Court Opinion

ID: 9743737
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:41:55.464461+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:42.937167
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE JONES delivered the opinion of the court: Plaintiff appeals from the dismissal of his amended complaint for personal injuries. Defendants cross-appeal from a part of the same order. aUowing leave to file the amended complaint and in turn then dismissing it. Plaintiff’s amended complaint alleges that plaintiff is a student attending Southern IUinois University. In November 1966, as a 19-year-old minor, while in the exercise of ordinary care for his own safety, he was struck and injured by a hit-and-run automobile in the night when- he was a pedestrian on a certain north and south roadway (Wall Street) in the defendant city. “For a long period of time prior thereto” the city had held out this roadway for use by the public; by reason of its location, South Wall was regularly used by a large number of pedestrians, especially persons attending or associated with Southern Illinois University, and that by use, the edge of the roadway had become a pedestrian walkway which the city knew or should have known; by reason thereof a duty arose on the city to maintain said pedestrian walkway in a reasonably safe condition for use by members of the walking public, among which was the plaintiff. Negligence in seven different particulars was charged: failure to use ordinary care to maintain; failure to provide a separate pedestrian walkway; failure to provide railings, rails, or barriers; failure to warn drivers of pedestrians; failure to warn pedestrians of danger; failure to provide adequate street lighting; and permitting steep embankments to exist adjacent to the roadway, requiring pedestrians to walk in the roadway. The defendants are the city, the mayor, the city manager and the commissioners of public property, streets, and public safety of the City of Carbondale. ...  The cross-appeal must be disallowed since the plaintiff requested leave to amend his complaint within thirty days of the sustaining of a motion to dismiss the original complaint. This preserved the jurisdiction of court beyond the time in which the original dismissal would have become final. The court did not err in exercising its discretion to permit amendment of the complaint under the circumstances revealed here. The plaintiff’s appeal questions the propriety of the trial court’s dismissal of the plaintiff’s first amended complaint. The essential issue raised by the plaintiff distills to this: Does a city, possessed of knowledge of regular and heavy pedestrian use of a street planned, designed, and built solely for vehicular traffic, have a duty by reason of its knowledge to take reasonable precautions to safeguard such pedestrians from injury by vehicles in the various particulars claimed by the plaintiff?  A number of plaintiffs specific allegations may be eliminated by the terms of the Local Governmental and Governmental Employees Tort Immunity Act. (Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 85, secs. 1 — 101 et seq.) This statute was enacted in 1965 following a number of statutes and court decisions which had made basic changes in the law governing governmental subdivisions and municipal corporations. It is not necessary here to detail the history of these changes which have been frequently discussed. Suffice it to say that the historical distinction between proprietary and gov¿mmentál functions has been generally abolished as the determining factor in liability of a local governmental entity. This detailed statute covers much of the area of liability and nonliability where persons claim injury and damages at the hands of various public bodies. The validity of'the statute is not challenged in this case by any of the parties. Part 2 of article II of this enactment deals with the immunity of public employees. Section 2 — 201 relieves a public employee from liability where his position involves the determination of policy or the exercise of discretion. Section 2 — 205 relieves a public employee from liability for an injury caused by his adoption or failure to adopt an enactment or by his failure to enforce any law. Article III is concerned with immunities from liability for injuries occurring in the use of public property. The claim in this case is based upon the use of public property. Section 3 — 102 places a duty upon the entity to exercise ordinary care in the maintenance of its property, for the use * * * of people whom the entity intended and permitted to use the property in a manner in which and at such times as it was reasonably foreseeable that it would be used, and shall not be liable for injury unless it is proven that it has actual or constructive notice of the existence of such a condition that is not reasonably safe in sufficient time prior to an injury to have taken measures to remedy or protect against such conditions.” (Emphasis supplied.) The next section of the statute, 3 — 103(a), provides that the entity is not liable, “* « » for an injury caused by the adoption of a plan or design of a construction of, or an improvement to public property where the plan or design has been approved in advance of the construction or improvement by the legislative body of such entity or by some other body or employee exercising discretionary authority to give such approval or where such plan or design is prepared in conformity with standards previously so approved. The local pubhc entity is liable, however, if after the execution of such plan or design it appears from its use that it has created a condition that it is not reasonably safe.” Subsection (b) provides “A pubhc employee is not liable under this Article for an injury caused by the adoption of a plan or design of a construction of, or an improvement to pubhc property.” The next paragraph provides that the entity and pubhc employees are not hable for injuries caused by the failure to initially provide traffic control devices, signs and road markings. Section 3 — 108 provides that the entity and pubhc employees are not hable for an injury caused by the failure to supervise an activity on or the use of any pubhc property.  From these statutory provisions, it appears that pubhc employees, which includes all of the defendants here except the city, are exempted from liabilities having to do with the design and construction of improvements to pubhc property. In the particular instance involved, it is obvious, and charged, that the city owned, controlled, maintained and possessed the roadway involved. The individual defendants in their respective municipal offices are charged with having planned and designed the improvement. Since pubhc employees are exempted from liability where a plan or design has been adopted by the legislative body of the local governmental entity, and the condition or improvement having been constructed in accordance with the approved plan and design, no liability is placed upon the pubhc employees. Officers are included in the statutory definition of “employee” (sec. 1 — 202) thus eliminating the liability of the mayor, city manager, and commissioners who are made defendants to this action.  In considering the duty of the city, by reference to this statute and the general law applicable to municipalities, it is manifest that the usual situation arises out of a defect or an obstruction in the pubhc way. Neither is involved here.- Plaintiff s complaint advises us that at a particular location on a north and south street in the general vicinity of a university campus, there was no sidewalk alongside the paved portion of the way, but that members of the public were nevertheless accustomed to walk out upon the paved portion of the roadway. Plaintiffs complaint does not charge that the city took any action to convert a portion of the street to a sidewalk. The liability of the city must, therefore, be viewed from the point of view of its intended use as a street, not as a sidewalk. Under these circumstances all of the negligence charged against the defendant fails since it is wholly predicated upon the street being a “walkway.”  In VanCleef V. City of Chicago, 240 Ill. 318, 88 N.E. 815, where the city permitted the use of its street for a street carnival, the Supreme Court said: “Undoubtedly, under ordinary circumstances it is the duty of a city to see that its streets are reasonably safe for the uses for which streets are intended, * * We conclude that the liability of a municipality with respect to its public streets is limited to their use as streets. Undoubtedly, the streets may be used by pedestrians in various ways; they may dismount in the street from vehicles; they may cross them or on occasion they may, where there is no sidewalk, walk upon the street. This, however, does not convert the street to a sidewalk. Illustrative is the statement from Locigno v. City of Chicago, 32 Ill.App.2d 412, 178 N.E.2d 124, “A street does not become a through street because it is used as a through street. It becomes a through street because it is so designated and appropriate signs placed.” The cases reveal instances in which a city by its own action has converted a street to a sidewalk just as they have permitted the use of the street for a street carnival. Where these conversions take place additional duties may arise. We find no Illinois authority which permits the conversion of a street to a sidewalk by continued pedestrian use. Under the circumstances revealed by the evidence, there is no reason why vehicles might not regard the street still as a street, even though pedestrians occasionally walk upon it. This is not to say that motor vehicles may disregard the presence of pedestrians upon the street, but we are here concerned with the liability of the municipality.  We have carefully examined the cases cited by the plaintiff and find no case which goes as far as the plaintiff would have us go. Indeed, two of the cases to which plaintiff refers us contain significant limitations. In Maxey v. City of East St. Louis, 158 Ill.App. 627, it is said at page 630 “The true rule in all cases, we think, is that a city is only required to maintain the respective portions of its streets in reasonably safe condition for the purposes to which they are respectively devoted by the intention and sanction of the city.” (Emphasis supplied.) In Cogdill v. City of Marion, 22 Ill.App.2d 99, 159 N.E.2d 28, this court said “Long established principles of law fix the rights and liabilities of the parties in a case of this sort. A municipality is required to maintain its streets and sidewalks, including parkways, in a reasonably safe condition considering the use to be made of such area.” (Emphasis supplied.) So far as we have been able to determine from the decided cases, the responsibility of public entities has only been extended to those undertakings which they choose or elect to carry out. We are not prepared to create a general duty upon municipalities for the safeguarding of pedestrians when they are walking upon the public streets. To require a general duty of safeguarding all pedestrians under circumstances beyond that undertaken by the municipality is to stretch the function of city government too far.  A municipality never has been intended under our system as a principal source of social protection. We cannot conceive of a municipality which would be able simultaneously as the need develops to provide the roads, sidewalks, police and fire protection, and every facet of modem municipal service at the most desirable level. We suggest that it is enough that they exercise ordinary care with respect to those undertakings which they have chosen or selected. We are unwilling to delineate the outer limit of municipal liability, but it is sufficient to say that the facts in complainants complaint fall somewhere outside the limits. The trial court was correct in dismissing plaintiff’s complaint. Judgment affirmed. CREES, J., concurs.