Court Opinion

ID: 9590110
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:51:35.619856+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:08:57.268113
License: Public Domain

Grady, C. J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part)— I concur in that part of the opinion affirming the judgment of the trial court against Northern Pacific Railroad Company, and reversing the judgment against the city of Seattle, but am not in accord with the view that RCW 47.36.060 is indefinite or uncertain or that there is anything about it with which city officials cannot conform, or that the city may not know when it is or when it is not disobeying legislative command.
The act of 1937 quoted in the majority opinion appears to have left it to the discretion of the city authorities where the traffic devices referred to should be placed and maintained in order to warn traffic of danger. The act of 1939 *786requires local authorities to place and maintain such traffic devices upon public highways as may be necessary to warn such traffic. It is a clear and direct mandate. Under such a statute, a city has the duty to ascertain and become aware of dangerous places and adequately warn the traveling public of their existence. If the city is charged with a nonperformance of this duty and claims that the place in question was not of such a character as to require any device to warn the traveling public, a question for the trier of fact may arise, or if the facts are not in dispute, the question may be one of law for the court to decide. No legislative standard is needed in order to enable public officers and agents to know when a place is dangerous and that a warning device is necessary.
In this case, the sole proximate cause of the accident was the negligence of appellant Northern Pacific Railroad Company when its servants propelled the locomotive onto the paved portion of the highway without adequately warning drivers of automobiles of its approach to the highway. This conclusion makes it unnecessary to determine whether or not it was necessary that the city of Seattle place a warning device at or near the intersection of the street and the railroad track where the accident occurred.