Court Opinion

ID: 9613372
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:16:29.374836+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:54.775515
License: Public Domain

GOLDEN, Justice,
concurring in part; dissenting in part.
I concur in this court’s affirmance of the summary judgment in favor of 71 Construction; however, I respectfully dissent from this court’s reversal of the summary judgment in favor of Kloefkorn-Ballard. I would hold as a matter of law that Kloef-korn-Ballard’s failure to sign the construction area was not the proximate cause of this tragic accident and John Allmaras’ senseless death.
I agree with the majority that Kloef-korn-Ballard, as the road contractor, owed a duty to the motoring public to take due precautions for the safety of motorists. Gilpatrick Construction v. Wind River Ready-Mix Concrete Company, 473 P.2d 586 (Wyo.1970); Phelan v. Read Construction Company, 379 P.2d 829 (Wyo.1963); Brasel & Sims Construction Co. v. Neuman Transit Co. Inc., 378 P.2d 501 (Wyo.1963); and Jackson v. W.A. Norris, Inc., 54 Wyo. 403, 93 P.2d 498 (1939); and see 4 Blashfield Automobile Law and Practice § 164.11, p. 428 (3d ed. 1965).
Before proceeding, I reiterate this court’s definition of proximate cause, that it “means the accident * * * must be the natural and probable cause of the act of negligence” and “is normally a question of fact unless the evidence is such that reasonable minds could not disagree.” Century Ready-Mix Company, et al. v. Campbell County School District, et al., 816 P.2d 795, 805-06 (Wyo.1991); Stephenson v. Pacific Power & Light Company, 779 P.2d 1169, 1178 (Wyo.1989). After carefully reading the materials submitted by the parties for and against summary judgment, I conclude that the evidence presented is such that reasonable minds could not disagree. Therefore, Kloefkorn-Ballard’s failure to sign the construction area was not the proximate cause of this tragedy.
The most pertinent materials submitted by the parties and on which they relied for purposes of the summary judgment motion included the depositions of the three surviving occupants of the car, driver Lisa Mudge and two passengers Jackie Kinder and Troy Nash; the deposition of Officer Bran-son, investigating for the city police department; the deposition of Sgt. Martin, investigating on behalf of the Wyoming Highway Patrol; and the affidavit and deposition of Arnold G. Wheat, accident recon-structionist hired by plaintiff Joseph All-maras.
From the depositions of driver Lisa Mudge and passenger Jackie Kinder, we learn that they were familiar with the construction area, having driven through it twice before the accident happened. They had driven in the northbound lane through the area around 3:00 or 4:00 p.m. Later that same day, around 9:30 or 10:00 p.m., they traveled through the construction area again. Kinder reminded Mudge of the area’s existence before she got to it, and Mudge successfully passed around the area at a rate of speed of 30-35 m.p.h. Referring to the construction area as a “dip” in the road, Mudge testified she was concerned with the dip at this time because she did not “want to hit it.” On this occasion the deceased and Troy Nash, both of whom two hours later would be unfortunate passengers in the car driven by Mudge when it crashed, were following Mudge in the deceased’s car and also traveled through the area. About this, Nash testified he saw Mudge brake briefly at the construction area but go around it at a “pretty fast speed,” a lot faster than the deceased did. He believed she was over the speed limit when she briefly applied her brakes.
The accident occurred approximately two hours after Mudge and Kinder had traveled through the area on their way to Mudge’s house for a party. According to the investigating law enforcement personnel, at the time of the accident Mudge was operating the high performance Camaro at a rate of *544speed from 60-70 m.p.h. when these youths approached the construction area. Mr. Wheat also estimated Mudge’s rate of speed at approximately 60 m.p.h. About this fateful approach to the construction area, Kinder testified that she told Mudge she was driving too fast, and Mudge testified that as she traveled southbound on Valley Drive, “It was in my head, I believe” that the construction area was there. At a distance of about 300 feet north of the construction area (the length of a football field), in order to be heard over the blaring car stereo speaker playing the pop hit La Bamba, Kinder screamed that Mudge should not forget that the construction area was ahead. At the time of this warning, the Mudge-driven Camaro was about a half block north of the intersection of Valley Drive and Marigold (Marigold joins Valley Drive from the east and is not a through street, i.e., it ends at Valley Drive). Mudge testified she does not recall becoming concerned about the construction area. Neither Mudge nor Kinder remember what happened from this point on as the accident unfolded.
Troy Nash remembered the events preceding the accident. As Mudge turned onto Valley Drive and headed south in the southbound lane, she “started getting some pretty high speed going.” So to Nash, Mudge seemed to continue picking up speed before the accident. He testified that where Valley Drive curves, Mudge was going fast enough that when they came to the curve Mudge switched from the southbound lane to the oncoming northbound lane so she would not roll the car. Nash said, “She was going too fast to stay in the right lane. And it’s like a race car driver, where you go around the corner, you bank high. Well, that’s what she was doing.” Nash further testified there was no traffic on Valley Drive as they traveled southbound.
According to Nash, both he and the deceased simultaneously told Mudge to slow down. They told her this a couple of seconds before Kinder told Mudge to “watch out for the hole [construction area].” Nash testified the car was in the northbound lane on Valley drive for a few seconds and then moved over into the southbound lane. The car then hit the west curb on Valley Drive. When the car hit the curb, the car careened to the left, sliding toward the construction area.
Officer Branson testified that the Mudge-driven Camaro struck the west curb of Valley Drive about 190 feet north of the south curb of Dahlia Street which intersects Valley Drive south of Marigold’s intersection with Valley Drive. Branson estimated Mudge’s rate of speed at about 60 m.p.h. when she struck the curb. Further, Mudge’s blood alcohol was .14; the level at which a person is considered intoxicated in Wyoming is .10 or more. W.S. 31-5-233(b)(iii) (Nov. 1984 Repl.)
Sgt. Martin investigated Valley Drive north of the west curb area. He then called in Lt. Arnold from the highway patrol and together they investigated Valley Drive north from the intersection of Marigold and Valley Drive. They found tire marks attributed to the Mudge-driven Ca-maro which crossed from the southbound lane of Valley Drive into the northbound lane and onto the east sidewalk approximately 200 feet north of Marigold. Martin, Arnold and Officer Dye, also of the highway patrol, calculated Mudge’s rate of speed to be approximately 70 m.p.h. at a point about 300 feet north of the construction area. According to Martin’s calculations, the Mudge-driven Camaro traveled on the sidewalk for about 200 feet before it left the sidewalk at Marigold and Valley Drive. Thus, when Mudge was nearly 430 feet north of the construction area, she had switched from the southbound to the northbound lane and gone onto the east sidewalk, all the while traveling at a high rate of speed.
In summary, we have a driver who was under the influence of alcohol, driving a high performance vehicle at a rate of speed estimated between 60-70 m.p.h., and traveling on a familiar curving roadway toward a known construction area.
Against this factual setting, appellant relies on the deposition and subsequent affidavit of an accident reconstructionist to *545create an issue of fact about whether Kloefkorn-Ballard’s failure to sign the construction area was a proximate cause of the accident. This witness stated that the purpose of signs is to warn motorists of the presence of the construction site so they may adjust their driving to safely traverse the area. In Lopez v. American National Bank of Cheyenne, 389 P.2d 21, 22 (Wyo.1964), in which this court affirmed a directed verdict for the defendant bank and against the bank’s customer who was injured when he walked into and shattered the glass panel next to a glass double-door entrance to the bank, this court said:
Even had there been a duty on the part of the bank to give some type of special warning to its business invitees that the two, plainly indicated, glass entrance doors had glass panels on either side of them, plaintiff said he knew the panel was there. This knowledge on plaintiffs part obviated the need for any warning being given so far as [plaintiff] was concerned.
Relying on Lopez, this court affirmed a summary judgment against a lodge patron who had slipped and fallen on a path, saying
[knowledge of danger on the part of plaintiff obviated any need for warning signs, [citing Lopez ] It would be absurd to put up a sign saying, “Slippery, Walk Carefully” or “Danger — Ice,” when it tells the plaintiff something he is bound to know because of its presence which he can see and realize just as well through his own active senses, without prompting. There was no hidden danger but only a well-known prevailing condition.
Bluejacket v. Carney, 550 P.2d 494, 498 (Wyo.1976).
Appellant’s accident reconstruction witness, both in deposition and in affidavit, speculates that Mudge would have reacted sooner and adjusted her rate of speed and driving behavior to safely traverse the construction area with which she was familiar had signs been properly placed. That opinion and other similar opinions that adorn this witness’s conclusory testimony are rank conjecture, are inadmissible evidence
under W.R.E. 702 and 704, and fail to create a genuine issue of material fact. Brebaugh v. Hales, 788 P.2d 1128, 1140 (Wyo.1990); Baros v. Wells, 780 P.2d 341, 345 (Wyo.1989); and see Stephens v. State, 774 P.2d 60, 66-67 (Wyo.1989). As this court strongly reminded litigants in Bluejacket:
Mere conjecture is never sufficient to establish liability: if the walks had been shoveled, sanded or salted or there had been a warning sign, and the light was on, the plaintiff might not have been injured. That is not enough. Causal connection has not been established. There is no liability for injuries from dangers that are obvious, reasonably apparent, or as well known to the person injured as they are to the owner of the facilities in question.
Bluejacket, 550 P.2d at 497.
I would affirm the summary judgment for Kloefkom-Ballard.