COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY TRANSPORTATION CABINET, DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAYS v. SHANNON D. SEXTON AND COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY ENVIRONMENTAL AND PUBLIC PROTECTION CABINET, KENTUCKY BOARD OF CLAIMS
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MAY 26, 2006; 10:00 A.M.
TO BE PUBLISHED
Commonwealth Of Kentucky
Court of Appeals
NO. 2005-CA-000005-MR
COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY
TRANSPORTATION CABINET,
DEPARTMENT OF HIGHWAYS
APPELLANT
APPEAL FROM JEFFERSON CIRCUIT COURT
HONORABLE ANN O’MALLEY SHAKE, JUDGE
ACTION NO. 04-CI-003938
v.
SHANNON D. SEXTON AND
COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY
ENVIRONMENTAL AND PUBLIC
PROTECTION CABINET, KENTUCKY
BOARD OF CLAIMS
APPELLEES
OPINION
AFFIRMING
** ** ** ** **
BEFORE:
CHIEF JUDGE COMBS, HENRY AND SCHRODER, JUDGES.
HENRY, JUDGE:
The Commonwealth of Kentucky, Transportation
Cabinet, Department of Highways appeals from an Opinion and
Order of the Jefferson Circuit Court affirming a decision of the
Commonwealth of Kentucky, Environmental and Public Protection
Cabinet, Kentucky Board of Claims, in which the Board awarded
damages to Shannon Sexton on his negligence claim against the
Department.
Upon review, we affirm.
Sexton owns a home in the Okolona community, which is
within the city limits of Louisville.
His house is situated on
a lot adjacent to a vacant lot owned by the Department.
According to the hearing officer’s Findings of Fact, on October
4, 2002 a large dead tree on the Department’s lot fell onto
Sexton’s property and destroyed his garage and a 1993 Cadillac
Deville that it contained.
At the time, the Department was
working on a road project some 200 feet from the location where
the tree fell.
The record before us contains no mention of any
connection between the road project and the vacant lot where the
tree fell.
Apparently the Department’s ownership of a vacant
lot in the vicinity of the road project was coincidental.
Although there was some evidence that the view was obstructed,
Sexton testified, and the Board found, that the dead tree was
“clearly visible” from the site where the Department was
working.
The hearing officer found no causal relationship
between the Department’s road-construction work and the tree
falling.
Sexton did not advise the Department, or anyone else,
of the condition of the tree prior to its falling.
He was not
aware that the Commonwealth owned the vacant lot until after the
tree fell.
After a hearing conducted on August 12, 2003 the
hearing officer issued Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and
a Recommended Order awarding Sexton $7,875.00 in damages, which
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consisted of an award of $1000.00 for his homeowner’s deductible
and $6,785 representing the NADA Blue Book value of the
Cadillac.
The Board adopted the hearing officer’s Findings,
Conclusions and Order as its own.
The Department appealed to
the Jefferson Circuit Court, which affirmed the Board.
The
Board and the Circuit Court found that the Department breached a
duty of ordinary care to Sexton by failing to discover and
remove a dangerous or defective condition (the dead tree) from
its vacant lot.
They concluded that this omission was a
ministerial act, and that the Transportation Cabinet is
therefore liable in damages to Sexton.
This appeal followed.
On appeal, the Department argues that the ruling of
the Jefferson Circuit Court should be reversed for any of three
reasons: (1) that any acts or omissions by the Department in
this case in relation to the vacant lot and the condition of any
trees located thereon, were discretionary rather than
ministerial in nature, and that therefore, the Commonwealth and
all of its agencies are immune from suit for damages resulting
from its negligence, (2) that the Board’s findings of fact are
not supported by substantial evidence and are therefore clearly
erroneous, and (3) that the Board and the Circuit Court relied
on the wrong legal standard pertaining to the Department’s duty
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to inspect the lot, and as to whether it could be charged with
constructive notice of the condition of trees on the lot.
To the extent that the Commonwealth has waived
immunity for the negligent acts of state agencies and their
employees acting within the scope of their employment, such
actions must be brought in the Board of Claims.
See KRS1 44.072,
44.073 and Yanero v. Davis, 65 S.W.3d 510, 524 (Ky. 2001).
The standard for our review of the Circuit Court’s
appellate review of a Board of Claims decision is specifically
addressed by KRS 44.150:
Appeals may be taken to the Court of Appeals
under the same conditions and under the same
practice as appeals are taken from judgments
in civil causes rendered by the Circuit
Court, but no motion for a new trial or bill
of exceptions shall be necessary. The Court
of Appeals shall review only the matters
subject to review by the Circuit Court and
also errors of law arising in the Circuit
Court and made reviewable by the Rules of
Civil Procedure, where not in conflict with
KRS 44.070 to 44.160.
The “matters subject to review by the Circuit Court”,
in turn, are found at KRS 44.140(5):
On appeal no new evidence may be introduced,
except as to fraud or misconduct of some
person engaged in the hearing before the
board. The court sitting without a jury
shall hear the cause upon the record before
it, and dispose of the appeal in a summary
manner, being limited to determining:
Whether or not the board acted without or in
1
Kentucky Revised Statutes.
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excess of its powers; the award was procured
by fraud; the award is not in conformity to
the provisions of KRS 44.070 to 44.160; and
whether the findings of fact support the
award. The court shall enter its findings
on the order book as a judgment of the
court, and such judgment shall have the same
effect and be enforceable as any other
judgment of the court in civil causes.
In addition, the Board is required by KRS 44.120 to
conform its awards to the negligence law of the Commonwealth:
An award shall be made only after
consideration of the facts surrounding the
matter in controversy, and no award shall be
made unless the board is of the opinion that
the damage claimed was caused by such
negligence on the part of the Commonwealth
or its agents as would entitle claimant to a
judgment in an action at law if the state
were amenable to such action.
A negligence action “requires proof that (1) the
defendant owed the plaintiff a duty of care, (2) the defendant
breached the standard by which his or her duty is measured, and
(3) consequent injury.”
85, 88 (Ky. 2003).
Pathways, Inc. v. Hammons, 113 S.W.3d
We have held that “the power of the Board of
Claims to make awards is limited to those cases in which it
finds that the damages were proximately caused by the negligence
of the Commonwealth or its agents.”
Commonwealth of Kentucky,
Department of Transportation, Bureau of Highways v. Burger, 578
S.W.2d 897, 898 (Ky.App. 1979).
Findings of fact by the Board are conclusive if they
are supported by substantial evidence.
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Commonwealth of
Kentucky, Department of Highways v. Mason, 393 S.W.2d 133, 134
(Ky. 1965).
On the other hand, findings of an administrative
body are arbitrary, and clearly erroneous, if they are
unsupported by substantial evidence.
Thurman v. Meridian Mutual
Insurance Co., 345 S.W.2d 635, 639 (Ky. 1961).
When performing discretionary acts or functions,
public officers or employees are shielded from liability for
negligence by the doctrine of qualified official immunity.
Yanero, 65 S.W.3d at 522.
But such officials have no immunity
from liability for the negligent performance of ministerial
acts.
Id.
Discretionary acts involve the exercise of
discretion and judgment, in good faith, within the scope of the
employee’s authority, while ministerial acts require only
obedience to the orders of others or merely involve “execution
of a specific act arising from fixed and designated facts.”
Id.
Discretionary acts “involve policy-making decisions and
significant judgment” while ministerial acts “are merely routine
duties.”
Collins v. Commonwealth of Kentucky Natural Resources
and Environmental Protection Cabinet, 10 S.W.3d 122, 126 (Ky.
1999).
The Department contends that “[t]here is no evidence
in this case to establish there is any criteria (sic),
regulation, statute, manual or recognized standard of care
addressing the subject matter.
Without a defined duty on the
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Department to follow relative to the removal of dead trees, the
tree removal is discretionary and not ministerial.
Negligence
in carrying out a discretionary function cannot be the basis for
a finding that the Transportation Cabinet is liable for any of
the Appellee’s damages.”
Brief for Appellant, p. 8 (italics
added)(citations omitted).
The crux of this case is the Department’s contention
that “[w]ithout a defined duty on the Department to follow
relative to the removal of dead trees, the tree removal is
discretionary and not ministerial”, and that as a result the
Department is immune from suit.
In our view, the Department has
misperceived the central issue of this case.
We believe that
rather than asking whether the Department’s failure to act in
this case was discretionary or ministerial, our inquiry should
be whether or not the Department owed a duty of care to Sexton,
and, if so, whether or not it breached that duty.
This is so
because, if the Department owed a duty of care to Sexton as an
adjoining landowner in a populous area, then a breach of that
duty would in fact be a violation of a defined or ministerial
duty.
Surprisingly few Kentucky cases have dealt with the
liability of a possessor of land for damage caused when a dead
or otherwise unsafe tree falls onto the property of a neighbor.
The most recent case to discuss the issue, albeit in dictum, is
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Schwalbach v. Forest Lawn Memorial Park, 687 S.W.2d 551 (Ky.App.
1985).
In that case we applied the “Massachusetts Rule” to hold
that a landowner had no liability to his neighbor for damages
caused to the neighbor’s roof by twigs, leaves or other debris
deposited on the roof by a healthy tree.
We held that the
plaintiff’s remedy in such a case is to trim back the offending
limbs or roots to the boundary line.
Id. at 552.
But we
carefully limited the application of Schwalbach to “damage
resulting from the natural dropping of leaves and other ordinary
debris”, and emphasized that in that case:
[w]e [were] not confronted with a dead tree
which is likely to fall and cause serious
injury. A claim for damages or removal of
such a tree might be based on the theory of
negligence for damages or nuisance for
removal. Although the landowner may have
the right to cut back overhanging branches
to the boundary line, in the case of a dead
and dangerous tree, it may be more sensible
to require the owner of the tree to remove
it in its entirety, or be liable for
damages. It would be futile to require the
neighbor to remove a portion of the tree to
the boundary line leaving the hazard of a
large portion of the total tree to remain in
a threatening position.
Id. at 552.
Thus, although we hinted that in a proper case we
would abandon the traditional rule in favor of ordinary
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negligence principles, no Kentucky case has yet explicitly done
so.2
The Restatement (Second) of Torts, Section 363, deals
with liability for natural conditions to persons outside of the
land.
That section says:
(1) Except as stated in Subsection (2),
neither a possessor of land, nor a vendor,
lessor, or other transferor, is liable for
physical harm caused to others outside of
the land by a natural condition of the land.
(2) A possessor of land in an urban area is
subject to liability to persons
using a public highway for physical harm
resulting from his failure to exercise
reasonable care to prevent an unreasonable
risk of harm arising from the condition of
trees on the land near the highway.
The origin of the traditional rule that a possessor of
land has no duty to remedy purely natural conditions on his
land, even if they are dangerous to his neighbors, harks back to
a time in England and America when most land “was unsettled or
uncultivated, and the burden of inspecting it and putting it in
a safe condition would have been not only unduly onerous, but
out of all proportion to any harm likely to result.”
Law of Torts, § 57, 4th Ed.(1971).
Prosser,
In contemporary urban
settings, the reason for the rule has little viability.
2
See Liebson, Kentucky Practice, Tort Law, § 10.68 for a useful discussion of
Kentucky law on the liability of owners and occupiers of land for injuries
occurring outside the premises.
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In Schwalbach we discussed but did not adopt the
reasoning of Sprecher v. Adamson Companies, 30 Cal.3d. 358, 178
Cal.Rprt. 783, 636 P.2d 1121 (1981), a landslide case that
discusses the traditional common-law rule.
In Sprecher, the
California Supreme Court rejected the traditional rule in favor
of a reasonable care standard.
Noting the exception in the
Restatement (Second) Section 363(2), that recognizes a standard
of reasonable care regarding trees near highways, the Sprecher
court criticized the traditional rule as creating “an
unsatisfying anomaly: a possessor of land would have a duty of
care toward strangers but not toward his neighbor.”
Sprecher,
30 Cal.3d at 366, 178 Cal.Rprt. at 787, 636 P.2d 1125.
We
resisted the plaintiff’s urging to follow Sprecher in Schwalbach
because we were unwilling to make a rule under the facts of that
case which would “result in innumerable lawsuits and impose
liability upon a landowner for the natural processes and cycles
of trees.”
Schwalbach, 687 S.W.2d at 552.
Schwalbach
established a sensible, workable rule in a case arising from a
factual background different from that in this case.
We see no
reason to depart from its reasoning as it applies to healthy
trees that do not present a threat of injury or serious property
damage to neighboring persons or property.
But because this
case squarely presents the issue, we must now decide whether an
urban landowner owes his neighbor a duty of reasonable care to
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prevent an unreasonable risk of harm arising from defective or
unsound trees on the premises.
The traditional rule that possessors of land are not
liable to adjoining landowners for harm resulting from natural
conditions has been substantially eroded, especially for damage
occurring in urban or populated areas.
See Cheryl M. Bailey,
Annotation, Tree or limb falls onto adjoining private property:
personal injury and property damage liability, 54 A.L.R. 4th 530
(1987);
Mahurin v Lockhart, 71 Ill. App. 3d 691, 28 Ill. Dec.
356, 390 N.E.2d. 523 (5th Dist, 1979);
Barker v Brown, 236 Pa.
Super. 75, 340 A.2d. 566 (1975); Cornett v Agee, 143 Ga. App.
55, 237 S.E.2d. 522 (1977); Israel v Carolina Bar-B-Que, Inc.,
292 S.C. 282, 356 S.E.2d. 123 (App. 1987).
The Department argues that it is unreasonable to
impose upon it a duty to conduct an inspection of trees on its
property.
While we agree that no such duty exists in rural,
sparsely populated settings, in urban areas such a duty is
slight in proportion to the potential danger, as evidenced by
the facts of this case.
The cases which have discussed a duty of inspection by
the Transportation Cabinet or the Department involve conditions
along roadways or right-of ways.
For example in Schrader v.
Commonwealth, 309 Ky. 553, 218 S.W.2d 406 (1949), the Board
dismissed claims against the Department of Highways for damages
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for injuries suffered by Jean Schrader when a boulder became
dislodged from a cliff beside a four-lane highway in Jefferson
County and struck the truck in which the Schraders were riding.
The Board of Claims found that the Department’s inspection of
the area from which the boulder fell was adequate, and that it
was not foreseeable that the boulder would fall.
In affirming,
the Court quoted the Board’s ruling, stating:
[T]he Highway Commission even when the State
has waived its immunity from suit is not an
insurer against accidents arising from
defects or dangerous conditions on a public
highway. Its duty is merely that of a
private corporation or municipality subject
to suit, namely to exercise ordinary care to
prevent injury, from defects in the highway.
The Highway Department would be liable
for the injury in this case if it had notice
of the dangerous condition and failed to
take reasonable precautions to protect the
traveling public from injury as a result of
the condition. The Department would also be
liable if by the exercise of reasonable
care, they could have or should have
discovered the dangerous condition and by
their failure to exercise that care, did not
make the discovery and took no measure to
protect the public.
Schrader v. Commonwealth, 309 Ky. at 557, 218 S.W.2d
at 408.
The former Court of Appeals faced a similar issue
fifteen years later in Commonwealth, Department of Highways v.
Callebs, 381 S.W.2d 623 (Ky. 1964).
In that case a large
sycamore tree broke during a windstorm and fell across U.S. 25E
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in Knox County, striking an automobile driven by Cecil Callebs,
who was killed.
Callebs’ administratrix filed an action in the
Board of Claims alleging negligence by the Department.
Board denied the claim.
The
On appeal, the circuit court reversed
and remanded to the Board with directions to grant an award in
the amount of $10,000.00.
The Court of Appeals reversed.
Finding that the Department did not have actual notice of the
condition of the tree, the Court said that “[t]he issue in the
case is whether the department was chargeable with constructive
notice of the defective condition, or, stated another way,
whether a reasonable inspection would have disclosed the
condition.
This involves the question of how close an
inspection was reasonably required.”
Id. at 623.
The Court
went on to hold that “we cannot say as a matter of law that the
burden of a walk-around inspection of each tree near the highway
(perhaps requiring the obtaining of entry permission from the
abutting landowners) would not be unreasonable in comparison
with the risk.”
Id. at 624.
In so holding the Court cited its
earlier holdings in Lemon v. Edwards, 344 S.W.2d 822 (Ky. 1961)
and Schrader.
Lemon, decided only three years before Callebs,
held that “as a matter of law a private owner of forest lands
adjacent to a little-used road in a sparsely settled area did
not have any duty of inspection to discover whether trees had
become dangerous through natural processes of decay.”
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Callebs,
381 S.W.2d at 624.
While Schrader, Lemon, and Callebs remain
viable as precedent, we believe that each of them is factually
distinguishable from this case.
Both Lemon and Callebs dealt
with rural or sparsely populated areas.
In Schrader an
inspection had been conducted only a few days before the
accident occurred.
Although the Court in Lemon rejected, as too
burdensome, a duty of inspection by a private owner of heavily
wooded land bordering a little-used road, the other cases
recognized and discussed a duty of ordinary care owed by the
Commonwealth to the traveling public.
This duty is not
established by statute or regulation but is imposed by the
common law, in those areas where the Commonwealth has waived its
immunity.
We believe that the time has come for us to recognize
the common-sense duty of reasonable care that an urban landowner
owes to his neighbor.
Indeed, the duty the Commonwealth owed
Shannon Sexton in this case was no more, and no less, than that
owed him by his other neighbors in a populated, urban or
suburban setting such as Okolona.
See Schrader, 309 Ky. at 557,
218 S.W.2d at 408; see also 57 Am.Jur.2d Municipal, Etc., Tort
Liability, § 107 (2005).
Accordingly, we now take the step we
foreshadowed twenty-one years ago in Schwalbach v. Forest Lawn
Memorial Park, and hold that a landowner in an urban or heavily
populated area has a duty to others outside of his land to
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exercise reasonable care to prevent an unreasonable risk of harm
arising from defective or unsound trees on the premises.
Once we recognize that the Department owed a duty of
reasonable care to its urban neighbors, it is plain that the
administration of that duty is ministerial.
Indeed, even a
cursory inspection of the vacant lot should have revealed the
presence of dead trees in the boundary line adjoining Sexton’s
property.
And, the fact that some decisions would then have to
be made concerning what to do about the trees, and how to do it,
does not convert the duty into a discretionary one.
“[A]n act
is not necessarily taken out of the class styled ‘ministerial’
because the officer performing it is vested with a discretion
respecting the means of (sic) method to be employed.”
Collins
v. Commonwealth of Kentucky Natural Resources and Environmental
Protection Cabinet, 10 S.W.3d 122, 125-126 (Ky. 1999)(inspection
of drainage culvert found to be a ministerial act).
See also
Jones v. Lathram, 150 S.W.3d 50, 53 (Ky. 2004)(driving a police
cruiser found to be a ministerial act).
We have thoroughly reviewed the record before us and
the Commonwealth’s contention that the Board’s Findings of Fact
and Conclusions of Law are not supported by substantial evidence
and are therefore clearly erroneous.
But, we note that the
Cabinet and the Department admit that they did not inspect the
property adjoining Sexton’s premises.
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Moreover, neither has
disputed Sexton’s damages here.
Finally, the hearing officer
found from testimony that the Department did not inspect its
urban property for dead trees and that, as a result, the tree
fell outside the boundary of the Department’s property, causing
Sexton’s damages.
The hearing officer heard testimony from
Sexton and from Cabinet employees, reviewed stipulated facts,
viewed videotapes of the condition of the fallen tree and
Sexton’s garage and automobile, and viewed other documentary
evidence and photographs submitted by both parties.
As we
cannot say that the hearing officer’s findings of fact are not
supported by substantial evidence in the record, they are
therefore conclusive.
Commonwealth of Kentucky, Department of
Highways v. Mason, 393 S.W.2d at 134.
We mention in passing that the facts of this case
presented potential comparative negligence issues
due to Sexton’s failure to report the threatening condition of
the tree and perhaps even due to his failure to move the
Cadillac out of harm’s way.
See Commonwealth, Transportation
Cabinet, Department of Highways v. Babbitt, 172 S.W.3d 786 (Ky.
2005); see also Collins, 10 S.W.3d at 127.
And, we do not by
our ruling approve the method of valuation of the automobile
accepted by the hearing officer.
The correct measure of damages
is not necessarily the NADA Blue Book value, but rather “the
difference in the fair market value of the car at the place of
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the accident immediately before and immediately after the
accident.”
(1941);
(2005).
8
Vaughn v. Taylor, 288 Ky. 558, 156 S.W.2d 836, 840
Am. Jur. 2d Automobiles and Highway Traffic § 1313
We make no ruling on these issues because neither of
them was preserved or presented for our review.
The Opinion and Order of the Jefferson Circuit Court
is affirmed.
COMBS, CHIEF JUDGE, CONCURS.
SCHRODER, JUDGE, DISSENTS AND FILES SEPARATE OPINION.
SCHRODER, JUDGE, DISSENTING:
Our first inquiry is
whether or not the Department owed a duty of care to Sexton.
all agree that under present law, there is no duty.
majority believes it’s time to create a duty.
We
The
I must dissent.
The General Assembly could, and probably should consider
creating such a duty, but not the courts.
Also, the urban/rural
distinction invites a number of questions, such as do we
classify by city limits, population density, lot size, etc?
BRIEF FOR APPELLANT:
A. Andrew Draut
Louisville, Kentucky
BRIEF FOR APPELLEE,
SHANNON D. SEXTON:
Daniel M. Alvarez
Louisville, Kentucky
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