Coleman v. City of Kansas City, Mo.

859 S.W.2d 141, 1993 Mo. App. LEXIS 938, 1993 WL 214181
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 22, 1993
DocketWD 45879
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 859 S.W.2d 141 (Coleman v. City of Kansas City, Mo.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Coleman v. City of Kansas City, Mo., 859 S.W.2d 141, 1993 Mo. App. LEXIS 938, 1993 WL 214181 (Mo. Ct. App. 1993).

Opinion

SHANGLER, Judge.

The plaintiff Tammy M. Coleman brought suit for damages against the defendants City of Kansas City, Missouri [City], Hunt Midwest Mining, Inc. [Hunt] and Superior Asphalt Company [Superior] for injuries sustained when the vehicle she was operating left the roadway attempting to avoid an oncoming encroaching vehicle, struck the guardrail and overturned. The petition alleged that the City maintained and operated the public roadway known as Stark Avenue, and that the City was negligent in the design, construction and maintenance of that thoroughfare. The petition alleged also that Hunt and then Superior, successively, was negligent in the construction of the surface and shoulders of the roadway.

The court entered summary judgment for the defendants Hunt and Superior on *143 the ground that they owed no duty to Coleman. The court found that there was no just reason for delay and designated the summary judgment in favor of Hunt and Superior as final for purpose of appeal. The claim against the City remains pending. The plaintiff Coleman appeals from the summary judgment.

These facts, not disputed, are material to the litigation and judgment. On June 7, 1977, the City entered into a contract with Midwest Precote Company, predecessor of defendant Hunt, to resurface Stark Avenue and other streets with asphalt. The work was performed from June 7, 1977 to December 22, 1977. On June 23, 1982, the City entered into a contract with Superior to overlay Stark Avenue and other streets with asphalt. On November 24, 1982, the work was certified by the City as completed “in accordance with the plans and specifications therefor.” On March 17, 1987, the plaintiff Coleman was operating her vehicle along Stark when the accident and infliction of injury occurred. In April 1988, Coleman filed a petition for damages against the City. In June 1990 the petition was amended to join Hunt as an additional defendant, and in February 1991, the third amended petition added Superior as a party defendant.

The order of summary judgment explains the reasons for decision:

In the case at bar, no genuine issue of material fact exists to preclude summary judgment. Both defendants Superior and Hunt have shown by uncontroverted evidence that their work, as contractors, to provide an overlay of asphalt on existing streets in 1982 and 1977, respectively, was accepted by the principal with whom they contracted, the City of Kansas City, Missouri. Under Missouri law, once a contractor’s work has been accepted by the principal, the contractor has no liability for injuries to third parties with whom the contractor has no contractual relationship. [Citations omitted.]
When faced with a proper motion for summary judgment supported by affidavits, the party opposing the motion must come forward with specific facts demonstrating the existence of a material issue of fact. [Citations omitted.] Plaintiff in this case has failed to meet that burden in that she has not come forward with any specific facts that controvert the acceptance by the City of the work performed by defendants Superior and Hunt. Likewise, plaintiff has failed to come forward with any facts that would except her claims from the general rule of acceptance of a contractor’s work as stated above.

The appeal articulates two points relied on to set aside the summary judgment: (1) The trial court incorrectly relied upon the acceptance rule, a doctrine already renounced by our decisions. (2) Issues of material fact as to the contractors’, Hunt and Superior, duty of care to Coleman preclude summary judgment.

The argument posits as “the almost universal rule” that “a contractor is liable to all those who may foreseeably be injured by the structure, not only when he fails to disclose dangerous conditions known to him, but also when the work is negligently done.” PROSSER & KEETON, THE LAW OF TORTS § 104A at 723 (5th ed. 1984). This doctrine rejects the acceptance rule in favor of a duty of care based on negligence principles and foreseeability. Under this rule, a contractor

... is subject to liability to others upon or outside of the land for physical harm caused to them by the dangerous character of the structure or condition after his work has been accepted by the possessor, under the same rules as those determining the liability of one who as manufacturer or independent contractor makes a chattel for the use of others. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 385 (1965).

In gist, the principle of foreseeability imposes liability upon a contractor for injury to a third person occurring after the completion of the work and its acceptance by the principal, where the work if negligently performed is reasonably certain to endanger third persons.

This argument attributes a sweep to our opinions that they do not promise. It cites Chubb Group of Ins. Companies v. C.F. *144 Murphy & Assoc., 656 S.W.2d 766 (Mo.App.1983), as the recognition of the “modern rule” and the rejection of the “obsolete concept” of the acceptance doctrine. The argument then cites Singleton v. Charlebois Constr. Co., 690 S.W.2d 845 (Mo.App.1985), as a “virtual adoption” of § 385 of RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS (1965) and the disposition of our court to “further distance itself from the work-accepted doctrine [and] base a contractor’s duty of care on concepts of foreseeability.”

Chubb does indeed recite: “[W]e find that architects and contractors owe a duty to exercise the care required of their professions to persons with whom they are not in privity when the injury to those third parties is foreseeable.” Chubb Group of Ins. Companies v. C.F. Murphy & Assoc., 656 S.W.2d at 775[8,9], That this application of principle, however, is conditional and an exception to the acceptance rule is immediately evident from the sequent ac-knowledgement: “This is true even when their work has already been accepted by the structure’s owner, when the specific conditions enumerated in Begley” are present. Id. [Emphasis added.] The supreme court in Begley v. Adaber Realty & Inv. Co., 358 S.W.2d 785, 791[6-8] (Mo.1962), adopted, as an exception to the general rule of the nonliability of the construction contractor after acceptance of the work for injury to third persons not in privity, the early pronouncement of this court in Casey v. Hoover, 114 Mo.App. 47, 89 S.W. 330 (1905):

Where the evidence establishes

... that the structure was so defective as to be essentially and imminently dangerous to the safety of others, that the defects were so hidden or concealed that a reasonably careful inspection would not have disclosed them and the danger resulting from them, and that these things were known to the [contractor], but not to the [owner]

the liability of the contractor was left “where it would have been had there been no acceptance.” Id., 89 S.W. at 335.

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Bluebook (online)
859 S.W.2d 141, 1993 Mo. App. LEXIS 938, 1993 WL 214181, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/coleman-v-city-of-kansas-city-mo-moctapp-1993.