Court Opinion

ID: 9654409
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 18:19:15.227502+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:08.219577
License: Public Domain

SEILER, Judge
(dissenting).
Mrs. Watson was driving north on Manchester street on a foggy winter morning in Kansas City near the Missouri River bottoms. She knew she was supposed to turn left when she reached Levee. Road. She did not know that Manchester came to a dead end at Levee Road where it formed a “T” intersection with a steep dropoff immediately beyond and out of sight. She thought Manchester continued on north as in an ordinary intersection. A simple banded reflector type sign would have warned her otherwise, but the defendant city erected no such warning sign nor gave any kind of warning and as a result, before Mrs. Watson realized what was happening, she went through the intersection and down the levee embankment.
The principal opinion excuses the city on the ground that the placing of a warning sign is a form of traffic regulation and hence a governmental function which *521makes the city immune from liability, and on the further ground that even if there were no governmental immunity, the city was under no duty to warn plaintiff what lay ahead because the city was not required to anticipate that she might leave the intersection as she did and was under no obligation to erect guards to keep her from leaving the traveled portion of the highway.
Myers v. City of Palmyra, 355 S.W.2d 17, 1819 (Mo. 1962) states the controlling law: “In Missouri, as in most states, municipalities are not liable as a general rule for torts arising out of what is called governmental functions . . . However, whether the construction, repair, and maintenance be classified as a corporate or proprietary function, Mengel v. City of St. Louis, 341 Mo. 994, 111 S.W.2d 5, or as a ministerial function, Barree v. City of Cape Girardeau, 197 Mo. 382, 95 S.W. 330 or as a governmental function for which there is an exception to the rule that a municipality is not liable for its torts, as implied in Cassidy v. City of St. Joseph, 247 Mo. 197, 152 S.W. 306, under the law of this state ‘it is the primary and non-delegable duty of the city to exercise ordinary care to keep its streets in a reasonably safe condition for travel,’ Sutton v. Fox Missouri Theater Company, Mo., 336 S.W.2d 85, 92, and to this activity the doctrine of immunity from liability for torts does not apply . . .”
Where the city has a duty to exercise ordinary care to protect travelers by keeping its streets in reasonably safe condition, it cannot breach that duty and then attempt to escape liability for its action or non-action, by contending that the warning would involve a governmental function. The city cannot bootstrap itself into non-liability by invoking the immunity doctrine to extricate itself from its responsibility to exercise ordinary care. The case before us falls within the stated exception to the governmental immunity doctrine. A number of cases, under a variety of circumstances have held that plaintiff made a jury submissible case of negligence on the city’s failure to barricade or warn. See Treon v. City of Hamilton, 363 S.W.2d 704, 708 (Mo.1963) [failure to warn or barricade in view of the deceptive nature of the area, the recent relocation of the road, and the continuance . of blacktopped areas except for the ditches]; Williams v. City of Mexico, 224 Mo.App. 1224, 34 S.W.2d 992, 994 (1931) [street continued to the city limits and 36 feet thereafter abruptly ended at a precipice]; Chance v. City of St. Joseph, 195 Mo.App. 1, 190 S.W. 24, 26 (1916) [city required to erect barricade at the end of the street where the appearance was deceptive and there was a dangerous declivity] ; Bassett v. City of St. Joseph, 53 Mo. 290, 298 (1873) [city has a duty to protect travelers on the street from excavations outside the street which rendered the street dangerous to travel] as examples.
It is clear from the foregoing cases that where there is a dropoff or declivity which does not give notice of its presence because it is so situated with reference to ground contour or elevation that it cannot be seen by an approaching driver, then a duty arises to make the road or street reasonably safe. How the city chooses to accomplish this varies under the different cases, but the means employed must be such as to warn or notify the driver that the road ends or the dropoff is present, in order that the driver can avoid falling into an unseen trap.
I respectfully submit the case before us cannot be disposed of by lumping it into the category of cases where cities have been held not liable for injuries resulting from municipal activity in controlling or regulating the flow of traffic, such as where an automobile runs into a stop sign [as in Prewitt v. City of St. Joseph, 334 Mo. 1228, 70 S.W.2d 916 (1934)]; or a traffic light has burned out [as in Auslander v. City of St. Louis, 332 Mo. 145, 56 S.W. 2d 778 (1933)]; or a traffic sign falls on top of someone [as in Gillen v. City of St. Louis, (Mo.Sup.1961), 345 S.W.2d 69], referring to cases cited in the majority opin*522ion. In such cases, the city was primarily engaged in regulating traffic and the injury came about not because of a failure on the part of the city to warn of some hidden defect in the street, but by virtue of some failure in the traffic control system. This is completely different from what we have in the present case.
I know of no Missouri cases where a city has been excused from liability where it has failed to give proper warning of the continued existence of a dangerous defect in the street and the majority opinion cites none. In the present case the intersection was dangerous because the road ended abruptly in a dropoff without warning and there was nothing ahead in the way of buildings, trees, walls, etc. at the same elevation to show otherwise. This is the difference between our case and Lavinge v. City of Jefferson, 262 S.W.2d 60, 64 (Mo. App.1953) where the court pointed out that “. . . the presence of grass and weeds across the far side of the turn and in front of the abutting property” was reasonable notice and warning that the street did not continue straight ahead. This distinction was also present in Clinkenbeard v. City of St. Joseph, 321 Mo. 71, 10 S.W.2d 54 (1928) and in the other cases relied upon by the majority opinion, such as Sparks v. Kansas City, 236 Mo.App. 710, 160 S.W.2d 819 (1942) and Hauck v. Kansas City Public Service Co., 239 Mo.App. 1092, 200 S. W.2d 608. In these cases there was some sort of object projecting into the air — a pole, a curbing, treetops, a street car trestle, a sign — which itself gave reasonable notice and warning that the street did not continue and that there was trouble ahead if the driver continued. A driver can see a pole or tree without further warning, but not an unexpected dropoff. In the case at bar there was nothing ahead for Mrs. Watson to see — the ground in fact dropped away rapidly, but to the motorist approaching the intersection as she was there was nothing to indicate Manchester street did not continue on north.
The majority opinion states it is unarguable that a signing warning that the intersection was a “T” intersection would be a form of traffic control and hence a governmental function. However, as pointed out in Auslander v. City of St. Louis, supra, 332 Mo. 145, 56 S.W.2d 1. c. 782, “ . . . The keeping of a street in a condition reasonably safe for travel thereon has reference to its physical condition, and is a different matter than the regulation of traffic on such street . . . [0]ne relates to the . . . proprietory powers of the city . . . the other relates to its governmental or police powers.” It seems to me that a warning sign at this particular intersection is comparable to the red light or lighted flare pot placed at a ditch or excavation in the street. In one sense this could be considered a form of traffic co'ntrol, because it causes traffic to change course, but its true purpose is to give warning of danger of a defect in the street and that is why the city is held liable in tort in such cases where it fails to give warning of the trap ahead. The same should be true here.
The majority opinion acknowledges the established rule that a city has a duty to exercise ordinary care to keep its streets in a reasonably safe condition for travel and is liable in damages for failure to do so, but says the rule is not applicable because plaintiff makes no contention there was any defect in the streets which make up the intersection. I respectfully submit this is not correct. The plaintiff’s theory, as seen in the plaintiff’s instruction quoted in the opinion, was that Manchester street was dangerous because it ended abruptly with a dangerous declivity at or near the edge of the roadway. This constitutes a defect in this portion of Manchester street just as much as an unmarked ditch across it would.
The majority opinion in discussing the proposition that even if governmental immunity is not involved the city had no duty to warn under the circumstances of this *523case, rests this to no small degree on the theory that the city was not required to anticipate that a driver would leave the traveled portion of the street in the manner which plaintiff did. However, I have always understood that the law of negligence, on the proposition of whether or not there is a duty, does not depend on whether the defendant could foresee the exact injury or the exact method of injury which would result from his carelessness. As correctly said in 57 Am.Jur.2d, Negligence, Sec. 59, p. 411: “It is not a necessary element of negligence that one charged therewith should have been able to anticipate the precise injury sustained. Nor is it necessary that the injury to the plaintiff himself be foreseeable; it is sufficient that the act in question may in human probability produce harm to persons similarly situated. To render one liable for negligence, it is sufficient that he should have foreseen that the negligence would probably result in injury of some kind to some person, and he need not have foreseen the particular consequences or injury that resulted . . . ” See, also, Restatement of Law of Torts, Second, Sec. 281, p. 7, as follows: “In determining whether such events are within the risk, the courts have been compelled of necessity to resort to hindsight rather than foresight ...” Looking at this accident in hindsight it is easy to foresee that once the plaintiff or any motorist proceeding at 20 to 25 miles per hour got within a certin distance from or actually into the intersection without realizing that the road on which she was traveling came to an abrupt end, it was highly likely that she would plunge over the edge of the embankment and go however far it was until she reached the bottom. Additionally, the evidence showed this had happened before to other vehicles at this intersection.
The majority opinion mentions four times the fact that plaintiff traveled 55 feet after leaving the roadway before coming to a stop. The majority opinion describes this as “not a slight deviation but a complete departure from the area of the intersection” and says plaintiff “was injured because she made a complete departure from the roadway for a distance of 55 feet.” It is said the city was not required to anticipate such a “complete departure” and reasons that any time a driver runs off a “T” intersection he, in most instances, will sooner or later strike some object which will cause injury. The majority opinion concludes this particular “T” intersection “was not particularly dangerous” but rather that it was plaintiff’s complete departure from the area which caused her injuries. This carries the implication that Mrs. Watson’s act in going 55 feet off the road had a voluntary or intentional cast to it which excuses the city and bars her recovery, and that the departure from the intersection would be more foreseeable and the outcome different if her headlong plunge had been halted only 5 or 10 feet after leaving the roadway.
In my opinion, this resolution of the case overlooks the undisputed physical fact that once Mrs. Watson’s car crossed the narrow shoulder on the north side of the “T” intersection and started down the incline she was helpless and there was nothing she could do to stop until she reached the bottom. Had the embankment gone on for a hundred feet further and she ended up in the Missouri River, it would not have been because she was voluntarily doing so, but because there was no way to stop any sooner. The north side of the levee, beyond the shoulder, was “a precipitous declivity”, not a gentle, smooth slope. The defendant’s brief says it was at a 45° angle and the evidence shows that in the distance of 55 feet traveled by Mrs. Watson the hillside dropped 25 to 30 feet. This is equivalent to a 50% grade. City streets are nowhere near that steep and I doubt if any of us would be willing to attempt to drive a car down a 50% grade even under ideal conditions, much less down a rocky, boulder strewn surface. So I believe it is clear that the 55 feet traveled by Mrs. Watson before she finally crashed to a stop at the foot of the hill was not because she was *524engaged in making a complete departure from the intersection, but was because it was inevitable under the physical circumstances that any automobile which left the shoulder at the place where hers did would, by force of gravity, continue ahead and downward until it reached the bottom. In fact, it is surprising she did not go more than 55 feet. It seems to me the city could reasonably anticipate that anyone who ran off the intersection as Mrs. Watson did would travel a minimum of 55 feet. I fail to see where the 55 feet in any way relieves the city of its duty to warn.
The cases which the principal opinion relies upon are from 20 to 45 years old. Automobile traffic has increased tremendously over that period of years. Automobiles now are larger and faster and the streets and highways are more heavily used. What the city could reasonably not have done years ago is not true today. Anyone who drives the highways of Missouri knows the Missouri state highway department routinely erects warning signs of “T” intersections throughout the state. We know that drivers come to rely upon these signs.
In deciding this case there is no need, however, to hold that cities have to erect warning signs at all intersections. We are talking about a particularly dangerous intersection here where it would have been a simple and inexpensive matter to have erected a sign which would have given plaintiff adequate warning of the fact that she was approaching a dead end with a precipitous dropoff where it would be disastrous to go forward. That is all that is before us at the moment. It is significant that when this case was argued before the court en banc one argument advanced by counsel for the city was that plaintiff did not make a hard application of the brakes when she reached the intersection in question. The question arises in the mind of a neutral observer as to why should she have made a hard application of the brakes. We know from common experience that drivers approaching a street intersection do not ordinarily make a hard application of the brakes although they may make a slight application of the brakes as a routine matter while looking to be sure the way is clear before they proceed. The answer is that the only reason why plaintiff would be making a hard application of the brakes as she approached this intersection at a reasonable speed would be to prevent from happening exactly what did happen — going off the road. The reason she did not make a hard application of the brakes is that she had no warning that any such unusual action was necessary. The city expected Mrs. Watson to make a hard application of the brakes when she came to this intersection, but gave her no warning of the need to do so.
For these reasons I respectfully dissent.