Musgrove v. Tooley

1963 OK 102, 382 P.2d 150, 1963 Okla. LEXIS 397
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedApril 30, 1963
DocketNo. 40065
StatusPublished

This text of 1963 OK 102 (Musgrove v. Tooley) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Musgrove v. Tooley, 1963 OK 102, 382 P.2d 150, 1963 Okla. LEXIS 397 (Okla. 1963).

Opinion

BLACKBIRD, Chief Justice.

This appeal involves an action for damages on account of the personal injuries and death of plaintiff in error’s intestate. Herein, plaintiff in error, hereinafter referred [151]*151to as plaintiff, seeks reversal of an order and/or judgment of the trial court, in which, among other things, said court sustained the special appearance, objection to jurisdiction, and motion to dismiss, that the defendants in error (as part of the defendants in the case) had previously filed. These parties, usually herein referred to as defendants, were then members of the Board of County Commissioners of Pottawatomie County. By said order, the court overruled a similar pleading theretofore filed by other defendants — not parties to this appeal— who, at all times material to this controversy, were members of the Board of County Commissioners of Oklahoma County.

In their briefs, all parties herein apparently agree that the pleading involved was essentially, and in effect, a general demurrer charging the “Third Amended Petition” filed by plaintiff, with failure to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action in her favor; and that (if the merits of the order overruling it are considered) said order may be treated as one sustaining such a demurrer.

According to plaintiff’s challenged pleading, her intestate suffered the fatal injuries when the Ford automobile he was driving south on a dirt road traversing the boundary line between Oklahoma and Pottawatomie Counties (at a point between Oklahoma City’s East Reno Avenue and its Southeast Fifteenth Street, or extensions thereof) fell into a “washed-out ditch running across the road * * ⅜ ”. The plaintiff further alleged that: “The washed-out ditch was caused by rain on or about May 2S, 1957, and from that time until August 20, 1957, the date deceased was killed, no warning signs, barricades or any other such warning device were erected either on Reno Street or before the washed-out ditch in the roadway to give the traveling public warning thereof, nor was it repaired during said period.”

Although plaintiff’s Third Amended Petition contains allegations of negligence with reference to the duties of the respective county commissioner boards, and certain named road foremen of each of the afore-named counties, in discharging said duties which she alleged would have prevented the accident, the allegations themselves show that such duties, on the part of either board concern only roads within- its county, and apply to a county-line road, or a part thereof, only after it has become a part of the road system of the county for which a particular board of county commissioners is responsible. Nor does the plaintiff allege facts showing how warning signs erected on the east, or Pottawatomie County, side of the road, or the west, or Oklahoma County, side of it (near the scene of the accident) would have been seen by plaintiff’s intestate (approaching it from the north) so as to have prevented him from driving on into the washed-out ditch.

The only statutory basis alleged in the pleadings for the extension, to the county-line road involved, of the duties with which the Boards of County Commissioners are charged, as to roads within their respective counties, is Title 69 O.S.1951 §§ 251 and 252. Section 251 provides as follows:

“§ 251. Maintenance and construction between counties — Division of roads All roads on county lines in this State shall be maintained and constructed by the counties adjoining; that for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this act, it shall be the duty of the Board of County Commissioners of each of the counties between which such roads are located, to divide such roads on such county line into two parts or sections, as nearly equal as practicable, giving due consideration to the difference of cost of construing and maintaining each section, agreeing between themselves that each county shall undertake the work of constructing and maintaining one of the two sections.” (Emphasis ours.)

On the basis of section 251, the plaintiff alleged that it was the duty of both boards of county commissioners to divide the county-line road between themselves by agree[152]*152ment. After naming each defendant member of both Boards, the petition alleges that the said defendants “ * * * negligently failed to divide said * * * road as provided by said statutes and thereby negligently failed to maintain said county-line road at the place where the accident occurred.” Such failure was characterized as “negligence per se.” In other allegations of her Third Amended Petition, plaintiff alleged, among other things, in substance, that the defendant county commissioners have ample funds and sufficient equipment to have repaired the road and/or to have erected signs warning of its dangerous condition, after they knew, or should have known thereof. ¡

Under the second and third “PROPOSITIONS” advanced by plaintiff for reversal of the order and/or judgment appealed from, she urges that, in this State, the maintenance and repair of a county’s roads is a ministerial duty of its Board of County Commissioners, and the failure of such a board’s members to perform such duties renders it liable in damages for injuries resulting therefrom; but she cites no authority showing that either the defendant Pottawatomie County Board members, or the Oklahoma County Board members owed such a duty as to the county-line road in question, unless, in some manner, such duty was imposed upon either, or both, by the provisions of section 251', supra — and that a failure to perform such duties was actionable. She recognizes that the “division” and agreement said section authorizes the two Boards to make with each other has never been made.

Contrary to the allegations of the challenged pleading, defendants take the position that, if they had any such duty, it was a discretionary one, and that their failure to perform it cannot be made the basis of tort liability as attempted in the present case. In support of this position, they cite the case of South v. San Benito County, 40 Cal.App. 13, 180 P. 354, in which the plaintiff was injured when the auto, in which he was riding plunged into a creek, whose course coincided, at that point, with the boundary line between San Benito and Santa Clara Counties. In said action, plaintiff sought to establish liability for his damages against San Benito County’s board of supervisors, among others; and, for the purpose of showing that said defendants had the duty (which they had failed to discharge) of maintaining or replacing a bridge that had previously crossed the county-line creek at that point, he invoked the provisions of section 2713 of California’s Political Code, which then read:

“ * * * Bridges crossing the line between counties must be constructed by the counties into which such bridges reach, and each of the counties into which any such bridge reaches shall pay such portion of the cost of such bridge as shall have been previously agreed upon by the boards of supervisors of said counties. * * * ”

There the court said, inter alia:

“The theory upon which the supervisors of Santa Clara county were sought to be held is that there was a joint duty imposed by law upon the boards of supervisors of these two' counties to construct the bridge, and' that their liability arises from their failure to do so before the accident occurred.

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Related

Taylor v. Manson
99 P. 410 (California Court of Appeal, 1908)
South v. County of San Benito
180 P. 354 (California Court of Appeal, 1919)
Doeg v. Cook
58 P. 707 (California Supreme Court, 1899)

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Bluebook (online)
1963 OK 102, 382 P.2d 150, 1963 Okla. LEXIS 397, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/musgrove-v-tooley-okla-1963.