Ibieta v. Star Casino, Inc.

720 So. 2d 143, 1998 WL 699831
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedOctober 7, 1998
Docket98-CA-0314
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 720 So. 2d 143 (Ibieta v. Star Casino, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ibieta v. Star Casino, Inc., 720 So. 2d 143, 1998 WL 699831 (La. Ct. App. 1998).

Opinion

720 So.2d 143 (1998)

Alice IBIETA
v.
STAR CASINO, INC., and XYZ Insurance Company.

No. 98-CA-0314.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit.

October 7, 1998.

*144 Robert E. Arceneaux, Jerry B. Jordan, Travis L. Bourgeois, Barham & Arceneaux, New Orleans, for Plaintiff-Appellant Alice Ibieta.

Daryl A. Higgins, Wade A. Langlois, III, Windhorst, Gaudry, Ranson, Higgins & Gremillion, Gretna, for Defendant-Appellee Star Casino, Inc.

Before SCHOTT, C.J., and JONES and WALTZER, JJ.

WALTZER, Judge.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

Alice Ibieta sued Star Casino, Inc. ("Star") for damages she allegedly sustained on 8 February 1994 when the car she was driving was struck by a car driven by Dianne Hills on Star Casino Boulevard, a street controlled by Star. Mrs. Ibieta claimed her damages were caused by Star's negligence in failing to properly control Star Casino Boulevard, failing to post traffic signs or signals to show the direction in which vehicles should travel, faulty design of ingress and egress to and from Star's casino, and failure to institute or adopt consultant engineering reports to correct the traffic flow.

The trial court granted the Star's motion to exclude evidence of changes to Star Casino Boulevard's signs and pavement markings added after the alleged accident, and to exclude a videotape taken by the Ibietas of Star Casino Boulevard over a week after the alleged accident.

Following trial, a twelve person jury found that Star was not guilty of negligence which was a proximate cause of the accident. The trial court granted the defendants' motion for a directed verdict dismissing the Ibietas's strict liability claim and entered judgment on the jury verdict, dismissing Mrs. Ibieta's negligence suit against Star and its insurer. The Ibietas appeal from that judgment.

STATEMENT OF FACTS

The Ibietas contend that the accident was caused by Dianne Hills's confusion as to the direction of the traffic on Star Casino Boulevard. This confusion, according to the Ibietas, arose from a lack of clear signage indicating that both lanes of traffic were to proceed in the same direction, toward the casino.

Vincent Saladino, assistant manager of the Quarter House Resort, testified that at the time of the alleged accident he was Star's director of property management. He is an operating engineer and a licensed electrical contractor, air conditioning/refrigeration contractor, gas contractor first class, with an operating engineering license in air conditioning and boilers and second class operating engineer's license in internal combustion engines. His duties with Star included oversight of Star's physical properties including parking lots. Star Casino Boulevard was a two-lane one-way street from the time the casino opened in November, 1993, approximately three months before the accident. A broken white line separated the two lanes of traffic, indicating a two-lane one-way street.

Prior to the casino's opening, Star obtained permits from the city, the state and the state gaming board. All construction had to be *145 completed prior to issuance of the permits. Saladino testified that because gambling was controversial, Star was under intense scrutiny from all the civic authorities and from the media, and everything had to be done strictly according to law. From the casino's opening in autumn of 1993 until the date of the accident, Star had not received any notification from any governmental body or office suggesting that the Star was not in compliance with required traffic designs.

Saladino was cross-examined concerning his discussions with Dennis Finigan of Urban Systems, the subcontractor that formulated Star's original traffic plan as well as a plan for signage enhancement. Saladino testified that prior to these discussions in his travels through the Star property he had seen people going against the flow of traffic when they reached the end of the various parking lots. His first reaction was to call the engineers at Urban Systems who had designed the system and who reassured him that everything had been properly done, and, if anything, the directions were a bit overdone. He told the engineers that people were still driving against the traffic flow. Saladino asked the Levee Board police on patrol about the problem, and no one could give him an answer. He was concerned and bewildered by the fact that accidents had occurred caused by cars going down the wrong way on Star Casino Boulevard despite the fact that every intersection had a sign denoting the direction of traffic, the lanes were marked with proper broken white striping between the traffic lanes and the edges were properly striped. Saladino testified to his belief that the drivers disregarded the signage out of laziness to avoid having to circle back through Star Casino Boulevard if they were unable to find a parking place in the lot they were exiting. In light of the apparent disregard of the existing signage by casino patrons, Star asked Urban Systems to prepare a plan of suggested enhancements to the signage. Saladino identified a diagram submitted by Urban Systems dated 18 January 1994, three weeks before the accident in question, showing the proposed addition of a sign indicating the right lane was for authorized vehicles only and of a double-arrow sign showing the left lane as the turning lane for the casino terminal and limiting the right lane to authorized vehicles. Saladino testified that even after the signage enhancements and active enforcement by the Levee Board drivers continued to ignore the signs indicating the proper traffic pattern.

Jackie Rice testified that she had been going into the casino "maybe two or three times a week" and played cards there with Mrs. Ibieta. Rice testified that sometime in late January or early February she drove in the right-hand lane of Star Casino Boulevard, believing the street to be a two-way street, and was stopped by a policeman. About three weeks later, she visited the casino and noticed that arrows had been added showing the one-way direction of traffic. She admitted on cross-examination that she knew that a broken white line indicates a one-way street, and that she was not confused by the signage but by the fact that she saw cars going both ways on the one-way street.

Ms. Ibieta testified that she believed Star Casino Boulevard was a two-way street at the time of her accident. When asked why she was travelling in the left lane of a twoway street at the time of the accident, she testified that she "knew of the changes." She said that she was travelling unrestrained by a seat belt in the left lane at about 10:00 or 10:30 a.m. when a car travelling in the right lane slightly ahead of her turned in front of her without braking or signalling and struck the side of her car, jolting her to the side. She testified on cross-examination that although she believed there was confusion about the direction of the traffic on Star Casino Boulevard, she nonetheless travelled in the left hand lane.

Dennis Finigan, an employee of Urban Systems, a consulting and traffic engineering firm, testified that his firm did all the engineering and consulting work for Star. According to Finigan, Saladino asked the firm to prepare a plan to alleviate a traffic problem. On 18 January 1994, Urban Systems prepared a traffic control recommendation for Star at Saladino's request, adding the double-arrow sign slightly before midway in the parking area. A subsequent recommendation *146 dated 7 February 1994, the day before the accident, provided for changes in delivery signage.

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Bluebook (online)
720 So. 2d 143, 1998 WL 699831, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ibieta-v-star-casino-inc-lactapp-1998.