ANDREW SNYDER, et al. v. WILLIAM J. PAYNE, JR., et al.

 

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE

APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-3476-05T23476-05T2

ANDREW SNYDER, individually,

BARBARA SNYDER and GENE SNYDER,

as his parents,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

WILLIAM J. PAYNE, JR.,

Defendant,

and

BUENA BOARD OF EDUCATION,

and JUDY GOODWIN,

Defendants-Respondents.

__________________________________

 

Submitted October 16, 2006 - Decided November 28, 2006

Before Judges S.L. Reisner and Seltzer.

On appeal from the Superior Court of

New Jersey, Law Division, Atlantic

County, L-1158-04.

Lummis, Krell and Baker, attorneys for

appellant (Theodore E. Baker, on the

brief).

Parker McCay, attorneys for respondents

(Brad Parker, of counsel; Stacy L. Moore,

Jr., on the brief).

PER CURIAM

Plaintiff, Andrew Snyder, appeals from a December 16, 2005, order that granted summary judgment to defendants, Buena Board of Education (Buena) and Judy Goodwin, dismissing plaintiff's personal injury complaint. We affirm.

The record before the motion judge reflects that Goodwin was employed by Buena as a bus driver. On the morning of December 16, 2002, she was operating a school bus northbound on Route 557. Her route had specific locations at which she was to stop and allow students to board. Goodwin was aware that school policy prohibited stopping to load students at non-designated areas.

At approximately 6:30 a.m., while it was still dark, Goodwin approached the intersection of Route 557 and 7th Avenue in Estelle Manor, which was one of her designated stops. In accordance with normal procedure, Goodwin activated amber warning lights approximately 300 feet prior to stopping the bus; stopped the bus; activated flashing red lights; boarded several students; deactivated the lights; and pulled away.

Plaintiff, then seventeen years old, lived in a home that abutted the southbound lane of Route 557 and was approximately 100 feet north of the designated bus stop. He left his home too late to meet the bus and, as he proceeded down his driveway, saw the bus complete its pick-up of the students at the designated location. The bus began to accelerate northward as plaintiff ran to the edge of his driveway. The motion judge was presented with conflicting evidence as to what occurred thereafter. Although Goodwin denies activating her amber lights or slowing the bus in preparation to stop at a non-designated spot in order to pick up plaintiff, there was evidence from plaintiff and defendant William J. Payne, Jr. to the effect that Goodwin reactivated her amber lights. The judge also had an un-sworn statement by another witness asserting that Goodwin had begun to slow without activating her lights. That evidence might permit an inference that Goodwin had exhibited to plaintiff an intent to stop the bus so as to allow him to board. As plaintiff crossed the road to the northbound lane, he was struck by a southbound vehicle operated by Payne.

Plaintiff filed suit against Payne, Goodwin, and Buena. After appropriate discovery, all defendants filed motions for summary judgment. Payne's motion was denied, and the claim against him ultimately settled. As to Goodwin and Buena, the motion judge determined that no reasonable jury could find either negligence or proximate cause and dismissed the complaint. The judge explained:

With respect to the Board of Ed and its

driver, it appears that the -- that the driver was operating the bus in accordance with the law. She was not speeding, she was not erratic, she was utilizing the devices to warn -- to warn people. She had just

completed a successful stop at the school bus stop.

And the Court doesn't see that the violation of school policy here with respect to how she operates the bus has any relevance or probative value with respect to the issues of negligence of her operation.

. . .

And just looking at it from the point of view of Snyder versus the Board of Education, and did she, slowing down that bus and looking at it from the plaintiff's point of view that she was stopping again to pick up that person, did that cause the accident? The Court doesn't think that any reasonable jury would think that her operation of the bus was a proximate cause of the -- of the accident.

Because before you get to proximate cause, you have to find negligence. And here, the operation of the vehicle appears to have been in accordance with our motor vehicle laws. And the fact that there was a Board policy here, the Court is frankly not sanguine to know whether that Board policy is, well, we have people to pick up on that schedule and you got to keep to that schedule and therefore we need to train our students responsibly, make sure that they get on and get there.

. . .

I daresay it's beyond the record and it's not important to the case I'm certainly not basing my decision on it but I drive to this courthouse each of five days a week and very often when I'm coming in, school buses are picking up children and people are--and you see school buses stopped. And we don't expect exactitude in those things. We do expect that they'll comply with the law. We do expect that they will stay within the appropriate portion of the road, that they'll give appropriate warning to other drivers that they are going to be picking up.

But here, with respect to the operation, the Court doesn't see how any reasonable jury under a [Rule] 4:37-2 analysis looking at the evidence before it could come to a conclusion that the bus driver was negligent here in the operation of her vehicle.

When reviewing a motion judge's determination of a summary judgment application, we apply the same standard to resolve the issue, Prudential Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co. v. Boylan, 307 N.J. Super. 162, 167 (App. Div.), certif. denied, 154 N.J. 608 (1998), without affording any special deference to the judge's interpretation of the law. Balsamides v. Protameen Chems., Inc., 160 N.J. 352, 372 (1999); Manalapan Realty L.P. v. Twp. Comm. of Twp. of Manalapan, 140 N.J. 366, 378 (1995). That is, we review the record in the light most favorable to plaintiff and determine if the record, thus viewed, requires judgment as a matter of law. Brill v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 142 N.J. 520, 540 (1995). After reviewing the record in light of the arguments advanced in the briefs, we agree with the judge's analysis.

"A cause of action founded upon negligence involves a breach of a duty of care that causes injury." Weinberg v. Dinger, 106 N.J. 469, 484 (1987) (citations omitted). Plaintiff argues that Goodwin violated a "duty to refrain from picking up students at locations other than regular bus stops" and claims that "the question of whether or not the bus driver actually activated the amber lights so as to induce the student to believe it was reasonably safe to cross the street" is a substantially disputed fact.

On the evidence viewed in the light most favorable plaintiff, a reasonable jury might find that the bus had begun to stop at a non-designated spot, that it had activated its amber lights, and was in the process of slowing down. The difficulty with plaintiff's position, however, is that no reasonable jury could conclude that Goodwin's actions, as described by plaintiff, would "induce the student to believe it was reasonably safe to cross the street."

Plaintiff's brief concedes that the use of amber lights is intended to indicate "a clear intention on the bus driver's part to slow down and pick up a student." That intention is not, however, equivalent to an assurance that it is safe to cross the road. Given the requirement that amber lights should be activated 300 feet before stopping, no inference other than that the lights serve as a warning to traffic that the bus will shortly come to a stop is possible. Once stopped to pick up students, red flashing lights, required by N.J.S.A. 39:3B-1, are activated. The red lights signal that all traffic, approaching or overtaking, must stop at least twenty-five feet from the bus. N.J.S.A. 39:4-128.1. It is the red lights, not the amber, that indicate that it is safe to cross the street.

There was no evidence that Goodwin deviated from her responsibility to warn oncoming traffic of her intention to stop, and we agree with the motion judge that there was no basis for concluding that Goodwin breached any standard of care in the operation of her vehicle. Plaintiff asserts that stopping at an unauthorized stop breached a duty of care because it increased the danger to students. We find no support for this claim in the record or in logic. So long as the driver provides the appropriate signals, the location of the stop cannot affect the safety of the student.

In the absence of some incorrect operation of the vehicle as, for example, stopping without giving 300 feet of warning by flashing the amber lights, there can be no finding of negligence. Similarly, in the absence of any signal to plaintiff that it was safe to cross the highway, there can be no finding of proximate cause. The complaint was properly dismissed.

Affirmed.

 

Andrew Snyder and his parents were named plaintiffs. Because the success of the parents' action depends upon the success of Andrew Snyder's action, we refer only to Andrew as plaintiff.

(continued)

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A-3476-05T2

 

November 28, 2006