Court Opinion

ID: 9641666
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:37:30.878515+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:39.030090
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Garwood,
dissenting.
But for our recent approval of the decision of the Fort Worth Court of Civil Appeals in Parson v. Texas City, (1953), 259 S.W. 2d 333, I should have withheld this dissent as academic in the light of City of Houston v. Shilling, (1951) 150 Texas 387, 240 S.W. 2d 1010, 26 A.L.R. 2d 935. In the latter, and over a dissent with appropriate objections, we in effect served notice that the doctrine of city immunity from the consequences of exercising governmental functions was obnoxious to “the present tendency” and would thus be treated in somewhat the same manner as we treat the defense of an insurance company *257under a policy provision that is not altogether clear in its favor. See 240 S.W. 2d 1012 (syl. No. 3) and corresponding portion of the dissent at p. 1015, 2nd col. But just two years later we approved the Parson decision, in which the Court of Civil Appeals, over a dissent, held immunity to exist where the city maintained (for several days) conflicting “Go” signals at a street intersection, thereby inviting the automobile collision out of which the suit arose.
Having already held as far back as 1943 in City of Port Arthur v. Wallace, 141 Texas 201, 171 S.W. 2d 480, that a city’s proprietary concern with the condition of its streets rendered it liable because some bumps in the pavement were found to have contributed to a collision between a city fire truck and the plaintiff’s automobile, to hold in 1953 that a formal signal device inviting collisions has nothing to do with any proprietary function concerning the streets, does not indicate a very vigorous application of the “present tendency” proclaimed in the 1951 Shilling opinion. So the last nail in the coffin of governmental action immunity seems not yet to have been driven, unless the instant decision drives it.
To be sure, the Parson opinion does use the language relied on in the instant opinion to the effect that immunity might have been denied if, instead of the conflicting signals, there had been some sort of physical obstacle in the street. But quite obviously that language was unnecessary to the decision, which went in favor of immunity, and our “refusal” of the writ of error can make it no less dictum than it previously was.
Now the instant decision purports to take both the dictum and the holding, add to them the actual holding of the Court of Civil Appeals in Kling v. City of Austin, 62 S.W. 2d 689, and comes out with what is apparently to be the rule henceforward. The latter is that, pretermitting the alleged cases of “nuisance” that come up from time to time (see Gotcher v. City of Farm-ersville, 137 Texas 12, 151 S.W. 2d 565; Parson case, supra, 259 S.W. 2d pp. 334 et seq.) but remain quite mysterious, governmental immunity may extend into the streets but not to physical obstacles therein, these being necessarily and always a matter of the proprietary function of maintaining streets.
This is undoubtedly what the instant doctrine means, and the Georgia cases cited by the court confirm that meaning. I think everyone would admit that if maintaing streets were considered a governmental function (as it is under the common *258law of many of the oldest and most respected jurisdictions) the instant decision, the Kling case and the Georgia decisions would have resulted differently. In other words, our admitted source of the street obstacle doctrine is the concept of private or proprietary character of street maintenance. This being so, it seems that, logically speaking, no proprietary duty of the wide breadth claimed to exist can exist. The logical scope of any duty not to place obstacles cannot extend beyond those which arise out of the building or maintenance of the streets. There is no such idea as the “operation” of streets, these being passive in character and merely the place on which other things are operated. The other city functions concerning streets, such as policing them and keeping them in sanitary condition, are admittedly something quite different from building and maintenance and are clearly governmental.
Obviously there is nothing about the mere idea of an obstacle that would necessarily keep activities associated with it from being governmental or make them necessarily proprietary. The placing of walls or other obstacles around the city jail to prevent the escape of prisoners and to prevent the public from getting- too close to the prisoners is clearly a governmental function. The placing of an obstacle for a governmental purpose, whether at the jail or in a street, is part of the governmental activity sought to be thereby exercised.
A rule, which says in effect that the city has a general proprietary duty to keep the streets clear of all dangerous obstacles, will almost necessarily lead us well beyond where we now think we are going. For example, when the case arises of a garbage truck or fire wagon that dangerously blocks a narrow street in a negligent performance of the governmental function of public hygiene or fire protection, will we not be compelled henceforward to hold that no immunity exists, although, if the same case were now before us instead of the instant one, we would probably hold the contrary? Certainly, if there is a general proprietary duty to keep the streets clear, we cannot say that there is a substantial difference between an obstacle consisting of a vehicle and one consisting of a rope, once we admit —or the jury chooses to find — that both are dangerous in the particular case.
Returning to the traffic-light case of Parson v. Texas City, under the rule now adopted we will have what is to my mind the rather indefensible situation of leaving a city immune where it invites collisions by means of defective signals physically *259located on the road, and yet denying immunity where it places in the middle of the road "a traffic sign which a motorist, who collides with it, may convince the jury to have been deceptively wide. Surely to place a regular traffic signal in the middle of the road is no less exclusively a governmental act than to place one at the side of the road. Nor does the fact that the motorist collided with the signal itself in the one case but not in the other have any bearing on whether governmental or proprietary functions were involved.
The more logical rule and one that appears to me less prolific of peculiar results is that dangerous obstacles arising out of the function of the city to build and maintain streets (or other proprietary functions) are not subject to immunity while those arising from the control of traffic (or other governmental functions) are subject to immunity. In this connection the maintenance of streets is not to be confused with the policing or use of streets, because to treat policing as maintenance would mean that whatever the city may do on a street is necessarily a proprietary function. In determining the source of a given obstacle we simply look to the purpose which caused its presence.
If, for example, in the instant case, the rope had been for the protection of men repairing the street, there would be a clear connection between the accident and street maintenance, with liability, no doubt, to follow. But, as the case is, the rope had no relation whatever to maintenance of the streets and was exclusively for the purpose of detouring traffic for the protection of child pedestrians — an obviously governmental function. Immunity should therefore exist.
The only Texas decision that might be said to support the position of the Court is that of the Court of Civil Appeals in Kling v. City of Austin, supra, to which, as the main opinion states, we have possibly given authority by purporting merely to get authority from it in the Port Arthur case, supra. The Kling case might, perhaps, be distinguished on the ground that the “obstacle” (a fire plug) being of a more or less permanent character, its location in a public way had a closer relationship to maintenance of the streets than the rope in the instant case which was a purely temporary traffic measure. If it cannot thus be distinguished, I think it is wrong and should be overruled.
Opinion delivered April 24, 1957.
*260Rehearing overruled May 29, 1957.
Justice Norvell not sitting.