Court Opinion

ID: 9858591
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:32:14.732212+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:55:00.041998
License: Public Domain

Justice JEFFERSON,
joined by Justice OWEN,
concurring in the judgment.
The Court holds that the unique characteristics of the causeway constitute an “unreasonably dangerous condition” for which governmental entities may be liable under the Texas Tort Claims Act. But the Court never articulates a principle to identify in future cases the characteristics that will give rise to a cause of action within the terms of the Act. In this area of governmental immunity, the Court’s “I know it when I see it” analysis exacts too great a price. The resulting uncertainty from the Court’s lack of guidance will, I fear, inundate courts with claims against state and local governments for what amounts to discretionary decisions involving the design and illumination of Texas roadways. In my view, this uncertainty is unwarranted because darkness is not an unreasonably dangerous condition. Thus, I would hold that the respondents have failed to state a cause of action under the Torts Claims Act. But because the respondents’ pleadings do not negate jurisdiction, I respectfully concur in the Court’s judgment only.
Certainly, the facts of the case are disturbing. The accident occurred on the South Padre Island Causeway, a lengthy stretch of elevated, curving highway connecting a major tourist destination to the mainland. Although continuous illumination was installed along the route, on the night of the accident a bank of lights was not functioning. They had been malfunctioning for some time, and the County’s park-system director considered this fact to be “a serious safety hazard.” Nolan Brown lost control of his truck at that site *560and the truck hit a median and overturned. Another vehicle crashed into the overturned truck, resulting in Brown’s death. These tragic facts are unique, but then, so are the facts of many other accidents.
The Court identifies a number of factors that purportedly distinguish this case from other thoroughfares. We are told, for example, that this case involves a causeway that curves and ascends, has narrow shoulders, concrete barriers, and a block of malfunctioning lights that caused “a sudden and unexpected change in driving conditions.” 80 S.W.3d 557. Although the number of causeways in this State are relatively few, the remaining factors, alone or in combination, describe highways and byways in every county and city throughout the State.
Public roads are generally constructed, owned, and maintained by governmental entities. For that reason, those entities are potential defendants in nearly every automotive accident case. In many cases, competent attorneys can argue plausibly that the circumstances in their client’s case are at least as unique as the circumstances here. Because the Court’s opinion does not identify any limiting principle, accidents on roads with defective illumination, curves or hills, or with concrete barriers or narrow shoulders, will be sure to inspire litigation in which County of Cameron will become the standard rebuttal to jurisdictional pleas.
The installation of roadway lighting is a discretionary decision that governmental agencies balance along with other resource-allocation decisions. No statute requires that governmental entities provide roadway lighting. And no statute requires governmental entities to warn of absent lighting or changed conditions of roadway lighting. The Legislature has entrusted these matters to governmental discretion. But beginning today, governmental entities must exercise this discretion at their peril.
After today, governmental entities will balance the decision to illuminate roadways against the real possibility that those lights, once installed, might fail and thrust drivers into “sudden darkness” at night. They will weigh the social utility of additional lighting against the very real 'threat that scarce resources will be spent defending claims involving accidents where some segment of those lights has malfunctioned. Assuming those' entities are risk averse, the prudent course may well be to adopt a conservative stance and reduce or eliminate highway-lighting initiatives. However, this Court should not impose that Hob-son’s choice on governmental entities.
More than two decades ago, in Jezek v. City of Midland, 605 S.W.2d 544 (Tex. 1980), this Court recognized the obvious dangers in imposing a similar duty on counties. We stated: “It would be a rigorous burden indeed for a rural county in a state such as Texas to police and remove vegetation from roads when they cause visual obstruction.” Id. at 547. But today, instead of reaffirming what we said in Jezek, the Court attempts to distinguish this case because “the condition alleged here is not simply a naturally occurring one that causes a visual obstruction, but rather a malfunctioning block of artificial lighting that the defendants failed to main-tain_” 80 S.W.3d 557. I am not persuaded by the Court’s distinction. Darkness is certainly naturally occurring and a governmental entity’s failed attempts to protect against the dangers posed by darkness do not create an unreasonably dangerous condition. At some point along every highway, streetlights end, plunging drivers into darkness. And requiring governmental entities to shield drivers from every transition from light to dark along a roadway would be a heavy burden indeed.
*561Today’s decision is even more alarming because, under the Court’s analysis the ultimate question — whether the roadway is “unreasonably dangerous” — is answered not only by the existence of malfunctioning lights, but also by the extent to which the roadway has hills or curves, barriers or narrow shoulders. Because these roadway design decisions are discretionary, they should not be used to aid in establishing liability. State v. Rodriguez, 985 S.W.2d 83, 85 (Tex.1999) (“Design of any public work, such as a roadway, is a discretionary function involving many policy decisions, and the governmental entity responsible may not be sued for such decisions.”). While I do not believe the Court intends to impose liability for discretionary acts, the absence of any principled basis for limiting the scope of the Court’s opinion is deeply troublesome and will undoubtedly jeopardize discretionary road-design decisions.
Some areas of the law permit case-by-case development, leaving it to later courts to discern any emerging pattern. But in my view, it is unnecessary in this area of the law. Darkness, however characterized, cannot constitute an unreasonably dangerous condition. The harm to our jurisprudence of so holding is simply too great. We generally allow litigants to amend to cure pleading defects when the pleadings do not allege enough jurisdictional facts. Texas Ass ’n of Bus. v. Texas Air Control Bd., 852 S.W.2d 440, 446 (Tex. 1993). While it may be unlikely that the respondents will be able to plead sufficient jurisdictional facts, they should be allowed that opportunity. For this reason only, I concur in the Court’s judgment.
Justice RODRIGUEZ, concurring.
The plaintiffs acknowledge that the governmental defendants were not required by any law to illuminate the causeway. Their initial decision to illuminate the highway was a discretionary act. Civ. Prac. & Rem.Code § 101.056. The question then arises: after a governmental unit decides to install streetlights, does it have a duty to ensure that the lights work properly?
The Court decides, and I agree, that the plaintiffs’ pleadings and the evidence in this case are sufficient to raise a premises defect claim. “If a claim arises from a premise defect, the governmental unit owes to the claimant only the duty that a private person owes to a licensee on private property....” Id. § 101.022(a). We have previously stated in City of Grapevine v. Roberts, 946 S.W.2d 841 (Tex.1997), that:
[i]f the condition was an ordinary premise defect, the [governmental unit] owed [the plaintiff] the same duty that a private landowner owes a licensee. Generally, the duty a landowner owes a licensee is not to injure the licensee through willful, wanton, or grossly negligent conduct. An exception to the general rule is that if the landowner has knowledge of a dangerous condition and the licensee does not, the landowner has a duty either to warn the licensee or to make the condition reasonably safe.
Id. at 843 (citations omitted). I agree that the governmental units knew that the lights were not working properly. I also agree that Brown should be afforded the opportunity to replead regarding whether he did not actually know about the allegedly dangerous condition.
I write separately, however, to state that I join in the judgment because our current law mandates this result. I share, however, the concerns expressed by Justice Hecht that the “burden on the governments of Texas will be felt” by this opinion. It should be noted that the Texas Department of Transportation reports that there are approximately 79,297 “center-*562line” miles of roads and highways maintained by the State.1 In addition, there are 142,170 miles of county roads in Texas.2
Whether to install lights in the first instance is an exercise of the government’s discretion. But once having done so, the maintenance of such a lighting system is ministerial and does not afford immunity from liability. This leads to the absurd result that when a governmental unit builds new roads or streets it should decide not to light them.
The Court’s opinion is limited to deciding whether a plea to the jurisdiction was properly granted, and it does not subject the governmental defendants to any liability. Upon remand, Brown will still need to cure his pleading defect and establish causation. The problem that exists, however, is that numerous other governmental defendants will now incur substantial litigation costs ascertaining when bulbs in exterior light fixtures burned out, what caused the light bulbs to burn out, and whether the bulbs have been burned out for so long that the governmental entity should have discovered that fact and replaced them. Plaintiffs will second guess (1) when government employees should have arrived to do the necessary repairs, (2) whether the governmental employees should have erected temporary signs, and (3) how many employees should have been dispatched to work on the lights. See City of Baytown v. Peoples, 9 S.W.3d 391 (Tex.App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1999, no pet.).
In Tarrant County Water Control & Improvement District No. 1 v. Crossland, 781 S.W.2d 427 (Tex.App.—Ft. Worth 1989, writ denied), the plaintiffs were fatally injured in a nighttime boating accident. There is a bridge in the portion of the reservoir where they were killed. A boat must slow down to sit lower in the water in order to go safely under the bridge because of the amount of clearance between the water and the underside of the bridge. Id. at 430. The plaintiffs were killed when their heads struck the underside of the bridge. Id. The plaintiffs’ estates argued that the bridge and reservoir areas should have been lighted and that warning signs should have been provided. In reversing a jury award of over $1.2 million, the court of appeals noted that the plaintiffs did not point to any specific act or omission other than the lack of lights at the bridge. Id. at 432. The Second Court of Appeals noted that “the decedents faced the most common and obvious danger known to man, darkness.” Id. at 435. The Second Court of Appeals further observed “why [should] the bridge ... be considered more dangerous than any other unlighted recreational area. With 4,790 square miles of inland water and more than 200 major reservoirs, Texas ranks second behind Minnesota for the most inland water among the continental states.... In summary, vast areas of Texas are devoid of artificial illumination, and the State has no duty to light the great outdoors.” Id.3
The Second Court of Appeals was correct. There is no duty to light “the vast areas of Texas” and the 300,000 plus miles of highways, roads, and streets in this State. Ironically, the Court’s opinion to*563day provides no incentive for governmental units to increase public safety in that regard. I defer to the Legislature to act upon the County’s public policy arguments regarding the financial burden that may be placed on counties to maintain all exterior lighting.
Justice HECHT, dissenting.
Assume for me, if you will, that all roadways that are dark at night are unreasonably dangerous. This is hard, I know, since almost all of the roadways in the world are dark at night, and for that reason most cars are equipped with headlamps. But assume that darkness at night is unreasonably dangerous so that we can take that issue off the table. (As an aside, I should point out that sunshine can also make a roadway unreasonably dangerous because it gets in your eyes; but that is not this case, and the Court wisely reserves that issue for, as it were, another day.) Before a governmental entity in Texas can be liable for an unreasonably dangerous condition in a roadway, there must be proof either that the condition was a “special defect” — like an excavation or obstruction1 — or that the plaintiff did not know of the condition.2 Since nighttime darkness is nothing like an excavation or obstruction, Texas law leaves a plaintiff but one avenue (if you will) of recovery for damages caused by the relatively regular going down of the sun, and that is to prove that he could not see that it was dark.
Now one might say: well, that’s impossible; any fool driving along can tell by looking whether a roadway is light or dark. But the Supreme Court of Texas is not any fool; it has an easy answer for such skepticism when “the dangerous condition alleged is not merely ‘darkness’ but a failed block of artificial lighting that caused a sudden, unexpected and significant transition from light to darkness.”3 Mind you, no one claims in this case that he was driving along and the roadway lighting suddenly went off The lights had been off for awhile, long enough for Cameron County to know about it; if that were not true, the County would not be liable for the darkness for another reason, and that is that it did not know the lights were out.4 But Cameron County knew the lights were out on a section of the Queen Isabella Causeway for the same reason that Nolan Brown and Hector Martinez and anyone else driving along, or anyone else who just looked, knew it: because it was dark there. So when the Court says the darkness was “sudden”, it means nothing more than that the causeway was lighted for a stretch, and then for a stretch it wasn’t. By saying that the darkness was “unexpected”, I suppose the Court means that Brown and Martinez had not anticipated as they were driving along that the lights might be out. But when they came upon the darkness, they surely must have thought to themselves, “Hmmm, the highway’s dark here,” just as if they had come to the end of any lighted roadway. So however unexpected the darkness may have been, it was still plain as day, so to speak. And when the Court says the “transition from light to darkness” was “significant”, I confess I haven’t a clue what it means. The distinction between darkness that is “significant” and plain old insignificant darkness is lost on me.
It seems obvious that any driver moving down the road can see whether it is dark *564no matter how “sudden, unexpected and significant” that darkness is, so I don’t quite see what difference any of this makes to whether the plaintiff can prove that he did not know that an obviously dark roadway was dark. Either he could see the road was dark or he couldn’t, and how is it possible that he couldn’t and be licensed to drive? It look lighted but it really wasn’t? Well, the Court says, it was the condition of the causeway that made all the difference.
[T]he causeway is narrow, curves, and rises high above the bay. A cement median barrier separates the two travel lanes in each direction and prevents drivers from turning back once embarking upon the bridge. Only a relatively narrow shoulder beside the traffic lanes is available to accommodate vehicles in emergency situations.5
I must say that I cannot quite grasp the Court’s point here. The conditions of the unlighted causeway may have made it unreasonably dangerous, but we have already assumed (against all common sense) that every unlighted roadway is unreasonably dangerous, even a straight, wide, flat, low one. The issue is not how narrow or curvy or high a roadway is, or how many lanes it has or how wide its shoulder is; the issue is whether a driver can see that it’s dark or not. Dark, narrow roadways look just as dark as dark, wide roadways. Widening roads, or straightening them up, or leveling them off, or giving them shoulders does not lighten them up very much.Like any driver on any unlighted roadway in the world, Brown should have known when he came upon the dark part of the causeway that if he stopped for some reason, a driver coming along behind him might plough into him, and Martinez should have known that if he outran his headlights, he might hit something. But, again, none of this has anything to do with whether a driver coming up on a dark road can see that it’s dark, which determines whether the plaintiffs can possibly win this case.
So is there any point to this part of the Court’s discussion? No. Then why is it in the opinion? I can’t say. Wholly apart from everything that’s been said so far, “[t]he relevant inquiry,” the Court says, is “whether the lighting failure was open and obvious to motorists entering the causeway, because that is the point at which they could choose to avoid the condition or otherwise protect themselves.”6 Now, at last, we’re onto something. This at least makes sense. All the plaintiffs must prove in this case is that when Brown entered the causeway, he could not see far enough ahead to know that some of the lights were out. He has not pleaded this, the Court says, but he should be allowed to amend. Well, I for one am strongly in favor of a reasonable opportunity to amend. I do not favor waiver of valid claims and defenses because of the inadvertent mistakes inevitable for even the ablest counsel. But there’s no point in having the plaintiffs amend their pleadings if they’re still going to lose as a matter of law. Amendment is futile unless, if they allege that Brown did not know when he entered the causeway that some of it was not lighted, they can prevail. Is that, allegation, if proved, sufficient to make the County liable for the darkness? Yes, says the Court. Well, then, the County should just pay up. Unless it can prove that Brown had supervision (including x-ray vision to see through the bridge) or was clairvoyant, it can’t possibly escape liability, because no one but Superman and Nostradamus could *565possibly have known, entering the causeway, that the lights were out ahead. (I assume, as we all must, that Brown hadn’t been over the causeway enough at night to know that sometimes the lights were out, and that even if he had, he had every reasonable expectation that the lights would have been fixed since his last crossing.)
To put the Court’s holding as plainly as possible: Had the causeway been wider, flatter, or straighter, and had it had wider shoulders, Brown could either have looked down the road and seen that it was dark in one spot and then turned back, or pulled over, or somehow stayed in the light (even though he did not know he needed to because he did not know he was about to wreck his truck on the concrete barrier in the median), but he could do none of those things; and even though Brown saw the darkness when he came upon it, it was sudden, unexpected, and significant, and besides, he did not know of the darkness when he entered the causeway; so therefore the County is liable. Logic does not flow through this like a quiet stream, I know, but I am trying to restate the Court’s position as accurately as I can. Even if this rule, bizarre as it is, were correct, I am at a loss to understand its application to this case. What difference could it possibly have made to Brown had he known when he entered the causeway that part of it was unlit? He never thought he was going to wreck his truck, in the darkness or the light. No reasonable driver could possibly have thought, well, if part of this causeway is dark and I wreck my vehicle there, others may not be able to see me, so I’ll cross if it’s lit, but if it’s not, I’m staying on the mainland.
“The relevant inquiry” posited by the Court raises the precise concern expressed by the County as well as amici curiae, the Texas Municipal League, the Texas City Attorneys Association, and the Texas Municipal League Intergovernmental Risk Pool, which is, as the Court recognizes, that “allowing the plaintiffs’ claims to proceed will effectively require governmental entities to either light every stretch of public roadway or remove all lighting, because any unexpected illumination change might constitute a premise defect for which they may be held liable.”7 The Court never dismisses this concern because, truth to tell, it’s valid. How often will it happen that a driver enters a lighted portion of a roadway without being able to see a dark spot ahead? Lots. And what difference does it make whether lights are out or whether the lighted portion has just ended? Most drivers still won’t know, when they start out, where the darkness is up ahead. So if the Court means what it says today, and “[t]he relevant inquiry” is what a driver can see when he first enters a lighted roadway, then the governments of Texas simply need to redo their budgets or raise taxes or both to cover the costs of extra lighting and litigation like this.
And if that’s what the Court thinks, why not just say so? Why not just say: Look, if you choose to light a roadway, you must maintain the lighting or face liability for accidents that happen in areas of darkness. Two reasons, I suppose. One, such a rule of liability could move governments not to light roadways at all rather than face liability for inevitable lighting failures, thereby placing the traveling public in greater danger. And two, the rule cannot take into account that lighting must end somewhere, and why the effect of that darkness on motorists is any different from failed lighting is inexplicable.
It may be, however — one cannot always tell for sure — that the Court does not real*566ly mean what it says. Indeed, in another case decided today, Rocor International, Inc. v. National Union Fire Insurance Co.,8 the Court discloses that it did not really mean what it said in American Physicians Insurance Exchange v. Garcia.9 So it does happen, much too often, and it may be that this case is just another “restricted railroad ticket, good for this day and train only.”10 While we can’t say that all highways should be lighted, or even that existing lighting should be repaired, maybe the plaintiffs in this undeniably tragic case will get something in settlement. This occasional propensity of the Court to try to help out a particularly sympathetic litigant without destroying the law emerged in an oral argument not long ago. Professor Laurence H. Tribe, arguing a case in this Court, was actually asked, “Can’t we just have a rule for this case alone without impheating other, similar cases?” “Not and be a court,” he replied, more than a little surprised. If the Court’s “relevant inquiry” is for real, then the law of premises liability has been changed fairly significantly — like light to dark. The burden on the governments of Texas wifi be felt, and we should just say so. If not, then we have not acted like a court.
Either way, I respectfully dissent.

. Pocket Facts, Texas Department of Transportation (March 2002).

. Id.

. Indeed, in Jezek v. City of Midland, 605 S.W.2d 544 (Tex. 1980), this Court similarly recognized that counties did not have a duty to clear or warn of vegetation that obstructed a driver's vision. We stated: "It would be a rigorous burden indeed for a rural county in a state such as Texas to police and remove vegetation from roads when they cause visual obstruction.” Id. at 547.

. Tex Civ. Prac. & Rem.Code § 101.022(b); State Dep’t of Highways & Pub. Transp. v. Payne, 838 S.W.2d 235,'238 (Tex.1992).

. Payne, 838 S.W.2d at 237.

.Ante at 558 (emphasis added).

.Payne, 838 S.W.2d at 237.

. Ante at 558.

. Ante at 558.

. Ante at 557.

. 77 S.W.3d 253 (Tex.2002).

. 876 S.W.2d 842 (Tex. 1994).

.Smith v. Állwright, 321 U.S. 649, 669, 64 S.Ct. 757, 88 L.Ed. 987 (1944) (Roberts, J., dissenting).