Court Opinion

ID: 9642831
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 18:10:20.232806+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:14.746793
License: Public Domain

P. A. Hollingsworth, Justice, dissenting. I disagree with the majority on the negligence issue in this case. Mulberry Street was built by Midland and dedicated to the public on November 14,1977. The subdivision in which the street was located was incorporated into the city of Pine Bluff on January 11, 1979. Prior to the incorporation, the Pine Bluff City Council had adopted recommendations that the pavement width of two-lane collector streets, such as Mulberry, be forty-eight feet and that the minimum curve radii of such streets be 7160 feet. Other city ordinances required clearing and grading of street rights-of-way. It is undisputed that Mulberry Street is thirty-one feet wide, and the radius of the curve is substantially less than the standard adopted by the city council. The appellant asserts that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment on the issue of negligence. I agree. To prove negligence, the injured party must prove a negligent act; that the act was the proximate cause of the plaintiff’s damages; and that the damages were foreseeable. St. Mary’s Hospital, Inc. v. Bynum, 246 Ark. 691, 573 S.W.2d 914 (1978). The appellees argue that they owed no legal duty to the appellant and that without a duty, there can be no negligent act. The appellees also argue that Midland could be viewed as a contractor in relation to the city and that the general rule in Arkansas provides that upon acceptance by a proprietor of its contractor’s work, the liability of the contractor as to third persons ceases. Southwestern Bell Co. v. Travelers Indemnity Co., 252 Ark. 400, 479 S.W.2d 232 (1972). There are, however, exceptions to this general rule under which a contractor may be held liable after acceptance and approval of the completed job. One of the exceptions “is where the job is ‘turned over by the contractor in a manner so negligently defective as to be imminently dangerous to third persons’.” Reynolds v. Manley, 223 Ark. 314, 265 S.W.2d 714 (1954). Reynolds involved a suit against a contractor for negligently, constructing a road! In holding that the condition was not so imminently dangerous as to subject the contractor to liability, the court pointed out that there was no contention that the hole in the road existed when the job was completed and that the State selected and approved all materials used. These facts make Reynolds distinguishable from the case at bar, in that here the contention is that the road was defective at the time the job was completed. The defect concerns the dimensions of the road, and since the city did not supervise the project, there can be no claim that the city controlled the manner and specifications for construction. Therefore, I would find that the question of negligence should not have been resolved upon a motion for summary judgment. I would remand to the trial court to allow the parties to develop fully the questions of causation and defective conditions on the iosue of negligence. Purtle, J., joins in this dissent.