Court Opinion

ID: 9549140
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:14:02.50042+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:19:55.053449
License: Public Domain

MATTHEWS, Justice,
joined by BURKE, Chief Justice, dissenting.
In deciding whether the discretionary function exception of AS 09.50.250 applies, it seems to me that we should assume that negligence on the part of the state exists. By doing this we can guard against the easy tendency to confuse the absence of negligence with immunity as a reason for decision. Such confusion can have the effect of creating erroneous precedents.
Confusion of this nature appears to be present in Jennings v. State, 566 P.2d 1304 (Alaska 1977), where we held that the state’s failure to provide a crosswalk several hundred feet from an intersection near which a grade school was located came within the discretionary function exception. We noted that at the intersection nearest the school a crosswalk had been built, an *567electronically controlled traffic signal had been placed, and school crossing guards were usually present. Id. at 1307. We stated:
Of controlling significance, in our view, is the fact that the child was struck ... at a point some three blocks away from the [intersection nearest the school at which crossing safety measures had been taken].
Id. at 1312. The fact that the state had provided safe passage across the busy road at the point nearest the school is significant to the issue of whether the state fulfilled its duty to use reasonable care to provide safe pedestrian crossings. However, it is difficult to see how this fact bears at all on whether the state’s decision not to build a crosswalk where the accident happened was of a planning rather than an operational nature.
The majority’s opinion in the present case also seems to confuse the absence of negligence with immunity. Thus the opinion quotes a highway engineer’s affidavit that the particular stretch of highway involved here “is not unique.” (Maj. op. 565). Further, the opinion notes:
It is not entirely clear which guardrails Industrial Indemnity believes the state became obligated to build. Industrial Indemnity does not claim that the project engineers were bound to accomplish the impossible task of erecting all of the guardrails in the original project proposal in spite of the cutback in funding. To prevail in its claim, Industrial Indemnity would presumably have to be successful in showing that the guardrail at Long Lake Hill should have been built instead of a guardrail that actually was built at another site. The state engineers’ decision to substitute another guardrail for the one at Long Lake Hill would have to have been so unjustifiable as to constitute negligence. One of the basic flaws of Industrial Indemnity’s argument is that it can suggest no criteria which the courts could use to determine whether the guardrails actually built were the right ones or the wrong ones. Even with respect to Long Lake Hill, appellant makes no specific allegations which would support its claim of ministerial negligence.
(Maj. op. 565 n. 10) These statements strongly suggest the absence of negligence under the facts as presented.
Assume, however, that there was evidence that Long Lake Hill was unique in that it was especially unsafe because of some combination of narrow shoulders, steep dropoffs, curves and traffic usage patterns. Assume also that there had been numerous fatalities on the hill of which the state had notice and that the other locations on the Glenn Highway where guardrails in fact were placed as a part of the guardrail project were places where special hazards did not exist and no history of fatal accidents was present. Under such circumstances there would be, to use the terms of the majority opinion, criteria which could be used to determine that the guardrails in the guardrail project were built in the wrong place. Thus, even though the arguably discretionary nature of the decision not to place guardrails on Long Lake Hill is the same under the facts actually presented as it is in my hypothetical, one may question whether the majority would conclude that discretionary immunity would apply if a clear case of negligence had been presented.
In my opinion, the only immune discretionary decision involved in this case was the decision to own and maintain a highway system. Once that decision was made the state no longer had discretion to fail to use due care to assure that its highways were reasonably safe. In State v. I’Anson, 529 P.2d 188 (Alaska 1974) we held that the state is under a duty to use reasonable care to keep its highways in safe condition for the reasonably prudent traveler. Id. at 195. In order to fulfill this duty the state may be required to place appropriate signs or paint no passing barrier stripes on a highway and we held that the failure to do either was not protected under the discretionary function exception. Id. at 193-94. Similarly, in Johnson v. State, 636 P.2d 47 (Alaska 1981) we held that the failure to post a “non-standard” sign to warn that a railroad crossing posed particular hazards to bicyclists was *568not shielded by the discretionary function exception. Id. at 66.1 In Japan Airlines Co., Ltd. v. State, 628 P.2d 934 (Alaska 1981) we held that the alleged failure of the state to build an airport taxiway having a width meeting certain safety standards was not immune. We stated:
In the present case, the state undertook the task of providing the traveling public with a taxiway designed for use by wide-body jets. In so doing it also assumed the responsibility of designing, constructing, and maintaining the taxiway safely. Once the state made the decision to build the taxiway, the discretionary function exception did not protect it from possible negligence liability in the operational carrying out of the basic policy-planning decision to build the taxiway.
Id. at 937 n. 2.
In my opinion this case cannot be distinguished in any principled way from I’Anson, Johnson, or Japan Air Lines. Just as it costs money to erect signs, paint no passing stripes, and build wider taxiways, it also costs money to construct guardrails. However, once the state undertakes to own and maintain a highway system, its obligation is to use reasonable care to keep its highways in safe condition. In certain areas appropriate signs, highway stripes, or guardrails may be required in order to fulfil this duty. If so, the failure to take such precautions is not immunized by the discretionary function exception.
A closely analogous case is State v. Webster, 88 Nev. 690, 504 P.2d 1316 (1972). There, the Supreme Court of Nevada held that the failure of the state to construct a cattle guard which would have served to prevent livestock from straying onto a controlled access highway was not protected by the discretionary function exception. The court stated:
In Pardini v. City of Reno, 50 Nev. 392, 401, 263 P. 768, 771 (Nev.1928) this court said: “[WJhere a railing or barrier is reasonably necessary for the security of travelers on the street, which from its nature would otherwise be unsafe, and the erection of which would have prevented the injury, it is actionable negligence not to construct and maintain such railing or barrier.” The possibility of liability by the city in that case was not predicated on its failure to construct a guardrail in accordance with a plan, but on its failure to construct one at all. The failure of the city to construct a guardrail ... as the failure of the State in this case to install a cattle guard at the entrance to the controlled access freeway, came at the operational level, after the discretionary decision had been made. Where a cattle guard is reasonably necessary for the security of the traveling public on a controlled access freeway, the failure to install it renders the State amenable to suit.
Id. 504 P.2d at 1319.
Also instructive are two California cases. In Ducey v. Argo Sales Co., 25 Cal.3d 707, 159 Cal.Rptr. 835, 602 P.2d 755 (1979) the Supreme Court of California held that the State of California was liable for failing to place a median barrier on a busy freeway. Id. 602 P.2d at 759-63. This conclusion was reached largely on the authority of Baldwin v. State, 6 Cal.3d 424, 99 Cal.Rptr. 145, 491 P.2d 1121 (1972), which held that the design immunity provision of California Government Code § 830.6 did not shield the state’s failure to provide a needed left turn lane at a busy intersection. The Baldwin opinion makes it clear that design immunity under California law is based on the same considerations as immunity for discretionary governmental functions. Id. 491 P.2d at 1124, 1125 n. 6, 1128, 1129 n. 9. In Baldwin the court noted that the duty to correct dangerous highway conditions could encompass *569such devices as “warning signs, lights, barricades or guardrails.... ” Id. 491 P.2d at 1130.
Wainscott v. State, 642 P.2d 1355 (Alaska 1982) is distinguishable from the present case because a discretionary decision was made there that the highway in question was to be utilized for through traffic.2 It would obviously be inconsistent with such a decision to require the construction of a stop signal. Rapp v. State, 648 P.2d 110 (Alaska 1982) (per curiam) can be distinguished on the same basis.
For the above reasons I would reverse the decision of the superior court and remand this case for trial.

. In Johnson we also noted certain examples of discretionary and nondiscretionary action including:
discretionary to establish a post office at a particular location, but not to negligently fail to establish handrails; ...
Johnson v. State, 636 P.2d 47, 65 n. 38 (Alaska 1981) (quoting State v. Abbott, 498 P.2d 712, 722 n. 29 (Alaska 1972)).

. The decision as to what type of highway a highway will be is commonly recognized as discretionary. See, e.g., Urow v. District of Columbia, 316 F.2d 351 (D.C.Cir.1963) (per curiam); State v. Webster, 88 Nev. 690, 504 P.2d 1316, 1319 (1972).