Holiday Rambler Corp. v. Gessinger

541 N.E.2d 559, 1989 Ind. App. LEXIS 739, 1989 WL 86606
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedJuly 31, 1989
Docket50A03-8804-CV-105
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 541 N.E.2d 559 (Holiday Rambler Corp. v. Gessinger) 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
Holiday Rambler Corp. v. Gessinger, 541 N.E.2d 559, 1989 Ind. App. LEXIS 739, 1989 WL 86606 (Ind. Ct. App. 1989).

Opinions

GARRARD, Presiding Judge.

This is a consolidated appeal from the Marshall Circuit Court. Holiday Rambler Corporation and Utilimaster Corporation (Utilimaster) bring an interlocutory appeal from the trial court’s denial of their motion for summary judgment. Gregory Gessinger is also appealing the trial court’s grant of the State of Indiana’s (State’s) motion for summary judgment. We affirm.

On July 13, 1983, at approximately 3:05 p.m. Danny Slabaugh, an employee of Uti-[561]*561limaster, was leaving the plant in his pickup truck. As he attempted to make a left hand turn into the southbound lane of State Road 19 (SR 19) he noticed a motorcycle and a car also leaving the plant and making left turns from the driveway to his immediate north. To avoid hitting these vehicles, Slabaugh stopped his car approximately eight feet into the northbound lane of SR 19.

At this same time Martha Martin was driving her car northbound on SR 19. Seeing Slabaugh’s truck enter the road, Martin applied her brakes to avoid hitting the truck. Instead, she skidded approximately one hundred and sixteen (116) feet, struck Slabaugh’s right fender, spun around into the southbound lane of SR 19, skidded sideways another seventy-four (74) feet and eventually collided with Gessinger, who was driving his motorcycle in the southbound lane. As a result of the collision Gessinger was seriously injured.

At the location where this accident occurred, SR 19 is a two lane asphalt road approximately twenty-four (24) feet wide. The speed limit is fifty-five (55) miles per hour. There are four (4) driveways within eight hundred (800) feet exiting from the Utilimaster plant into the northbound lane of SR 19.

Utilimaster manufactures, produces and assembles commercial vehicles. The manufacturing employees’ shift ends at 3:00 p.m. each day. Employees exit from the four driveways and enter onto SR 19 to travel in either direction. There are no warning signs, signals or other traffic control devices on SR 19 in the vicinity of Utilimas-ter.

Gessinger brought suit against Utilimas-ter and the State for the damages he sustained as a result of the collision. Both Utilimaster and the State moved for summary judgment. The trial court granted the State’s motion but denied Utilimaster’s. Gessinger and Utilimaster now appeal. Three issues have been certified for our review. However, because of the disposition of this case it is necessary to only address the following two issues:

1. Whether Holiday Rambler and/or Utilimaster Corporation, as owners/lessees of a commercial property adjacent to a public highway, owe a duty to the public traveling upon such highways to reduce the number of driveways exiting from the Utili-master plant onto SR 19, to stagger the quitting time of defendant’s employees or to otherwise take precautions so as to control the conduct of, or otherwise protect third persons traveling on the public highway.
2. Whether the trial court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of the State based on the immunity provisions of Indiana’s Tort Claims Act.

Utilimaster argues that the trial court erred in denying its motion for summary judgment because it owed Gessinger no duty of care and without a duty there can be no liability. Utilimaster claims that there is no duty upon an owner of land adjacent to a highway to control the conduct of third parties off the landowner’s property and over whom the landowner has no control.

Utilimaster’s argument is based on two recent opinions: Snyder Elevators, Inc. v. Baker (1988), Ind.App., 529 N.E.2d 855 and State v. Flanigan (1986), Ind.App., 489 N.E.2d 1216. In Snyder Elevators trucks were lined up to have their grain weighed at the elevator. Four blocks away Tonja Buck was stopped at the intersection of Fourteenth and Main Streets. Her view of Main Street was obstructed to the west by an Easterday truck filled with grain waiting in line for the elevator. Buck inched her way forward and into the path of the Bakers, who collided with her car. Bakers brought suit against Easterday Brothers and Snyder Elevator. The trial court granted Snyder Elevator’s motion for summary judgment then vacated its entry by granting Bakers’ motion to correct errors.

We reversed the trial court and held that Snyder owed no duty to Bakers. We stated that the law does not impose a duty on a business to guard against injury to the public from the negligent acts" of a custom[562]*562er over which the business has no control where the injury occurs off the business’s premises. Snyder at 859. In so holding we reaffirmed our decision in Flanigan that a business owner owed no duty to his customers when their injury occurred off the business premises and was the result of actions of a stranger over whom the defendant had no control. In both of these cases we were concerned with the lack of relationship between the landowner and the third person causing the injury.

However, Gessinger argues that Utilimaster was under a duty to exercise reasonable care to prevent injury caused by the property’s defective or dangerous condition to persons traveling on SR 19. We agree. This duty was described in Pitcairn v. Whiteside (1941), 109 Ind.App. 693, 34 N.E.2d 943, 946:

The occupier of land abutting on or adjacent to, or in close proximity of, a public highway, owes a duty to the traveling public to exercise reasonable care to prevent injury to travelers upon the highway from any unreasonable risks created by such occupier, which he had suffered to continue after he knew, or should have known, of their existence, in cases where such occupier could have taken reasonable precautions to avoid harm to such travelers. The traveling public is entitled to make free use of highways and streets, and an occupier of land, which is adjacent to or in close proximity of such highway or street, has no right to so use the property occupied by him as to interrupt or interfere with the exercise of such right by creating or maintaining a condition that is unnecessarily dangerous.

In Pitcairn, railroad employees were burning off the right of way sending heavy smoke billowing into the roadway, causing a collision due to drivers’ lack of visibility. In reaffirming Pitcairn the court in Blake v. Dunn Farms (1980), 274 Ind. 560, 413 N.E.2d 560 stated:

We emphasize that in that case, the railroad itself was causing the dangerous condition that visited itself upon the traveled portion of the highway....
Here, the owner of the property had no relationship to the agency causing the problem, and no duty to investigate to determine if there was a problem, emergency or dangerous condition, (emphasis added)

Blake, 413 N.E.2d at 564.

In the present case the landowner of the property did have a relationship to the agency causing the problem. Utilimaster provided its employees four driveways within eight hundred feet and allowed hundreds of people to exit at 3:00 p.m. each day onto a state road with a speed limit of fifty-five miles per hour.

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Holiday Rambler Corp. v. Gessinger
541 N.E.2d 559 (Indiana Court of Appeals, 1989)

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Bluebook (online)
541 N.E.2d 559, 1989 Ind. App. LEXIS 739, 1989 WL 86606, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/holiday-rambler-corp-v-gessinger-indctapp-1989.