Ericksen v. Salt Lake City Corp.

858 P.2d 995, 220 Utah Adv. Rep. 22, 1993 Utah LEXIS 116, 1993 WL 327838
CourtUtah Supreme Court
DecidedAugust 31, 1993
Docket910210
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 858 P.2d 995 (Ericksen v. Salt Lake City Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Utah Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ericksen v. Salt Lake City Corp., 858 P.2d 995, 220 Utah Adv. Rep. 22, 1993 Utah LEXIS 116, 1993 WL 327838 (Utah 1993).

Opinions

HOWE, Associate Chief Justice:

Defendants Salt Lake City Corporation and Salt Lake Airport Authority (“the City”) appeal from a judgment for $94,892 entered on a jury verdict awarding plaintiff James D. Ericksen damages for personal injuries he sustained in an accident while working on City property. Ericksen cross-appeals, contending that the trial court erred in determining the amount of damages to which he was entitled.

Ericksen was employed by Projects Unlimited, Inc., a general contractor that had been engaged by the City to construct a maintenance facility building at Salt Lake City International Airport. Fourteen large garage-type overhead doors were located on opposite sides of the building. Fourteen [997]*997electric control buttons were mounted on the walls. Each button opened and closed the door on its left. On the day of the accident, March 5, 1987, Millard Rice, a construction inspector employed by the City, was inspecting the rubber seal along the bottom edge of one of the doors. To facilitate the inspection, he endeavored to raise the door slightly. However, he inadvertently pushed the wrong button and raised a different door. At that instant, Ericksen was working on a ladder that rested against this door. The opening of the door dislodged the ladder, and Ericksen fell to the cement floor below, injuring his lower back. He received workers’ compensation benefits from Projects Unlimited.

Ericksen then brought this negligence action against the City. The City moved for summary judgment, contending that it was immune from liability under Utah Code Ann. § 63-30-10(l)(d) (1989) (now § 63-30-10(4) (Supp.1993)), which immunizes governmental entities from suit when the injury

arises out of a failure to make an inspection or by reason of making an inadequate or negligent inspection of any property.

The motion was denied. The City then joined Projects Unlimited as a third-party defendant, contending that the terms of the construction contract required Projects to indemnify the City against any liability to Ericksen. The City and Projects Unlimited filed cross-motions for summary judgment on the indemnity issue, and the trial court granted the motion of Projects Unlimited.

A trial on Ericksen’s complaint against the City followed. Although Projects Unlimited had been dismissed from the suit, it was named on the verdict form, and the jury apportioned negligence of 10 percent to Ericksen, 50 percent to the City, and 40 percent to Projects Unlimited. The jury found Ericksen’s damages to be $186,200. The trial court entered judgment on the verdict against the City and in favor of Ericksen for 50 percent of that amount together with interest on his special damages and costs of court, making a total of $94,892. Pursuant to Utah Code Ann. § 35-1-62 (1988), Ericksen was obligated to reimburse his employer, Projects Unlimited, for the workers’ compensation benefits he had received.

GOVERNMENTAL IMMUNITY

The City contends that the trial court erred in denying its first motion for summary judgment because Ericksen’s injury arose out of immune conduct, i.e., the City’s inspection of property. § 63-30-10(l)(d). The City points out that Rice’s negligent conduct occurred at the very core of the inspection process in that (1) he was attempting to raise a door to make a more thorough inspection, and (2) it was not an incidental act which happened to occur dur-. ing the course of the inspection, unrelated to the inspection itself.

We acknowledge the force of the City’s argument; however, we believe it reads too much into the grant of immunity. Section 63-30-10 generally waives immunity for the negligent conduct of governmental employees, subject to exceptions where immunity is retained. One of those exceptions, contained in subparagraph (l)(d), is when the injury arises out of a failure to make an inspection or by reason of making an inadequate or a negligent inspection of any property. The question of whether a governmental entity is liable for the negligent inspection of property most frequently arises when the entity undertakes inspections to assure compliance with building, fire, electric and other safety codes. 57A Am.Jur.2d Negligence § 376 (1989). Here, it appears that the inspection may have been broader in scope than that. Rice was not an inspector in the City’s inspection department. He had an office at the airport, and his job was to assure that construction carried on at the airport was done in accordance with the plans and specifications to which the City and the contractor had agreed. Rice would call to the attention of the general contractor’s superintendent any deviation which he discovered. In this role, he served as an inspector for the City as the owner of the property and as a party to the construction contract. He functioned differently from a city inspector who inspects construction on private prop[998]*998erty for compliance with building, fire, electric, and other safety codes.

Disregarding that difference for the purposes of this case, however, we believe that the legislature intended to preserve a narrow immunity for inspections to allow inspectors to perform their work without fear that an oversight which later causes injury would give rise to liability on the part of a governmental entity. The conclusions and results of the inspection are not to be second-guessed by courts and juries. One court has “recognized that regulatory activities which are engaged in for the benefit of the public generally would be discouraged by the imposition of civil tort liability, and that this is not in the public interests.” Garry v. Payne, 224 N.J.Super. 729, 735-36, 541 A.2d 293, 297 (1988). See also Wilson v. Municipality of Anchorage, 669 P.2d 569 (Alaska 1983), where the court upheld the constitutionality of immunity for inspections (1) because of the need of municipalities to conserve their financial resources and to conduct safety inspections without hindrance or intimidation caused by burdensome litigation, and (2) to encourage municipalities to undertake safety inspections. We expressed similar sentiments with respect to the immunity granted in connection with the issuance, denial, suspension, or revocation of licenses in Gillman v. Department of Financial Institutions, 782 P.2d 506, 513 (Utah 1989). We there quoted with approval the following from 4 California Law Revision Commission, Reports, Recommendations and Studies 817-18 (1963):

Far more persons would suffer if government did not perform these functions than would be benefitted by permitting recovery in cases where the government is shown to have performed inadequately-

We thus conclude that the immunity granted in section 63-30-10(l)(d) was intended to immunize only the conclusions and results of an inspection where the inspector may have overlooked something or made a faulty judgment in deciding whether to approve or reject the subject of the inspection. It was not intended to broadly shield the inspector from his negligent acts as he went about making the inspection.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Granite School District v. Young
2023 UT 21 (Utah Supreme Court, 2023)
Johnson v. Department of Transportation
2004 UT App 284 (Court of Appeals of Utah, 2004)
Ilott v. University of Utah
2000 UT App 286 (Court of Appeals of Utah, 2000)
Cortez v. University Mall Shopping Center
941 F. Supp. 1096 (D. Utah, 1996)
Nixon v. Salt Lake City Corp.
898 P.2d 265 (Utah Supreme Court, 1995)
Scudder v. Kennecott Copper Corp.
886 P.2d 48 (Utah Supreme Court, 1994)
Tietz v. Blackner
157 F.R.D. 510 (D. Utah, 1994)
Ericksen v. Salt Lake City Corp.
858 P.2d 995 (Utah Supreme Court, 1993)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
858 P.2d 995, 220 Utah Adv. Rep. 22, 1993 Utah LEXIS 116, 1993 WL 327838, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ericksen-v-salt-lake-city-corp-utah-1993.