Court Opinion

ID: 9685864
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:07:42.239891+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:11.198451
License: Public Domain

SCHUDSON, J.
¶ 11. (concurring). The majority acknowledges the Estate's "alluring" argument but explains that "we are bound" by Walker v. Bignell, 100 Wis. 2d 256, 301 N.W.2d 447 (1981). Majority at ¶ 10 n.3.1 agree. Here, however, I would hope to focus on the binding language of Walker, the context from which that language came, and the potential for further review of whether that language has come to encompass more than the supreme court truly intended.
¶ 12. As the majority has explained, in Walker, the supreme court was considering "areas adjacent to the intersection [that] 'were so overgrown with weeds that the view of the intersection by approaching drivers was obstructed.'" Majority at ¶ 6 (quoting Walker, 100 Wis. 2d at 258) (emphasis added). In doing so, however, the supreme court repeatedly referred to both "roadside" vegetation and "intersection" vegetation, see Walker, 100 Wis. 2d at 261, 262, 264, 265, 266, 267, apparently using the terms interchangeably, and drawing no distinction between: (1) vegetation adjacent to *315an intersection and vegetation within an intersection; or (2) vegetation a municipality had not trimmed at all and vegetation a municipality had trimmed negligently. Nevertheless, the supreme court concluded with language leaving this court no room to draw such distinctions: "there should be no common law liability imposed upon the defendant municipalities for injuries caused by uncut vegetation obscuring motorists' vision at highway intersections." Walker, 100 Wis. 2d at 266-67 (emphasis added).
¶ 13. The instant case may offer the supreme court the opportunity to consider whether Walker's holding is as all-encompassing as its terms seem to suggest. Here, as the circuit court noted, "The City agrees .. . that it was responsible for maintaining the median" and, at least at this stage, "is truly. .. not contesting negligence." It is undisputed that the City had cut the vegetation in the median strip except for that area within the guardrail. The parties and the circuit court surmised that the City workers simply had not used a weed-whacker or hoisted a lawnmower over the guardrail to complete the cutting of the vegetation.
¶ 14. Thus, the City's negligence may have created an extremely dangerous condition — a condition that inevitably would lead to a tragic accident — and a condition that, at least from everyday driving experience, seems significantly distinguishable from the myriad conditions involving vegetation adjacent to roadsides. It seems unlikely that potential liability for such negligence would lead municipalities to abandon their proper responsibility for maintaining their highway medians. Therefore, quite possibly, the supreme court could clarify Walker, distinguish vegetation adjacent to a highway from vegetation within a median, and *316carefully carve an exception that would enhance highway safety without undermining the sound public policies articulated in Walker.1
¶ 15. Accordingly, I respectfully concur.

 In Sanem v. Home Insurance Co., 119 Wis. 2d 530, 535, 350 N.W.2d 89 (1984), the supreme court did extend the rationale of Walker v. Bignell, 100 Wis. 2d 256, 301 N.W.2d 447 (1981), to a case involving an accident allegedly resulting from an obstruction within a highway median. The obstruction, however, was the result of allegedly negligent snow removal, and the supreme court specifically grounded its holding in "the physical properties of snow and the nature of snow plowing," and the "emergent situation" created by heavy snowfall. Sanem, 119 Wis. 2d at 540-41. Here, obviously, the circumstances are quite different, and motorists' reasonable expectations of intersection visibility and their resulting vigilance certainly may vary according to whether they are driving in snowy or snowless conditions.