Court Opinion

ID: 9734688
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:42:58.28018+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:31.674910
License: Public Domain

ROACH, Justice,
dissenting.
The issue in this case is simple: whether an electric company, which has contracted with a city to install and maintain streetlights, can be held liable for injuries to a pedestrian caused while crossing a major road where the bulbs in the adjacent streetlights have blown. Because the majority opinion places Kentucky “in the overwhelming minority among states that have considered this issue,” Clay Elec. Coop., Inc. v. Johnson, 873 So.2d 1182, 1196 (Fla.2003) (Cantero, J., dissenting), I respectfully dissent.
It would be hard to improve upon Justice Cantero’s dissent in Clay and I will quote him at length. He begins with a metaphysical certainty that, is ignored by the majority, that is, the failure of Louisville Gas and Electric Company (“LG <& E”) to maintain the streetlight in question “did not place pedestrians at greater risk” than if LG & E never had provided streetlights at all. Id. Quite simply, no dangerous condition was created by LG & E because the natural state of nighttime is darkness.
This Court now joins Florida’s Supreme Court in adopting an extreme minority position. Justice Cantero explained:
The majority places Florida in the overwhelming minority among states that have considered this issue. As one court has recognized, “[cjases in other jurisdictions almost uniformly hold that utilities are not liable to third persons for injuries caused by nonfunctioning streetlights.” Vaughan v. E. Edison Co., 48 Mass.App.Ct. 225, 719 N.E.2d 520, 522 (1999). These states follow Justice Cardozo’s opinion in H.R. Moch Co. v. Rensselaer Water Co., 247 N.Y. 160, 159 N.E. 896 (1928), and view streetlights as a mere benefit, the deprivation of which does not result in liability. Because H.R. Moch is the seminal case on the continuing duty to provide a benefit to the public, I believe it sheds some light on the issue here.
In H.R. Moch, a water company breached its contract with the city to furnish water to the city’s fire hydrants. The plaintiffs building caught fire, and because of insufficient' water pressure, the fire could not be extinguished. The plaintiff sued, alleging that the water company breached a common law duty. Justice Cardozo, writing for the court, reasoned:
In a broad sense it is true that every city contract not improvident or wasteful, is for the benefit of the public. More than this, however, must be shown to give a right of action to a member of the public not formally a party. The benefit, as it is sometimes said, must be one that is not merely incidental and secondary. It must be primary and immediate in such a sense and to such a degree as to bespeak the assumption of a duty to make reparation directly to the individual members of the public if the benefit is lost.
159 N.E. at 897 (citation omitted). The court distinguished between conduct of a utility that would impose a duty to the public at large and conduct that would not:
If conduct has gone forward to such a stage that inaction would commonly result, not negatively merely in withholding a benefit, but positively or actively in working an injury, there *115exists a relation out of which arises a duty to go forward .... The query always is whether the putative wrongdoer has advanced to such a point as to have launched a force or instrument of harm, or has stopped where inaction is at most a refusal to become an instrument for good.
159 N.E. at 898 (citations omitted) (emphasis added). The court noted that the indefinite number of potential beneficiaries “would be unduly and indeed indefinitely extended by ... enlargement of the zone of duty.” Id. at 899.
Many other jurisdictions also have refused to impose a duty to maintain existing streetlights. See Turbe v. Gov’t of the Virgin Islands, 938 F.2d 427 (3d Cir.1991) (finding no duty where the plaintiff was assaulted near a nonfunctioning streetlight); Sinclair v. Dunagan, 905 F.Supp. 208 (D.N.J.1995) (applying New Jersey law and finding no duty where a pedestrian was struck by a car while crossing an intersection); White v. S. Cal. Edison Co., 25 Cal.App.4th 442, 30 Cal.Rptr.2d 431 (1994) (finding no duty where the plaintiff was driving a moped and was hit by a car at an intersection where the streetlights were not functioning, noting that the failure to maintain a streetlight does not create a risk greater than the risk created by the total absence of a streetlight); Quinn v. Ga. Power Co., 51 Ga.App. 291, 180 S.E. 246, 248 (1935) (finding no duty, despite a contract between the utility and the city, where two vehicles collided in an area where the streetlights were not functioning); Shafouk Nor El Din Hamza v. Bourgeois, 493 So.2d 112, 117 (La.Ct.App.1986) (finding no duty where a pedestrian was hit by a car near an inoperative streetlight, even though the utility had contracted with the municipality to install and maintain streetlights); Vaughan, 719 N.E.2d at 522 (finding no duty where a pedestrian was hit by a car at an intersection on which stood an inoperative streetlight); E. Coast Freight Lines v. Consol. Gas, Elec. Light & Power Co., 187 Md. 385, 50 A.2d 246 (1946) (finding no duty, despite a contract between the utility and the city, where two vehicles collided at an intersection where the streetlights were not functioning); Thompson v. City of New York, 78 N.Y.2d 682, 578 N.Y.S.2d 507, 585 N.E.2d 819, 820 (1991) (finding no duty where a pedestrian was struck by an automobile near a nonfunc-tioning streetlight because the street was not unusually dangerous in the absence of the streetlight); Gin v. Yachanin, 75 Ohio App.3d 802, 600 N.E.2d 836 (1991) (finding no duty where a pedestrian was injured as a result of a de-energized traffic signal, even though the utility company may have breached its contract with the municipality to supply power to the signal); Fishbaugh v. Utah Power & Light, 969 P.2d 403 (Utah 1998) (finding no duty where a pedestrian was struck by an automobile near a non-functioning streetlight because the street was not unusually dangerous in the absence of the streetlight); Dattner v. Lamm, 5 Pa. D. & C.2d 552, 1956 WL 6509 (Pa.Com.Pl.1956) (finding no duty where a pedestrian was struck by an automobile near a non-functioning streetlight); White v. Tilcon Gammino, Inc., No. KC88-0618, 1992 WL 813636 (R.I.Super.Ct. July 28, 1992) (finding no duty was owed to the driver of an automobile because she was not an intended beneficiary of the contract between the utility company and the municipality).
Id. at 1196-98.
An even more succinct statement of the rule applied by the majority of jurisdictions to failed lighting cases is as follows:
The duty of a municipality to maintain existing street lights is limited to those *116situations in which illumination is necessary to avoid dangerous and potentially hazardous conditions. However, it is also held that improper, insufficient, or defective lighting will not create liability, even though the municipality has assumed the duty to light its streets, when the streets are otherwise reasonably safe.
63 C.J.S., Municipal Corporations § 748 (2006) (footnotes omitted). Although this formulation of the rule specifically addresses the direct liability of the city, it applies just as well to the city’s contractual agents, such as LG & E.
Perhaps the most curious aspect of the majority opinion, however, is its reliance on Section 324A(b) of the Restatement (Second) of Torts. That formulation of the “undertaker’s doctrine,” one of three alternatives presented in the Restatement, imposes liability for injuries to a third party where a defendant “has undertaken to perform a duty owed by the other to the third person...” Clay which imposed liability on the basis of Section 324A under similar factual circumstances took a different approach, relying instead on subsections (a) and (c) of the Restatement to justify the imposition of a duty.1 Indeed, Judge Combs, who wrote the Court of Appeals opinion in this case, concluded that LG & E owed a duty to Roberson pursuant to the undertaker’s doctrine under either of these alternatives, but specifically declined to discuss the imposition of a duty under subsection (b). Presumably, the reluctance of courts to extend liability under subsection (b) is because, as discussed above, most courts have declined to recognize any general duty to provide or maintain roadway lighting under ordinary circumstances. The majority, through its reliance on and application of Section 324A(b), has discarded this time-tested approach.
Finally, I would note that the majority opinion significantly expands the duty owed by entities like LG & E beyond anything currently in our precedent. And it does so without considering the broad public policy implications of the decision. Clearly, the ability of respective parties to bear a loss is a factor to consider in the allocation of risk. See W. Page Keeton et al., Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts 24 (5th ed.1984). The “imposition of tort liability on those who must render continuous service of this kind to all who apply for it under all kinds of circumstances could [also] be ruinous and the expense of litigation and settling claims over the issue of whether or not there was negligence could be a greater burden to the rate payer than can be socially justified.” Id. at 671. As pointed out by Justice Cantero:
The cost of compelling a utility to ensure that all the streetlights it maintains are continually in working order outweighs any potential reduction of risk. Under the majority’s analysis, utilities such, as Clay Electric must guarantee illumination of all the streets in the entire area they serve. The majority presumably believes that utilities will shoulder this burden alone, but it is the ratepayers who will bear the brunt through higher rate structures. This is an unfortunate and unnecessary result, given that automobile liability insurance is capable of *117providing the required protection — indeed, it has done so until now.
Clay, 873 So.2d at 1204 (Cantero, J., dissenting).
Make no mistake about it, every utility company in this state that has contracted to maintain streetlights will have to hire additional workers to avoid the sort of liability created by the majority opinion. In a city the size of Louisville, one can only imagine the number of roving nighttime patrols that will be necessary to identify bumed-out and malfunctioning streetlights quickly enough to satisfy the onerous duty created by this Court. Of course as is the case with any cost incurred by a regulated utility, the cost will be borne by the customers.
Florida recognized the costs of this expanded duty rather quickly. In 2005, just over two years after Clay, the Florida legislature reigned in the Florida Supreme Court and effectively overturned the case by statute. See FI. St. 768.1382 (Effective June 20, 2005) (imposing a limitation on liability of streetlight providers for inoperative or malfunctioning streetlights if the provider repairs streetlights after actual notice). With the passage of that statute, Florida moved out of the extreme minority position, meaning that today’s majority opinion leaves Kentucky in a very lonely position. I can only hope that the General Assembly follows the example of Florida’s legislature and leads us out of the desert sooner rather than later.
MINTON, J., joins this dissenting opinion.

. Under subsection (a), a duty is imposed where an individual's negligence in performing his undertaking increases the risk of harm to a third party. Subsection (c), on the other hand, recognizes a duty when it can be shown that the injured third party relied upon the undertaking. Since the majority has not offered either of these alternatives to justify its position, there is little need to specifically address the issue. I would note, however, that Justice Cantero offers a compelling critique of liability under both of these theories in his dissent in Clay. See Clay, 873 So.2d at 1198-1200.