Court Opinion

ID: 9857487
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 14:40:51.594322+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:42:53.720944
License: Public Domain

GARIBALDI, J.,
dissenting.
This Court holds today that N.J.S.A. 59:4-5 does not immunize a public entity from liability for an automobile accident caused by a missing “stop” sign. Relying on the driver’s “reliance,” ante at 64, 648 A.2d at 712, the Court, however, erroneously converts an ordinary stop sign at an ordinary intersection into an “emergency *70signal,” creating a “dangerous condition,” thereby subjecting public entities to liability. I disagree and would affirm the trial court’s summary judgments in favor of defendants Gloucester County, Washington Township, and the Washington Township Police Department.
The majority opinion ignores both the Legislature’s clear and unambiguous intent, expressed in the New Jersey Tort Claims Act, N.J.S.A 59:1-1 to 12-3 (Act), to favor immunity for public entities, and the plain language of both N.J.S.A. 59:4-5 and N.J.SA 59:4-4. In this era of widespread vandalism and shrinking governmental resources, today’s holding also will impose a devastating burden on municipalities, counties, and the State.
I
The Legislature intended that under the Act a public entity’s immunity was to prevail over its potential liability. The Comment to N.J.SA 59:2-1 makes unmistakably clear that “the basic statutory approach of the New Jersey Tort Claims Act shall be that immunity of all governmental bodies in New Jersey is reestablished.” (Emphasis added.) The Comment to Subsection (b), of that statute states: “Subsection (b) is intended to insure that any immunity provisions provided in the act or by common law will prevail over the liability provisions. It is anticipated that the Courts will realistically interpret both the statutory and common law immunities in order to effectuate their intended scope.”
We have repeatedly emphasized that “immunity is the dominant theme of the Act” and that where immunity applies, liability does not attach. Weiss v. New Jersey Transit, 128 N.J. 376, 382-83, 608 A.2d 254 (1992); see Pico v. State, 116 N.J. 55, 560 A.2d 1193 (1989); Rochinsky v. State, Dep’t of Transp., 110 N.J. 399, 541 A.2d 1029 (1988); Kolitch v. Lindedahl, 100 N.J. 485, 492, 497 A.2d 183 (1985). Although the majority acknowledges that liability provisions cannot take precedence over specifically-granted immunities, ante at 57-60, 648 A 2d at 708-09, it departs from that *71well-established principle by ignoring the immunity granted public entities under N.J.SA 59:4-5.
II
The plain language of N.J.SA 59:4-5 discloses that the immunity set forth in that statute clearly and unambiguously applies to a public entity’s failure to replace a missing stop sign. That statute provides: “Neither a public entity nor a public employee is liable under this chapter for an injury caused by the failure to provide ordinary traffic signals, signs, markings or other similar devices.” (Footnote omitted.)
N.J.S.A. 59:4-5 has been applied to immunize public entities from liability for failure to provide an ordinary traffic signal or sign in a variety of circumstances. For example, in Weiss, supra, 128 N.J. at 385, 608 A.2d 254, this Court held that the failure of public entities to provide a traffic signal at a railroad crossing in a timely manner was immunized by N.J.S.A 59:4-5. Similarly, in Kolitch, supra, 100 N.J. at 496, 497 A.2d 183, this Court found that the State was not liable for failing to warn motorists of the hazardous nature of a curve on a highway. The Appellate Division has also applied N.J.S.A. 59:4-5 on several occasions. See, e.g., Smith v. State, Dep’t of Transp., 247 N.J.Super. 62, 69, 588 A.2d 854 (1991) (holding that Department of Transportation was immune from liability under N.J.S.A 59:4-5 for failing to replace missing sign warning motorists of low overpass), certif. denied, 130 N.J. 13, 611 A.2d 13 (1992); Johnson v. Township of Southampton, 157 N.J.Super. 518, 525, 385 A.2d 260 (holding municipality immune from liability under N.J.S.A. 59:4-5 for failure to mark intersection partially obstructed by trees and other vegetation), certif. denied, 77 N.J. 485, 391 A.2d 499 (1978); Aebi v. Monmouth County Highway Dep’t, 148 N.J.Super. 430, 434, 372 A.2d 1130 (1977) (holding county immune under N.J.S.A. 59:4-5 for failure to warn motorists “that the width of the road way was being suddenly reduced to the width of the bridge”).
*72In applying N.J.S.A. 59:4-5, our unifying principle has been “to identify the cause of the accident” and then to ask if that “identified cause or condition is one that the Legislature intended to immunize.” Weiss, supra, 128 N.J. at 380, 608 A.2d 254. I agree with the Law Division that the true cause of this accident was the failure to provide an ordinary traffic signal at the intersection. As we stated in Weiss, supra, 128 N.J. at 385, 608 A.2d 254: “When the absence of a traffic signal * * * is the true culprit, government is immune.” To hold a public entity liable for its failure promptly to replace an ordinary traffic signal would undermine the Legislature’s policy judgment that a public entity should be immune for an injury caused by its failure to provide a stop sign. See Kolitch, supra, 100 N.J. at 496, 497 A.2d 183 (“[Bjoth the decision [to post a sign] and the act of implementation are one and the same for the purposes of the [traffic-sign immunity].”); Smith, supra, 247 N.J.Super. at 69, 588 A.2d 854 (holding that “because there is immunity for not posting a sign initially and for where the sign is placed, immunity also exists for not replacing a missing sign”). I agree.
Ill
Against the overwhelming evidence that the specifically-granted immunity of N.J.S.A 59:4-5 applies, the majority nevertheless holds that N.J.S.A. 59:4-4, a liability provision, prevails. The Court does so by erroneously misinterpreting the plain language, of N.J.S.A 59:4-4. That statute provides:
Subject to section 59:4-2 of this act, a public entity shall be liable for injury proximately caused by its failure to provide emergency signals, signs, markings or other devices if such devices were necessary to warn of a dangerous condition which endangered the safe movement of traffic and which would not be reasonably apparent to, and would not have been anticipated by, a person exercising due care.
According to the statute, a public entity is liable only if it fails to provide an “emergency” traffic signal. N.J.S.A. 59:4-4 applies only to conditions that are “sudden, unexpected [or] emergent.” Spin Co. v. Maryland Casualty Co., 136 N.J.Super. 520, 524, 347 A.2d 20 (Law Div.1975); accord Weiss, supra, 128 N.J. at 383-84, *73608 A.2d 254 (holding N.J.S.A 59:4-4 inapplicable when “the danger [is] endemic, not emergent”). As the Appellate Division correctly stated in Smith:
it would be incongruous indeed to hold that there is immunity for failure to provide ordinary traffic signals under N.J.S.A. 59:4-5 but by simply labeling an ordinary, continuing and longstanding traffic condition “an emergency,” liability may be created for failing to provide “emergency signals, signs, markings or other devices.” An “emergency” means a sudden and unexpected condition, one that is extraordinary.
[247 N.J.Super. at 71-72, 588 A.2d 854 (footnote omitted).]
An ordinary stop sign does not become an “emergency” signal simply because it once existed but is now absent from an intersection. Because stop signs are “ordinary” traffic signals, no liability may attach to the failure to provide or replace one.
Nor do I believe that the conditions of this intersection at the time of the accident resembled a “trap.” See N.J.S.A 59:4-4, comment (stating that statute imposes liability “for the failure on the part of a public entity to provide an emergency warning signal or device when a condition exists constituting a ‘trap’ to a person using a street or highway with due care”). This is an ordinary intersection in a rural county. Nothing in the record implies that this is a unique intersection. As we stated in Weiss, supra, 128 N.J. at 384, 608 A.2d 254: “Whatever flaws may have existed were not sudden, unexpected or emergent.” Even the “death trap” in Kolitch was not regarded as an emergency that would necessitate the placement of warning signals. 100 N.J. at 497, 497 A.2d 183.
In the present case neither Pitman-Downer Road nor Mariner Drive was obstructed. If the overgrown shrubbery on private property created an obstacle, it was not one that would stop or catch drivers unaware. Rather, as the testimony from deposition witnesses indicated, any motorist attempting to traverse that intersection would have been aware of the blockage of visibility caused by the bushes. Stated differently, in the words of the statute, the dangerous condition “would ... be reasonably apparent to, and would ... have been anticipated by, a person exercising due care.” This Court previously made that very point in the *74context of a snowstorm. We stated that “the duty to warn addressed by N.J.S.A 59:4-4, applied in the context of a snowstorm, concerns only extraordinary conditions that are qualitatively different from those conditions that would be ‘reasonably apparent to’ or ‘anticipated by’ a careful motorist driving in this snowstorm.” Rochinsky, supra, 110 N.J. at 416, 541 A.2d 1029. Only such extraordinary and qualitatively different conditions can circumvent an immunity from liability otherwise specified by the Act. Id. at 416-17, 541 A.2d 1029. No conditions of that sort were present here, and therefore N.J.S.A 59:4-4 does not apply.
Unfortunately, drivers do run stop signs. A reasonable driver does not rely on another driver obeying a stop sign. More importantly, the majority’s reliance on a driver’s knowledge of the missing sign leads to the totally illogical approach that the public entity’s immunity depends on whether the driver is a native or a stranger to the area. Here, Trancucci was an out-of-town motorist. Presumably, if she had been driving Previte’s truck and he had been driving her car, and the accident had occurred, his heirs could not recover from the public entity, because as an out-of-town motorist Trancucci could not have relied on the missing stop sign: Nothing could do more violence to the Legislature’s intent that the public entity be immunized than the majority’s test for determining liability, which rests solely on the untestable thoughts of the driver — who, in most cases, will be a party to the action.
IV
The greatest failing, however, of the majority’s holding that public entities may be liable for their failure to replace every missing stop sign depending on what the driver allegedly knew is the overwhelming burden it will place on public entities. The extraordinary burden that this circumvention of the Act will impose is evident from this record. First, the record contains no evidence that this intersection is unique or different from thousands of other intersections in New Jersey. As Steven Horwell, a traffic-maintenance supervisor for the County of Gloucester, point*75ed out, in late 1989 the Gloucester County road system contained more than ten-thousand stop signs. Of those ten-thousand signs, approximately two-to-three-thousand stood at intersections in which a county road intersected another county road, but the remainder stood at intersections between a county road and either a state road or a municipal road. Accordingly, Supervisor Howell pointed out: “You have to remember every ... municipal street that crosses, that’s actually two signs. So there may only be five thousand municipal intersections on the county system[’] plus each one involves two approaches.” As amicus curiae, the Attorney General of New Jersey, points out, if Gloucester County, a rural county, has that many stop signs to maintain, one can only imagine the numbers of such signs in the urban and more populous counties. Moreover, under the Court’s decision the same reasoning presumably would apply not only to stop signs but also to other traffic signs, such as yield signs.
In this case, the record contains evidence that the stop sign was down as often as on three separate occasions during the thirty days prior to the accident. Evidence also exists that the sign was down on multiple occasions prior to November 1989. Indeed, the police chief of Washington Township testified at his deposition that vandalism of traffic signs was a recurring problem within the Township. Under the majority’s opinion, each time a stop sign is down, the municipality’s failure to replace the sign subjects it to risk of liability for an accident at the corresponding intersection.
V
To reach that convoluted result, the majority relies primarily on the California Tort Claims Act and its interpretation by a Professor Van Alstyne, not on the Act. Recently in Weiss, supra, in which we upheld the immunity of a public entity under N.J.S.A. 59:4-5, we specifically held that the California Tort Claims Act was not to be followed:
On the issue of holding the public entity accountable for delay in effectuating the installation of the traffic signal, we take account of our analogous policy with *76respect to the effect of the passage of time on plan or design immunity. Thus, although we often look to California for guidance in interpreting our Tort Claims Act we do not do so here.
[128 N.J. at 384-85, 608 A.2d 254 (citation omitted).]
Nor did we follow the California Tort Claims Act in Kolitch, supra, 100 N.J. at 496, 497 A.2d 183. The Appellate Division in Kolitch based its holding that the public entity was not immune on the theory set forth in De La Rosa v. City of San Bernardino, 16 Cal.App.3d 739, 94 Cal.Rptr. 175 (1971), that “ ‘although a public entity is not liable for failure to install traffic signs or signals ..., when it undertakes to do so and invites public reliance upon them, it may be held liable for creating a dangerous condition in so doing.’ ” 193 N.J.Super. at 548, 475 A.2d 48 (quoting De La Rosa, supra, 94 Cal.Rptr. at 179). However, we reversed the Appellate Division judgment in Kolitch. 100 N.J. at 488, 497 A.2d 183. We were unpersuaded by the De La Rose theory in 1985 and I remain unpersuaded today.
The majority, however, has changed its opinion and today adopts the De La Rosa theory. Indeed, two of the early California cases on which Professor Van Alstyne relied as support for his interpretation of the California Tort Claims Act were likewise used by the De La Rosa court. As Judge Fritz stated in his dissent in Kolitch in the Appellate Division, “I believe that my colleagues have succumbed to the blandishments of hard facts and as a consequence have invaded the legislative province.” 193 N.J.Super. at 549, 475 A.2d 48.
An examination of the pre-Act cases on which the majority relies also discloses that the majority misinterprets the holding of those cases, starting with Hoy v. Capelli, 48 N.J. 81, 222 A.2d 649 (1966), in which the Court held that the municipality was immune from liability. The comment to N.J.S.A 59:4-5 cites Hoy and states: “This section is consistent with existing New Jersey law and to be contrasted with section (59:4 — 4)[,] which relates only to the use or failure to use emergency warning devices.” In discussing the lower court’s decision, the Court in Hoy recited the lower court’s reasoning that the “sole traffic light at the intersection had *77been completely removed for almost two months and there [was] not the slightest suggestion that either driver relied on the fact that it or any other traffic regulation device had existed.” 48 N.J. at 86, 222 A.2d 649. Yet the holding in Hoy was that the municipality was immune, not because of the lack of reliance on the part of the drivers but because “[t]he decisions uniformly hold that a governmental determination to install or not to install traffic control devices cannot ground a cause of action.” Id. at 91, 222 A.2d 649.
From the majority opinion one receives the erroneous impression that the Legislature meant to codify Hoy’s statement concerning the lack of reliance on the part of the drivers in that case. That conclusion is wrong and misleading. The Comment to N.J.S.A. 59:4-5 cites Hoy for its holding — namely, that the municipality is not liable for failure to provide ordinary traffic signals. Indeed, the Comment’s citation of Hoy bolsters the concept of municipal immunity, not liability, in these types of cases.
The majority’s discussion of the Comment to N.J.S.A. 59:4-4 and its reference to Bergen v. Koppenal, 52 N.J. 478, 246 A.2d 442 (1968), is similarly misleading. The Comment to N.J.S.A. 59:4-4 states:
This provision declares that liability may exist for the failure on the part of a public entity to provide an emergency warning signal or device when a condition exists constituting a “trap” to a person using a street or highway with due care. It should be noted, however, that a public entity’s liability for failure to provide such signals or devices must be measured against the standard of whether the entity’s action or inaction was “palpably unreasonable.” Bergen v. Koppenal, 52 N.J. 478, 480, 246 A.2d 442 (1968).
The reliance on Bergen is meant to convey that liability for failure to provide emergency signals "will exist only if the municipality’s failure to provide such a signal is “palpably unreasonable.” In fact, the Comment’s citation to Bergen is merely a pinpoint citation to the phrase “palpably unreasonable.”
The majority’s opinion suggests that the Comment to N.J.S.A. 59:4-4 and its reference to Bergen means that the Legislature endorsed the Bergen decision. Because Bergen is an extremely *78fact-specific ease in which the Court issued a one-and-one-half page per curiam opinion that cited little law, I doubt that the Legislature’s reference to it should be given such weight.
Furthermore, Bergen is easily distinguishable from the case now before the Court. Bergen involved a malfunctioning light that led motorists on both sides of the intersection to believe that they had the right of way because the light was green to both sides. 52 N.J. at 480, 246 A.2d 442. The issue was whether a police officer had the duty to assume traffic control of the intersection after he learned of the existence of the damaged traffic signals. The Bergen Court concluded that the officer might have a duty because he discovered a potentially dangerous condition that was not readily detectable by the motorists. Ibid.
In addition, the 1975 Law Division case that the majority cites as well as the 1979 Law Division case from which the Court derives its test for determining the meaning of an emergency situation or trap hold the municipality immune, not liable. See Spin Co., supra, 136 N.J.Super. at 520, 347 A.2d 20, and Lytle v. Newark, 166 N.J.Super. 191, 399 A.2d 333 (1979). In Spin Co., the court relied on Hoy to hold the public entity immune for its failure to post a traffic signal to warn about an overpass because no emergency situation existed. 136 N.J.Super. at 525, 347 A.2d 20. In Lytle, the court distinguished Bergen and held the municipality immune for an accident that occurred at an intersection in which all the traffic lights were not functioning. The Court reasonably concluded that because the lights were not operating, “the intersection was like numerous other unregulated intersections and both plaintiff and the other driver were required to use due care in negotiating through it.” 166 N.J.Super. at 195, 399 A.2d 333. Hence, Lytle held that the malfunctioning lights did not create an actionable dangerous condition because under the Tort Claims Act a “ ‘dangerous condition’ becomes actionable only when the property is used with due care.” Id. at 195, 399 A.2d 333. (quoting N.J.S.A. 59:4-1). However, the court distinguished the drivers in Lytle from the drivers in Bergen because like the *79drivers in this case, the drivers in Lytle did not use due care. Therefore, like the drivers in Lytle, plaintiffs cannot maintain an actionable claim against the municipality.
The majority’s citation of Lytle indicates only that the suit against the municipality there was dismissed because the court determined that the malfunctioning lights were not the proximate cause of the accident. See ante at 61, 648 A.2d at 710. That holding is only an alternative holding to its primary holding that no actionable dangerous condition existed.
The majority also relies on the recent Appellate Division case of Eason v. New Jersey Automobile Full Insurance Underwriting Association, 274 N.J.Super. 364, 644 A.2d 142 (1994). That reliance is misplaced for two reasons. One, although the Court claims that Smith, supra, 247 N.J.Super. 62, 588 A.2d 854, does not conflict with Eason, Judge Dreier (writing for the Appellate Division in Eason) clearly thought that the two did conflict. See Eason, supra, 274 N.J.Super. at 372, 644 A.2d 142 (“Where we part with Smith is the extension of this immunity to the maintenance of the control after the decision has been fully implemented, and no policy decision has been made to remove the device.”). Two, Eason itself rests on the mistaken assumption that the initial decision to place a stop sign at an intersection means that that intersection is dangerous. See id. at 374, 644 A.2d 142 (“The Township, with the State’s concurrence, placed the stop sign at the intersection because they recognized that the intersection was dangerous.” (emphasis added)). The decision to place a stop sign cannot be synonymous with a declaration that the intersection controlled by that sign is dangerous. Moreover, if that conclusion were accepted, every stop-sign or traffic-light-controlled intersection would amount to a dangerous situation. To suggest that Gloucester County alone would have tens of thousands of emergency intersections is unthinkable.
VI
The majority fails to follow the statutory mandate that “any immunity provisions provided in the act or by common law will *80prevail over the liability.” N.J.S.A. 59:2-1 comment. Nothing can be more evident than the statutory immunity contained in N.J.S.A. 59:4-5. That section operates as an absolute immunity to bar any suit against public entities for their failure to provide ordinary traffic signs, including stop signs. Because immunity under N.J.S.A. 59:4r-5 so clearly applies, the majority’s reliance on N.J.S.A. 59:4-4 is misplaced. It is misplaced not only because N.J.S.A. 59:4-4 is a liability provision but also because that provision refers only to “emergency warning signals.” A stop sign is an ordinary regulatory sign, not an emergency warning signal. Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices at 12B-1 (1988).
The Court should not ignore the plain legislative policy underlying the Tort Claims Act and turn that underlying policy upside-down. Today, the Court attempts by a tortured route to find potential liability and elevates that potential liability over statutory immunity. Because of the statute’s plain language, the Legislature’s clear intent that the Tort Claims Act be construed strictly, and the burden today’s decision will impose on public entities, I would affirm the judgment of the court below and hold that plaintiffs claim against the public-entity defendant is barred.
Our conclusion in Weiss bears repeating here: “The tragic circumstances of this case that so strongly counsel the departure from the provisions of the Act may commend a legislative response. In the absence of such a response, we cannot find a cause of action stated under the Tort Claims Act.” 128 N.J. at 385, 608 A.2d 254.
Justice POLLOCK joins in this opinion.
For vacating and remandment — Chief Justice WILENTZ, and Justices HANDLER, O’HERN and STEIN — 4.
For affirmance — Justices POLLOCK and GARIBALDI — 2.