Court Opinion

ID: 9587644
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:24:40.293358+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:48:20.009055
License: Public Domain

Sognier, Chief Judge,
concurring specially.
I agree with the judgment reached by the majority. However, I believe that further explication is necessary of the conclusion in Division 3 that the evidence proffered at trial authorized the jury to find that Atlanta created and maintained a nuisance.
As the majority points out, the basis for Atlanta’s contention that it could not be found to have either created or maintained a nuisance was that the flashing yellow “X” signals were authorized by the manual and were functioning as intended.
However, George Black, a traffic engineer and Gwinnett County’s Director of Transportation, testified that the manual cautions that “traffic engineering judgment should be exercised at all times” because what might work in one area will not work in another. This caution clearly applied to the use of flashing yellow “X” signals, which the manual provides should be used “where feasible . . . over a lane to permit use of that lane for left turns, with due caution.” The manual states that yellow flashing “X” signals mean the lane may be used for left turns from both directions. Both Black and Howard Harris, a deputy director of the Atlanta Bureau of Traffic and Transportation, acknowledged that the flashing yellow “X” signals could not be used for the purpose set forth in the manual over most of this portion of DeKalb Avenue when traveling west because of the presence of the MARTA rail line running parallel to and just south of DeKalb Avenue. The MARTA rail line made left turns impossible for westbound traffic except at one or two intersections. Thus, based on this testimony, the jury reasonably could have concluded that flashing yellow “X” signals would not work properly on that particular stretch of DeKalb Avenue, and were therefore authorized to conclude that the signals were not functioning properly, but instead were being interpreted by drivers traveling west on DeKalb Avenue as a signal to use the center lane as a passing lane, a dangerous use for which the lane was not intended.
The manual also provides that “[t]he decision to use a particular device at a particular location should be made on the basis of an engineering study of the location,” which Harris indicated had not been done when the signals were replaced after construction of the MARTA rail line even though the effect of that construction was to eliminate most left turn usage of the center lane by westbound traffic.
Thus, evidence was introduced at trial from which the jury could have concluded that installing such signals on the portion of DeKalb Avenue where the accident at issue occurred was not “feasible,” and which authorized the jury to find that Atlanta created a nuisance in installing the flashing yellow “X” signals.
*392Decided May 18, 1992
Reconsideration denied June 1, 1992
Michael V. Coleman, Joe M. Harris, Jr., Sarah I. Mills, for appellant.
Gorby, Reeves, Moraitakis & Whiteman, Nicholas C. Moraitakis, Martha D. Turner, Michael E. Fisher, for appellees.
In addition, Black testified that a number of accidents occurred on that portion of DeKalb Avenue. Harris admitted that he knew the lane was not being used in the manner intended, and that the Bureau had received a number of complaints regarding the signals as well as inquiries regarding their meaning, but he had not read the reports of these complaints and inquiries until after the incident in issue. This evidence showed that drivers on DeKalb Avenue were either confused or mistaken about the meaning of the signals or were using the center lane improperly despite the signals, a condition Harris acknowledged as dangerous. Therefore, because there was evidence that Atlanta had failed to act within a reasonable time after acquiring this knowledge, the jury was authorized to conclude that Atlanta had maintained a nuisance. City of Fairburn v. Cook, 188 Ga. App. 58, 65-66 (7) (372 SE2d 245) (1988).