Court Opinion

ID: 9722552
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:38:55.512272+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:36.872456
License: Public Domain

ASHBY, J.
I concur in the result reached by the majority.
From defendant’s point of view, this is a case where defendant is being held liable for injuries suffered by trespassers even though defendant has tried valiantly, but in vain, to hold off trespassers who persist in riding roughshod over both defendant’s rights and its land in spite of all defendant’s reasonable efforts to deter them. That was arguably true up to the time of the injuries involved in this case.
Viewing the evidence as we must on appeal most favorably to the prevailing party in the court below, the relevant facts are as follows:
Over the years defendant’s property was widely used by motorcyclists. This was a daily problem for defendant, and worse on weekends. In an attempt to deter such use, defendant hired a security guard on weekends and posted signs reading “No Trespassing Quarry Property This Property May Be Used At Any Time For Excavation” along the main haul road, the road used by defendant’s trucks to carry loads from the quarry. The no trespassing signs were constantly vandalized, but regularly replaced by defendant. These measures were ineffective in deterring use of the property by motorcyclists.
The hazard involved in the instant accident, however, was newly created. Defendant expanded its gravel quarry at the termination of the haul road and therefore abandoned that portion of the haul road. Defendant made a fork in the road and created a new haul road for defendant’s equipment. Defendant cut into the abandoned portion in such a way as to create a cliff *694precipitously dropping 20 to 30 feet into the excavation. This hazard was created in early July 1977, two to three weeks before the accident.
Defendant’s production superintendent was aware, when he ordered the haul road cut in early July, that many cyclists had previously used that road. After the cutting he was aware that the road now ended in a cliff, which he considered dangerous because of the high probability of serious injury should a motorcyclist go off the edge. Nevertheless, he caused no signs to be put up warning that the road ended precipitously with a drop into the excavation pit. None of the previously mentioned no trespassing signs existed along the now abandoned portion of the road. The superintendent did not have any new signs put up because “nobody paid any attention to the signs I already had up I didn’t figure one more sign would do any good.”
There were no signs whatever warning of the precipitous termination of the abandoned road at the edge of the cliff. Worse yet, the road was cut in such a way as to create an optical illusion that there was no break in the road but merely a dip. Plaintiff New did not see the edge until he was five feet from it. In addition, the road was hard, slick and fast at that point. On July 16, a security guard advised the superintendent that the road was slick, the edge was hard to see, and that a warning device or barricade was needed. The superintendant replied that he would talk to the board of directors.
Defendant claimed that it had placed two earthen barriers, each about five feet high, across the road to indicate the road was closed. According to defendant the first of these barriers was near the fork of the abandoned road and the second was about 150 feet beyond the first and 200 feet before the cliff. This was contradicted by plaintiff’s evidence which showed there was only one “dirt row” across the road, which was only 12 inches high and 12 inches wide, and which had track marks showing that it had been used by motorcyclists as a jump. In any event, the dirt mound gave no warning that the road thereafter terminated abruptly at a cliff.
Thus, no matter how reasonable defendant’s efforts to warn and deter were generally, as to the specific hazard which resulted in plaintiffs’ injuries defendant did not meet the standard required to avoid liability.