Court Opinion

ID: 9752091
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 17:34:25.408627+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:06.734997
License: Public Domain

STEIN, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Reduced to its simplest terms, the Court’s opinion today holds that when the State builds a bridge with a steel-grid deck that eventually will be worn smooth, the State need not maintain the surface to make it safe again. Accordingly, the State may stand by while motorists are put at risk, and will enjoy immunity if injuries result. That cannot be the intended application of the Tort Claims Act.
I
Joseph Manna died as a result of injuries sustained in a car accident on the Matawan Creek Bridge in Aberdeen when his car slid out of control and into the oncoming lane of traffic. The twenty-six-year-old bridge was wet and slippery from an earlier rainfall. Decedent’s wife, Gail Manna, filed an action against the State of New Jersey and the State Department of Transportation (State), claiming that the State had negligently constructed, maintained, repaired, and serviced the bridge and had failed to provide adequate warnings of the bridge’s dangerous condition.
In support of its motion for summary judgment, the State offered the affidavit of Nicholas J. Cifelli, the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Regional Director for Region III and a Licensed Professional Engineer. Cifelli stated that he had reviewed the “as-built” plans for the bridge, and that the bridge design, including the paved portion and the steel-grid section, had been “approved in advance of construction” by the State Highway Commissioner and other officials bearing the authori*360ty to issue such approvals. Although Cifelli did not indicate whether he had ever personally inspected the bridge, he represented that the bridge had been constructed in accordance with the approved plans. He concluded that on July 19, 1986, the date of Mr. Manna’s accident, the bridge “was substantially the same as was shown in the various as-built plans.”
Plaintiff submitted the report of Richard A. Haber, a consulting civil engineer, who had evaluated the bridge’s condition following the accident through reports, photographs, reconstruction contracts, and by personally inspecting the site. He found that the open-mesh-steel grid had been installed in 1960 with a configuration of “blocks” that served as a deterrent to skids. Haber concluded that the “blocks” had worn away so that they were “now part of a smooth, skidprone surface” that would retain a water film and allow hydroplaning. The police report following the accident described the deck surface at the time of the accident as “very slippery.” Accident records indicated that the bridge had been involved or a critical factor in forty-eight accidents between January 1975 and July 1986.
The trial court first determined that plaintiff could establish a prima facie case that a dangerous condition had existed, as set forth in N.J.S.A. 59:4-2. Nevertheless, the trial court granted the State’s motion for summary judgment, concluding that plaintiff’s claim was barred by both the weather and the plan-or-design immunities. In an unpublished opinion, the Appellate Division affirmed the trial court’s ruling although it expressly declined to discuss the applicability of the plan-or-design immunity. The Court holds that the State failed to establish conclusively the applicability of the Tort Claims Act’s weather immunity, a conclusion with which I agree; the majority further concludes, that the plan-or-design immunity shields the State from liability.
II
The “plan or design” immunity provision of the Tort Claims Act, N.J.S.A. 59:4-6(a), immunizes the State from liability stem*361ming from injuries “caused by the plan or design of public property, either in its original construction or any improvement thereto, where such plan or design has been approved in advance of the construction or improvement” by the Legislature or authorized officials. We have held that for “plan or design” immunity to attach, the public entity must demonstrate that an approved feature of the plan adequately addressed the dangerous condition that is causally related to the accident. Weiss v. New Jersey Transit, 128 N.J. 376, 389-90, 608 A.2d 254 (1992); Thompson v. Newark Hous. Auth., 108 N.J. 525, 536, 531 A.2d 734 (1987); Birchwood Lakes Colony Club v. Medford Lakes, 90 N.J. 582, 599, 449 A.2d 472 (1982); Daniel v. New Jersey Dep’t of Transp., 239 N.J.Super. 563, 597, 571 A.2d 1329 (App.Div.), certif. denied, 122 N.J. 325, 585 A.2d 343 (1990); Ciambrone v. New Jersey Dep’t of Transp., 233 N.J.Super. 101, 105-06, 558 A.2d 47 (App.Div.), certif. denied, 117 N.J. 664, 569 A.2d 1356 (1989); Ellison v. Housing Auth., 162 N.J.Super. 347, 351, 392 A.2d 1229 (App.Div.1978).
According to the majority, the State established the applicability of the plan-or-design immunity because of evidence, presented by both the State’s and plaintiff’s experts, that “the bridge’s steel grid was an approved feature of the original design,” and that the original plans “specifically considered how to create traction on the bridge’s surface.” Ante at 354, 609 A2d at 763. That analysis, however, misconstrues the issue before the Court. Plaintiff does not contend that the bridge design was faulty or that it should not have required maintenance. Nor does plaintiff contend that the original design should have required installation of metal studs to increase traction. Rather, plaintiff asserts that the State is liable because the State failed adequately to maintain the bridge’s surface, which it could have accomplished by replacing the steel-grid surface, by installing studs, or by some other method that retained the steel-grid design but provided adequate traction.
Contrary to the majority’s contention, the original plan’s attention to the traction issue does not immunize the State for *362the bridge’s deteriorated condition twenty-six years after it was constructed. Evidence that “the bridge’s steel grid was an approved feature of the original design” is irrelevant to the applicability of plan-or-design immunity because that proof does not address whether the plan contemplated future maintenance of the bridge in case the steel grid became worn. See Thompson, supra, 108 N.J. at 531, 534-35, 531 A.2d 734 (concluding that immunity cannot attach for failure to install smoke detectors in Housing Authority apartments when plans did not cover smoke detectors or other fire-safety design features); Costa v. Josey, 83 N.J. 49, 53, 415 A.2d 337 (1980); Ellison, supra, 162 N.J.Super. at 351, 392 A.2d 1229; see also Weiss, supra, 128 N.J. at 386, 608 A.2d 254 (Handler, J., dissenting) (concluding that failure to implement railroad-crossing safety system was not flaw in design and therefore not subject to plan-or-design immunity); Flournoy v. State, 275 Cal.App.2d 806, 80 Cal.Rptr. 485, 489 (1969) (concluding that ice on roadbed that allegedly caused accident “was not an element or feature of the plan or design” of the bridge). To establish plan-or-design immunity, the State would have had to prove that the original plan specifically contemplated that no maintenance or resurfacing would be performed when the original steel deck became worn. Here, no such proof was offered. Consequently, the condition that purportedly led to the accident — failure to maintain the bridge surface — was not contemplated by the original plans, and the plan-or-design immunity does not apply to plaintiff’s claims.
Nor does the perpetual nature of the plan-or-design immunity compel its application. The plan-or-design immunity is perpetual and is not lost “if later knowledge shows a design or plan to be dangerous, or later circumstances render it dangerous.” Thompson, supra, 108 N.J. at 532, 531 A.2d 734 (quoting Harry A. Margolis & Robert Novack, Claims Against Public Entities 72 (1990)); see 1972 Task Force Comment to N.J.S.A. 59:4-6. Thus, the perpetual nature of the immunity protects the discretionary acts of high-level government officials from judicial *363second-guessing in the event that later-acquired knowledge or circumstances cast doubt on the wisdom of those decisions. See Note, The New Jersey Tort Claims Act, Section 59:4-6— Public Property Plan or Design Immunity, 26 Rutgers L.Rev. 838, 840 (1973). Nevertheless, we have already determined that the perpetual nature of the immunity does not immunize a public entity for a dangerous condition caused by its negligence in maintaining public property. See Costa, supra, 83 N.J. at 53-54 n. 1, 415 A.2d 337. Further, the majority misconstrues the perpetual nature of the immunity when it characterizes the deterioration of the bridge’s surface as a “changed condition” that would not disturb the State’s plan-or-design immunity. Ante at 356, 609 A.2d at 764. The deteriorated bridge surface here is different from those changed conditions involving new technology, see Kolitch v. Lindedahl, 193 N.J.Super. 540, 545, 475 A.2d 86 (App.Div.1984), rev’d on other grounds, 100 N.J. 485, 497 A.2d 183 (1985); Ciambrone, supra, 233 N.J.Super. 101, 558 A.2d 47, or the subsequent adoption of more stringent safety codes or regulations, see Thompson, supra, 108 N.J. at 532-33, 531 A.2d 734; Rodgers v. Passaic Hous. Auth., 139 N.J.Super. 569, 572-73, 354 A.2d 681 (App.Div.), certif. denied, 71 N.J. 337, 364 A.2d 1069 (1976), because it does not involve the acquisition of information unavailable at the time of the initial decision. Accordingly, a claim that the State failed to maintain an otherwise adequately-designed bridge surface does not unfairly subject the discretionary decisions of government officials to scrutiny based on subsequent developments. The perpetual nature of the immunity should not eliminate the State’s duty to maintain and repair its public facilities and should not bar plaintiff’s claim.
Moreover, to extend immunity here obviates the State’s duty to repair and maintain its roads and bridges. See Daniel, supra, 239 N.J.Super. at 589, 571 A.2d 1329 (noting State’s obligation to “construct and maintain its roads in a reasonably safe condition for their intended use”); Whaley v. County of Hudson, 146 N.J.Super. 76, 79, 368 A.2d 980 (Law Div.1976) (holding that Legislature extended governmental liability to *364road defects caused by wear and tear). Extended to its logical limit, the majority’s holding might immunize the State if, for example, an accident resulted from a bridge that had collapsed due to lack of maintenance, provided that the original plan and design had been properly approved. Further, the majority’s result contradicts our prior acknowledgment that plan-or-design immunity “does not immunize a governmental body from responsibility for dangerous conditions created by its careless or negligent affirmative acts arising out of its maintenance,” Costa, supra, 83 N.J. at 53 n. 1, 415 A.2d 337.
I cannot conceive that the Legislature intended the Act to immunize the State from the negligent failure to maintain a steel-deck bridge that had been worn smooth from regular use over twenty-six years. Accordingly, I would reverse the judgment of the Appellate Division.
Justice Handler joins in this opinion.
For affirmance — Chief Justice WILENTZ and Justices CLIFFORD, POLLOCK, O’HEARN and GARIBALDI — 5
Concurring in part; dissenting in part — Justices HANDLER and STEIN — 2