Court Opinion

ID: 9730078
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:00:27.257179+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:03.972489
License: Public Domain

Shanahan, J.,
dissenting.
The majority opinion paints a picture in hues of a herculean task involving the city’s trees. However, the crux of this case is not inspection of 10,000 silver maples, but the city’s inspection of just one tree.
The majority opinion is predicated on two premises: (1) There is no evidence that the city was negligent regarding inspection of trees; and (2) It is unreasonable to require the city to conduct lengthy, individual tree inspections.
As roots for its opinion, the majority states: ‘‘The assistant city forester stated that the tree did not show any external indication of serious internal decay”; ‘‘The testimony does not show that the indicators of decay as testified to by Dr. McNabb were readily visible from an on-street inspection”; and ‘‘There is no testimony in the record which would *596support a finding that a reasonable investigation would have revealed the extent of the decay present in the tree.”
If that were the extent of the record, one might wonder how the district court ever found the city negligent.
Without objection from the city, McGinn’s expert, Dr. McNabb, expressed his opinion that the tree in question manifested signs or symptoms observable to the trained eye of a city forester, namely, signs or symptoms indicating an advanced state of decay within the tree in question. Dr. McNabb further testified about several other important factors. Signs or symptoms of advanced decay in the tree were manifested at least 5 to 10 years before the accident. A thorough inspection of the 85-year-old tree would have taken between 15 minutes and y2 hour. Indication of the advanced state of decay in the tree, ‘‘heartrot,” was apparent to the ‘‘naked eye” of any tree inspector.
The city had an ‘‘ongoing” inspection of trees to determine which trees should be removed. If inspection disclosed external evidence of a tree’s rotten interior, steps were taken to ascertain the extent of interior decay and determine whether the decayed condition warranted immediate or deferred removal of the tree. In September 1979, approximately 10 months before the accident, the assistant city forester inspected the tree in question. As reflected in the majority opinion, to the city employees ‘‘the tree appeared ... to be an excellent tree without symptoms which would have required” the city to take any further action. However, as testified by Dr. McNabb, the telltale indicators were readily observable when the tree was ‘‘walked around” and inspected by the city’s forester in the fall of 1979. The city’s tree expert testified that examination after the accident revealed ‘‘approximately half the volume of the tree” appeared to be decayed and ‘‘fifty percent of the total volume [of the tree]” was gone. In *597such state the evidence presented a question of fact about the presence or absence of care regarding the city’s inspection of the tree which crushed McGinn.
After receiving evidence that there was a manifest indication of rot or decay in the tree, the trial court made a specific finding:
The testimony revealed that the inspection of late 1979 (with none in 1980 prior to the accident) was part of a tree-census taking by the regular personnel of the Forestry Division and some temporary help. It was a rather cursory inspection as far as attempting to fulfill the City’s obligation toward maintaining its trees in a safe condition. There is no evidence that a proper inspection was made.
Thus, the trial court found the city failed to use reasonable care in inspecting the tree and such failure was the proximate cause of McGinn’s injury.
Any problematical question about the city’s duty in formulating an inspection program became irrelevant when the city actually undertook an inspection of the particular tree in this case and failed to see the readily observable and, manifest signs of advanced decay in the tree. When one under no obligation to act does undertake action, one must act with reasonable care. The preceding principle is not novel, and is based on law much older than the tree which fell on McGinn. “ ‘If a party undertake[s] to perform work, and proceed[s] on the employment, he makes himself liable for any misfeasance in the course of that work ....’” See Hart v. Ludwig, 347 Mich. 559, 562, 79 N.W.2d 895, 896-97 (1956), citing and quoting from Elsee v. Gatward, 5 Durnform & East’s 143, 101 Eng. Rep. 82 (1793).
The oft-quoted rule was aptly and simply expressed by Judge Benjamin Cardozo in Glanzer v. Shepard, 233 N.Y. 236, 239-40, 135 N.E. 275, 276 (1922):
It is ancient learning that one who assumes to *598act, even though gratuitously, may thereby become subject to the duty of acting carefully, if he acts at all (Coggs v. Bernard, 2 Ld. Raymond, 909; Shiells v. Blackburne, 1 H. Bl. 158; Willes, J., in Skelton v. L. & N. W. Ry. Co., L. R. 2 C. P. 631, 636; Kent, Ch. J., in Thorne v. Deas, 4 Johns. 84, 96).
Judge Cardozo later paraphrased the rule in Moch Co. v. Rensselaer Water Co., 247 N.Y. 160, 167, 159 N.E. 896, 898 (1928): “The hand once set to a task may not always be withdrawn with impunity though liability would fail if it had never been applied at all.” A governmental or political subdivision as well as a private individual must act with reasonable care in reference to action undertaken without an obligation to act. See Barnum v. Rural Fire Protection Company, 24 Ariz. App. 233, 537 P.2d 618 (1975); accord Wolf v. City of New York, 39 N.Y.2d 568, 349 N.E.2d 858, 384 N.Y.S.2d 758 (1976). See, also, Wulf v. Rebbun, 25 Wis. 2d 499, 131 N.W.2d 303 (1964). The very word inspection used by the city to describe its actions required the city to see the manifest and externally observable signs or symptoms of advanced decay in the tree — a situation which called for further protective measures by the city, including possible removal of the tree. To fail to see the obvious in plain view constituted a breach of the duty undertaken by the city.
When the city’s employee inspected the tree, there was clearly observable and external evidence of advanced decay within the tree. The exact extent of the tree’s interior decay before the accident was never actually known to the city only because the city did not see what was in plain sight and there to be seen. Failure to observe what was in plain view prevents the city’s inspection from being characterized as even remotely reasonable. There was evidence before the trial court that the city had constructive knowledge of the tree’s interior decay.
[The Political Subdivisions Tort Claims Act] *599[s]ection 23-2406, R.R.S. 1943, requires that actions of this nature shall be heard without a jury but otherwise determined in the same manner as other suits. The action is similar to a law action in which a jury has been waived and is governed by the same rules.
‘ ‘It is not within the province of this court in a law action to resolve conflicts in or to weigh evidence. If there is a conflict in the evidence, this court will review the judgment rendered, will presume that controverted facts were decided by the trial court in favor of the successful party, and the findings will not be disturbed unless clearly wrong. * * *
“The findings of the court in a law action in which a jury is waived have the effect of a verdict of the jury and will not be disturbed on appeal unless clearly wrong.”
Buttner v. Omaha P. P. Dist., 193 Neb. 515, 517-18, 227 N.W.2d 862, 864 (1975).
“In determining the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain a judgment, it must be considered in the light most favorable to the successful party. Every controverted fact must be resolved in his favor and he is entitled to the benefit of every inference that can reasonably be deduced from the evidence.” [Citations omitted.] Moreover, under the Political Subdivisions Tort Claims Act, section 23-2406, R.R.S. 1943, the “findings of a District Court under the act will not be disturbed on appeal unless they are clearly wrong.” [Citation omitted.]
Daniels v. Andersen, 195 Neb. 95, 98, 237 N.W.2d 397, 400 (1975).
The disturbing features of the majority opinion culminate in the quiet alteration of our standard of review in cases under the Political Subdivisions Tort Claims Act. The majority neither suggests nor concludes Dr. McNabb’s testimony was incredible. Consequently, Dr. McNabb’s opinion was credible *600evidence before the trier of fact. The majority provides no standard or reason for appellate annulment of evidence and findings of the trial court, but ignores or disregards the evidence before the trial court. As a result of the majority opinion, our review of governmental tort claims is transformed to de novo on the record, that is, under the Political Subdivisions Tort Claims Act we now substitute our judgment for that of the trial court and make an independent determination of facts apart from the findings made by the trial court. Even in a de novo review of the record, where there is a conflict on a material issue of fact, we give consideration to a judge’s observation of witnesses in the trial court’s accepting one version of facts over another.
In the present case there is evidence to support the trial court’s findings, and those findings are not clearly wrong. The judgment of the trial court should have been affirmed.
Krivosha, C.J., and White, J., join in this dissent.