Court Opinion

ID: 9677751
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:58:43.682032+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:58.204810
License: Public Domain

Tom Glaze, Justice. I respectfully dissent. The law is well established that political subdivisions are immune from liability for damages. See Cousins v. Dennis, 298 Ark. 310, 77 S.W.2d 296 (1988); Ark. Code Ann. § 21-9-301 (1987). However, under Ark. Code Ann. § 21-9-303(a) (Repl. 1996 and Supp. 2001), a political, subdivision (like the City of Fordyce here) shall carry liability insurance on its motor vehicles in the minimum amounts prescribed in the Motor Vehicle Safety Responsibility Act, Ark. Stat. §§ 27-19-101 (1987), et seq. In Cousins, this court held that the General Assembly, in requiring political subdivisions to purchase such liability insurance, never intended non-registered vehicles to be covered. The Cousins court further held that, in applying Arkansas’ registration laws, mowers and other vehicles not designed for transportation purposes are designated as special mobile equipment and exempted from registration. See Ark. Code Ann. §§ 27-14-703(4) and 27-14-211 (Repl. 1987). Stated in other terms, the court concluded that self-propelling mowers and other equipment not designed or intended for transportation purposes are not required to comply with the insurance provisions required under § 21-9-303(a). Accordingly, in Cousins, the court held that a school district’s bush-hog mower was not designed for transportation purposes and was exempt as special mobile equipment as defined in § 27-14-211, which exempted such equipment from the state’s vehicle registration laws.1  In the present case, the majority court does not seriously suggest that the City of Fordyce’s 16,000 pound Coyote C-26 front-end loader is designed or intended for transportation purposes. However, the majority opinion does submit that a genuine issue of fact exists on whether the front-end loader is exempt from the state vehicle registration as “special mobile equipment.” Ark. Code Ann. § 27-14-211 provides as follows: Special mobile equipment means every vehicle not designed or used primarily for the transportation of persons or property and incidentally operated or moved over the highways, including farm tractors, road construction or maintenance machinery, ditch-digging apparatus, well-boring apparatus, and concrete mixers. (Emphasis added.) The majority bores in on the above statute and suggests the evidence is enough to raise a factual dispute as to whether the city’s front-end loader is “used primarily for transportation on public roads,” and, therefore, is not exempt from the vehicle registration laws as special motor equipment. The majority opinion premises its position on the deposition of Joseph Watson, who was driving the city equipment when it collided with plaintiff Barbara Spears’s car. Watson averred that he drove his frónt-end loader frequently on public streets, and the equipment was used on numerous jobs around the city. The Mayor of Fordyce, William Lyon, said that the only way the city could transport its front-end loader was to drive it on public roads. In short, the plaintiffs/ appellants argue that the front-end loader was not just incidentally driven along the highway, but, instead, it was driven as transportation along the highway. The plain language of §27-14-211 exempts from vehicle registration laws any equipment not designed or used primarily for transportation of persons or property and incidentally operated or moved over the highways,” including . . . road or maintenance machinery.” It seems abundantly clear that a 16,000 pound front-end loader is neither designed nor intended to be primarily used for transportation purposes on the public roads or highways. In fact, as the majority opinion relates, Watson used the front-end loader to “clip shoulders alongside public roads, clean ditches, fix sewer and water lines, dump asphalt into holes on the street, and pick up brush.” Obviously, the equipment was designed and being primarily used to do road repair and maintenance jobs, and, here, the operator’s driving of the equipment was incidental to getting the front-end loader to where he would perform these maintenance jobs.   The Cousins court also concluded that the school district’s mower was an “implement of husbandry,” under Ark. Code Ann. § 27-14-212 (Repl. 1994), and was specifically exempted from vehicle registration laws.