Dillon v. Chicago South Shore & North Bend Railway Co.

654 N.E.2d 1137, 1995 Ind. App. LEXIS 1010
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedAugust 15, 1995
DocketNo. 45A03-9402-CV-69
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 654 N.E.2d 1137 (Dillon v. Chicago South Shore & North Bend Railway Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dillon v. Chicago South Shore & North Bend Railway Co., 654 N.E.2d 1137, 1995 Ind. App. LEXIS 1010 (Ind. Ct. App. 1995).

Opinion

OPINION

STATON, Judge.

Terry Dillon, individually, and on behalf of all other passengers, spouses of passengers, dependent next of kin, and personal representatives of deceased passengers who are members of a certified class (hereinafter "the Class") appeal from the trial court's grant of partial summary judgment in favor of Chicago South Shore & South Bend Railway Company and the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District. The Class presents five issues for appellate review which we separate into seven and restate as follows:

I. Whether the Commuter Transportation Districts Act violates Art. IV, § 23 of the Indiana Constitution.
II. Whether the Commuter Transportation Districts Act violates Art. IV, § 22 of the Indiana Constitution.
[1140]*1140III, Whether the Commuter Transportation Districts Act, as amended, violates Art. 11, § 13 of the Indiana Constitution.
IV. Whether the lability limitations of the Indiana Tort Claims Act violate Art. 1, § 28 of the Indiana Constitution.
V. Whether the liability limitations of the Indiana Tort Claims Act violate Art. 1, § 12 of the Indiana Constitution.
VI. Whether the procurement of liability insurance waives the availability of the liability limitations of the Indiana Tort Claims Act.
VII. Whether NICTD, as a governmental entity, is subject to punitive damages.

We affirm1

The facts pertinent to this appeal arise from a head-on collision between two Chicago South Shore & South Bend Railway passenger trains on January 18, 1998 in Gary, Indiana The Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railway (hereinafter "the Railway") provides rail service from South Bend, Indiana to Chicago, Illinois.

The Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District (hereinafter "NICTD") was established in 1977 pursuant to the Commuter Transportation Districts Act2 which allowed counties directly served by a commuter transportation system providing daily interstate commuter service, to join a commuter transportation district. The district was supervised and managed by a board of trustees which received federal, state, municipal, or county funds for the purpose of aiding commuter transportation systems serving the 3Pursuant to the Act, NICTD provided funding to the Railway until the Railway filed for bankruptcy in 1989. In 1990, NICTD acquired a portion of the Railway's assets and operated the commuter transportation service between South Bend and Chicago.4 NICTD has continued this operation and was operating the passenger service of the Railway at the time of the January 1993 accident.

As a result of the accident, seven passengers died and approximately 137 passengers were injured. Several parties filed civil actions against NICTD and the Railway, and the trial court certified this cause as a class action on April 29, 1998. Thereafter, the Class filed a fourth amended complaint alleging in excess of five million dollars in compensatory and punitive damages.

NICTD then filed a motion to strike count I of the Class' complaint on the ground that the Class' request for damages in an amount in excess of five million dollars exceeded the statutory limit of recovery against a governmental entity as provided by the Indiana Tort Claims Act5 NICTD also moved to dismiss Count II of the Class' complaint on the ground that as a governmental entity under the Indiana Tort Claims Act, NICTD was not subject to punitive damages.

The trial court treated NICTD's motion as a motion for summary judgment pursuant to Ind. Trial Rule 12(B). The trial court found [1141]*1141that no genuine issue of material fact existed and granted NICTD's motion to dismiss Count IIL. The trial court also struck Paragraph 8 of Count I of the Class' complaint but found that the Class could proceed to trial on Count I of its complaint with recovery limited to the amounts provided by the Indiana Tort Claims Act. The Class now appeals.

I.

Commuter Transportation Districts Act and Article IV, Section 23

The Class contends the Commuter Transportation Districts Act ("the Transportation Act") is unconstitutional under Art. IV, § 23 of the Indiana Constitution.

The Indiana Supreme Court has set forth the following standard of review for assessing constitutional challenges:

Legislation under constitutional attack ... is clothed in a presumption of constitutionality. The burden to rebut this presumption is upon any challenger, and all reasonable doubts must be resolved in favor of an act's constitutionality. When a statute can be construed to support its constitutionality, such construction must be adopted.... Further, it is the challenger's burden to show that the alleged constitutional defects are clearly apparent.

Matter of Tina T. (1991), Ind., 579 N.E.2d 48, 56-57 (citation omitted).

The Class challenges the establishment of NICTD pursuant to the Transportation Act. First, the Class contends that the Transportation Act violates Art. IV, § 28 because it is a special law. Art. IV, § 28 provides that "[iJn all the cases enumerated in the preceding section, and in all other cases where a general law can be made applicable, all laws shall be general, and of uniform operation throughout the state."

A determination that a legislative act does not operate uniformly throughout the state renders it a special law and thus, violative of our Constitution. State Election Bd. v. Behnke (1974), 261 Ind. 540, 307 N.E.2d 56, 58. A law which appears to be general in form, but upon investigation of the subject matter is found to be local or special in substance, will be declared a special law by the court. Id.

A statute authorizing the creation of an authority, district or commission is not characterized as a local or special law simply because at the time of its enactment it applies to but one city. Graves v. City of Muncie (1970), 255 Ind. 360, 264 N.E.2d 607, 610. The fact that one governmental unit presently qualifies under a particular statute and the statute was apparently drafted with that one unit in mind does not render the statute unconstitutional if the terms of the statute permit other units to eventually qualify. North Twp. Advisory Board v. Mamala (1986), Ind., 490 N.E.2d 725, 726, reh. denied.

The Transportation Act provides in pertinent part:

(a) A county served by a system of commuter transportation and through which the line, road, route, or right-of-way of the system passes, is a member, subject to subsection (b), of a commuter transportation district. The district is created and shall be composed solely of counties which are served by the system and through which the system passes.
(b) A county is a member of a district if that county's board of county commissioners adopted an ordinance authorizing the county's membership in the district under this chapter before January 1, 1987.
(c) A district shall be a distinct municipal corporation and shall bear a name including the words 'commuter transportation district'.

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Related

Johnson v. Gupta
682 N.E.2d 827 (Indiana Court of Appeals, 1997)
In Re Train Collision at Gray, Ind.
654 N.E.2d 1137 (Indiana Court of Appeals, 1995)

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654 N.E.2d 1137, 1995 Ind. App. LEXIS 1010, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dillon-v-chicago-south-shore-north-bend-railway-co-indctapp-1995.