Court Opinion

ID: 9781293
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 16:28:32.88118+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:23.642034
License: Public Domain

*506HUNTER, Robert C., Judge,
dissenting.
As I discern no meaningful distinction between the present case and Myers v. McGrady, 360 N.C. 460, 628 S.E.2d 761 (2006), I must conclude plaintiffs’ negligence claims are barred by the public duty doctrine and I respectfully dissent.1
The public duty doctrine “provides that when a governmental entity owes a duty to the general public, particularly a statutory duty, individual plaintiffs may not enforce the duty in tort.” Id. at 465-66, 628 S.E.2d at 766. In Myers, the plaintiff and third-party plaintiffs (collectively “the plaintiffs”) filed claims of negligence against a division of the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (“DENR”), a state agency, “for failure to control a naturally occurring forest fire or failing to make safe a public highway adjacent to the fire.” Id. at 462, 628 S.E.2d at 763 (footnote omitted).
In concluding the public duty doctrine barred the plaintiffs’ claims in Myers, our Supreme Court recognized our statutes provided that the DENR “ ‘may take such action as it may deem necessary to provide for the prevention and control of forest fires in any and all parts of this State.’ ” Id. at 467, 628 S.E.2d at 766-67 (quoting N.C. Gen. Stat. § 113-51(a) (2005) (emphasis omitted)). To execute this duty, the Secretary of the agency may appoint forest rangers, who in turn, “ ‘shall prevent and extinguish forest fires and shall have control and direction of all persons and equipment while engaged in the extinguishing of forest fires.’ ” Id. at 467-68, 628 S.E.2d at 767 (quoting N.C. Gen. Stat. § 113-55 (2005) (emphasis omitted)).
Thus, the agency and its divisions must make discretionary decisions for the “allocation of limited resources to address statewide needs . . . made in furtherance of a statutory duty to the citizens of North Carolina at large.” Myers, 360 N.C. at 468, 628 S.E.2d at 767. The Myers Court reasoned that because our statutes impose a duty on the DENR “to protect the citizens of North Carolina as a whole,” the agency did not owe a specific duty to the plaintiffs. Id. at 468-69, 628 S.E.2d at 767 (further noting that two common law exceptions to the public duty doctrine were not raised by the plaintiffs and that the statutes at issue did not create a duty to protect a particular class of individuals, which could bar application of the doctrine); see Multiple *507Claimants v. N.C. Dep’t of Health & Human Servs., 361 N.C. 372, 374, 646 S.E.2d 356, 358 (2007) (discussing the “special relationship” and “special duty” exceptions to the public duty doctrine).
Here, the nature of the Department of Transportation’s duty is no different. Mandated by statute and recognized by our courts, the DOT owes a “ ‘duty to the general public ... to plan, design, locate, construct and maintain the public highways in the State of North Carolina, with reasonable care.’ ” Phillips v. N.C. Dep’t of Transp., 200 N.C. App. 550, 560, 684 S.E.2d 725, 732 (2009) (quoting finding by the North Carolina Industrial Commission and concluding it was consistent with the duty of the DOT as prescribed by section 143B-346 of our General Statutes); see N.C. Gen. Stat. § 136-45 (2009) (providing that the DOT “shall take over, establish, construct, and maintain a statewide system of hard-surfaced and other dependable highways ... to relieve the counties and cities and towns of the State of this burden”). The majority acknowledges the DOT’s directive, but concludes the DOT has no underlying discretionary decision process that warrants protection by the public duty doctrine.
Our courts, however, have previously recognized the discretion the DOT must exercise to determine how best to design and maintain our roads. See Drewry v. N.C. Dep’t of Transp., 168 N.C. App. 332, 338, 607 S.E.2d 342, 346-47 (“The [DOT] is vested with broad discretion in carrying out its duties and the discretionary decisions it makes are not subject to judicial review ‘unless [their] action is so clearly unreasonable as to amount to oppressive and manifest abuse.’ ” (citation omitted) (second alteration in original), disc. review denied, 359 N.C. 410, 612 S.E.2d 318 (2005). Additionally, as our Supreme Court recognized the limited resources of the North Carolina Department of Labor in Stone v. N.C. Dep’t of Labor, 347 N.C. 437, 481, 495 S.E.2d 711, 716, cert. denied, 119 S. Ct. 540, 142 L. Ed. 2d 449 (1998), it cannot reasonably be doubted that the DOT has finite resources, which necessitates discretionary decisions for the allocation of those resources. Thus, I conclude the justification for the public duty doctrine applies in the present case: “By limiting liability, the rule recognizes that the legislative and executive branches must often allocate limited resources for the benefit of the public at large and permits governmental entities to carry out statutory responsibilities without incurring risk of overwhelming liability.” Myers, 360 N.C. at 466, 628 S.E.2d at 766. Or, as expressed by our Supreme Court in Stone, “[i]t is better to have such laws, even haphazardly enforced, than not to have them at all.” 347 N.C. at 481, 495 S.E.2d at 716 (citation and quotation marks omitted).
*508In addition to concluding the DOT exercises no discretion in fulfilling its statutory duty, the majority concludes the public duty doctrine does not apply here because plaintiffs allege the DOT’S negligence was its failure to repair the highway, not a failure to prevent harm by an outside force, a “hazard[] created by others.” Failure to prevent harm from an external force is a feature common to all claims justifying application of the public duty doctrine. See Strickland v. Univ. of N.C. at Wilmington, _ N.C. App. _, _, 712 S.E.2d 888, 892 (2011) (“In all cases where the public duty doctrine has been held applicable, the breach of the alleged duty has involved the governmental entity’s negligent control of an external injurious force or of the effects of such a force.” (footnote omitted)).
The Strickland Court concluded the public duty doctrine was not applicable in that case, and held the defendants liable, in part because the defendant-police department’s breach of duty was in negligently providing the “injurious force” (inaccurate information regarding the suspect of a criminal investigation), which caused the police to fatally wound the victim. Id. It was not a case of negligently failing to prevent harm from an external injurious force. Id.
I conclude the injurious force at issue here is distinguishable from that in Strickland and is more closely aligned with the force in Myers. In Myers, the plaintiffs alleged the defendants negligently failed to control a forest fire or to make safe the highway obscured by smoke from the fire. 360 N.C. at 462, 628 S.E.2d at 763. Here, plaintiffs’ allege the DOT negligently failed to repair a “defectively eroded” section of a highway made worse by other vehicles. In both situations, external natural forces — compounded here by external manmade forces — caused conditions that State agencies failed to control, with tragic consequences.
Furthermore, while in both instances the State agencies failed to prevent plaintiffs’ harm, causation is not the relevant focus in determining if the public duty doctrine applies. “Indeed, this Court has held that the public duty doctrine only applies to duty and not causation . . . .” Strickland, _ N.C. App. at _ n.4, 712 S.E.2d at 893 n.4 (citing Drewry, 168 N.C. App. at 337-38, 607 S.E.2d at 346-47). As the name suggests, the defendant’s duty — or more accurately, the lack of a duty to the plaintiff — is the determinative factor in applying the public duty doctrine. Estate of Burgess v. Hamrick, _ N.C. App. _, _, 698 S.E.2d 697, 701, disc. review denied, _ N.C. _, 703 S.E.2d 444 (2010) (“In a claim for negligence, there must exist a ‘legal *509duty owed by a defendant to a plaintiff, and in the absence of any such duty owed the injured party by the defendant, there can be no liability. . . . ‘[W]hen the public duty doctrine applies, the government entity, as the defendant, owes no legal duty to the plaintiff.’ ” (citations omitted)). Here, plaintiffs do not argue that the two common law exceptions to the application of the public duty doctrine apply.
Therefore, because the DOT owes a recognized duty to the general public and not to plaintiffs individually, I must conclude plaintiffs have failed to state claims in negligence. See Myers, 360 N.C. at 463, 628 S.E.2d at 764 (“If the plaintiff alleges negligence by failure to carry out a recognized public duty, and the State does not owe a corresponding special duty of care to the plaintiff individually, then the plaintiff has failed to state a claim in negligence.”) Accordingly, I would affirm the order of the Industrial Commission.

. I note that with the enactment of N.C. Gen. Stat. § 143-299.XA, the General Assembly limited the scope of the public duty doctrine. However, as section 143-299.1A applies only to claims arising on or after 1 October 2008, it does not impact my analysis of plaintiffs’ claims. 2008 N.C. Sess. Laws ch. 170, § 2.