002). The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment and order of the Madison Circuit Court.