Court Opinion

ID: 9764373
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:19:38.978757+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:56.071405
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice,
dissenting.
Appellant, James Drew, while walking on Bullens Lane, as he did three or four times a week, was struck by an approaching automobile. Appellant sought damages from both the driver of the automobile and appellee Township of Ridley, in which Bullens Lane is located, asserting that the driver was negligent and the Township had contributed to the accident because Bullens Lane was only seventeen feet wide. At trial, appellant offered opinion testimony of an expert that, were he designing Bullens Lane today, he would have made it several feet wider. A jury returned a verdict for appellant against both the driver and the Township. The trial court sustained the judgment against the driver but vacated the judgment against the Township because appellant had not demonstrated that the Township was under any legal duty to appellant to widen the road from its original seventeen feet. The Superior Court affirmed the order of the trial court.
A majority of this Court reverses the order of the trial court and holds that the Township may be liable in tort to appellant. I dissent. Appellant has not proved that the Township owed him a duty or violated any duty causing or resulting in his injury. The majority’s result is contrary to *304precedent and, if followed, will require municipalities across the Commonwealth to rebuild roads correctly designed when built and maintained properly. No decisions of this Court impose this burden.
Appellant’s sole contention is that Bullens Lane was unsafe, not in maintenance or condition, but in design because it was only seventeen feet wide. He argues that in the more than twenty years since construction of the road, increased traffic has rendered an otherwise safely maintained road defective for the sole reason that it is now allegedly too narrow. Appellant’s claim must be rejected.
This Court established early in the century that a party may sue a township for alleged defect in design of its streets only where the defect existed when adopted, such that the township was negligent in adopting the design. Travers v. Delaware County, 280 Pa. 335, 124 A. 497 (1924); Eichenhofer v. Philadelphia, 248 Pa. 365, 93 A. 1065 (1915). In Eichenhofer, a boy fell through a twenty-two inch gap below the guardrail of a bridge. The hole was included in the bridge as part of its design. We held that the bridge was part of a highway, which the township must maintain in safe condition, that the design, at the time the bridge was built, was so defective that its adoption by the municipality was itself an act of negligence and that the jury could therefore properly find the municipality liable in tort to the parents of the deceased. In Travers, a latent structural flaw caused a bridge to collapse, injuring the plaintiff. The flaw was not apparent and the bridge had safely been in use for more than thirty years. The trial court entered a nonsuit against the plaintiff. This Court affirmed grant of the nonsuit because the design of the bridge was not defective when the bridge was built and the municipality was under no obligation to the public other than to maintain the bridge, as designed, in safe condition:
“The bridge had been in use for more than thirty years, and failure to take proper care cannot be rested on the original manner of design or building (Eichenhofer v. Phila., 248 Pa. 365) [93 A. 1065], for there was no evidence *305to show that the plan followed was so defective as to make its adoption an act of negligence.”
280 Pa. at 338, 124 A. at 498.
Both appellant and the opinion of Mr. Justice Larsen rely on the testimony of an expert witness that, in his opinion, Bullens Lane is too narrow for current usage. This reliance is unjustified. Eichenhofer and Travers hold that a municipality is not liable for injuries allegedly caused by a road design not defective when adopted. Testimony that Bullens Lane, correctly designed when constructed, is too narrow under modem conditions, is precisely the type of evidence excluded by Travers and Eichenhofer. Thus, our cases reject appellant’s sole theory of recovery.
The opinion of Mr. Justice Larsen relies on Mitchell v. Rochester Borough, 395 Pa. 373, 150 A.2d 338 (1959) and Neidlinger v. Haines, 331 Pa. 529, 200 A. 581 (1938) for the proposition that the Township had a duty to maintain Bullens Lane at a width greater than its seventeen feet. Both cases are inapposite.
Neidlinger held only that a pedestrian enjoys rights to use the streets equal to those of motorists. Appellant’s right to use Bullens Lane is neither in issue nor relevant to whether appellant can recover from the Township. Mitchell belongs to a long line of cases holding that a township is responsible for defective conditions of roads. E. g., Hopton v. Borough of Donora, 415 Pa. 173, 202 A.2d 814 (1964) (hole in street); Bromberg v. Gekoski, 410 Pa. 320, 189 A.2d 176 (1963) (same); Aloia v. City of Washington, 361 Pa. 620, 65 A.2d 685 (1949) (same); Koerth v. Turtle Creek Borough, 355 Pa. 121, 49 A.2d 398 (1946) (same); McCracken v. Curwensville Borough, 309 Pa. 98, 163 A. 217 (1933) (dangerous road conditions caused by ice and snow); Musselman v. Hatfield Borough, 202 Pa. 489, 52 A. 15 (1902) (break in pavement). Here, however, appellant concedes that the road was not defective in maintenance or condition. This line of cases should not be misused to require municipalities, in the absence of statutory direction, to widen safely maintained roads not defective in design when built. This obligation *306may not be imposed upon a municipality based on an expert’s view that roads should be widened to adjust for actual or expected changes in usage.
I would therefore affirm the order of the trial court.
On appeal, appellant has also argued that the Township was under a duty because all municipalities subject to the First Class Township Code must construct roads at least twenty-four feet wide. Act of June 24, 1931, P.L. 1206, § 2012, as amended, 53 P.S. § 57012 (1957). As the opinion of Mr. Justice Larsen points out, appellant did not raise in the trial court the First Class Township Code as a basis of the alleged duty of the Township. We therefore may not consider this argument. Dilliplaine v. Lehigh Valley Trust Co., 457 Pa. 255, 322 A.2d 114 (1974).
Appellant also asserts that the Township was negligent because it failed to take precautionary measures, such as place warning signs of the road’s width, to protect travelers. Because appellant entered no evidence at trial that such precautionary measures might have averted the accident, this issue also is not before us.
EAGEN, C. J., joins in this dissenting opinion.