Morgan v. State, Department of Public Works

862 P.2d 1080, 124 Idaho 658, 1993 Ida. LEXIS 176
CourtIdaho Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 29, 1993
Docket19709
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 862 P.2d 1080 (Morgan v. State, Department of Public Works) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Idaho Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Morgan v. State, Department of Public Works, 862 P.2d 1080, 124 Idaho 658, 1993 Ida. LEXIS 176 (Idaho 1993).

Opinion

SILAK, Justice.

The State of Idaho appeals from a judgment entered pursuant to a jury’s special verdict finding the State sixty percent liable for personal injuries sustained by Willis Morgan when he stepped backwards off a loading dock located at a state office building. The State argues that the trial court erred in denying the State’s pretrial motion for partial summary judgment and in its instructions to the jury. For the reasons stated below, we affirm.

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Toward the end of March, 1987, Willis Morgan, who is totally blind, obtained a concession franchise through the Business Enterprise Program run by the Idaho Commission for the Blind. Willis’s wife, Lynda, who is fully sighted, assisted him in operating the commissary at the Lewiston State Office Building and maintaining vending machines at the airport and other state and city buildings around Lewiston. To operate the business, the Morgans used their own vehicle to pick up food supplies from purveyors in Lewiston and then stored the supplies at the state office building for later sale.

*660 When delivering inventory to the storage rooms and commissary, which were on the third floor of the state office building, the Morgans would usually park their vehicle in the driveway on the south side of the building, Willis would unload the goods onto a hand truck, and cart them across a loading platform to a freight elevator, which was also on the south side of the building. A three and one-half foot high dock, or drop off, was on the east side of the loading platform, which was about thirteen feet wide (north to south) and nine feet deep (east to west). The platform was enclosed by walls on the north, west, and south sides. The wall on the north side of the platform consisted of the south wall of the office building, where the freight elevator doors were located. The wall on the south side had an opening in it to allow persons to access the loading dock and freight elevator from the parking lot and driveway which were on the south side of the building. A wall ran across the entire west side of the platform. From the dock side of the platform, a ramp ascended to the east up to the level of the driveway and parking lot. In performing their frequent, if not daily, deliveries to the state office building, the Morgans would not back their vehicle down the ramp to the loading dock, but instead they would park their vehicle in the driveway and access the loading platform through the opening in the south wall.

On April 9, 1987, between one and two weeks after taking over the business, Willis fell and was injured as he was delivering inventory to the state office building. Willis had unloaded eleven cases of soft drinks from the vehicle onto the hand truck. While on the loading dock, Willis walked backwards (to the east) in order to turn the hand truck around and push it forward across the loading dock. As he was backing up, Willis stepped backwards off the loading dock, landing on his back with cases of soft drinks on top of him. As a result of the fall, Willis sustained various injuries, including a fractured pelvis, a fractured elbow, and a sprained shoulder and wrist. Although Willis had delivered inventory to the state office building via the freight elevator numerous times, he testified that he was completely unaware that what he assumed was a walkway between the driveway and the freight elevator door was actually a loading platform with an open drop-off or dock on the east side.

The Morgans sued the State, claiming that it was negligent for failing either to make the loading platform safe for blind persons or to take reasonable measures to warn blind persons entering the loading platform area that they were entering an area with potential dangers. The State denied any negligence in the design or construction of the loading dock area, asserted that it breached no duty to warn Willis about the loading dock, asserted that Willis’s injuries were the result of his own negligence, and claimed immunity from liability under the design immunity provisions of the Idaho Tort Claims Act.

Before trial, both parties filed motions for partial summary judgment. In their motion, the Morgans asserted that as a matter of law, the State’s construction of the loading dock area — without guard rails along the open edge of the dock and without tactile warning devices to warn blind persons of potential danger as they entered the loading dock area — violated certain state building codes, including: (1) the Uniform Building Code; (2) the Life Safety Code; and (3) the American National Standard Specifications for Making Buildings and Facilities Accessible To and Useable by Physically Handicapped People (ANSI Standards). 1 The Morgans asserted that the State’s violation of these building codes constituted negligence as a matter of law. In its motion, the State sought a ruling that as a matter of law the design and construction of the loading dock area complied with all applicable building codes.

*661 In ruling on the parties’ opposing motions for partial summary judgment, the district court concluded that, as a matter of law, the State’s design and construction of the loading dock area violated neither the Uniform Building Code nor the Life Safety Code. However, the court ruled that, as a matter of law, the State violated the ANSI Standards by not placing a tactile warning device on the interior freight elevator doors in order to warn blind persons that the doors led to a potentially dangerous area. 2 The district court declined to rule, however, that the State’s noncompliance with the ANSI Standards constituted negligence per se. The court concluded that the jury might properly find, depending on the evidence presented at trial, that the State’s noncompliance with the ANSI Standards was excusable, and therefore not negligent. The district court denied the State’s motion ruling that there were disputed issues of material fact as to the State’s code compliance.

The case was subsequently tried to a jury, which returned a special verdict finding that both Willis and the State were negligent, and that the damages which the Morgans suffered as a result of Willis’s injuries totalled $170,000. The jury determined that Willis’s negligence contributed forty percent to his injuries and the State’s negligence contributed sixty percent. Based on the jury’s verdict, the trial court entered judgment in favor of the Morgans, awarding them $102,000 (sixty percent of $170,000) against the State. The State now appeals, challenging the district court’s denial of its motion for partial summary judgment as well as several jury instructions.

II. ISSUES ON APPEAL

The State raises the following issues on appeal:

1. Whether the trial court erred in denying the State’s motion for partial summary judgment based on its conclusion that the ANSI Standards requiring tactile warnings to be placed on doors leading to areas which might prove dangerous to a blind person applied to the interior freight elevator doors of the state office building.

2. Whether the trial court erred in refusing to give the State’s requested Jury Instruction No. 14 regarding the design immunity defense to governmental liability established by I.C.

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Bluebook (online)
862 P.2d 1080, 124 Idaho 658, 1993 Ida. LEXIS 176, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/morgan-v-state-department-of-public-works-idaho-1993.