Row v. Pierremont Plaza, LLC

814 So. 2d 124, 2002 WL 492680
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedApril 3, 2002
Docket35,796-CA
StatusPublished
Cited by36 cases

This text of 814 So. 2d 124 (Row v. Pierremont Plaza, LLC) 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
Row v. Pierremont Plaza, LLC, 814 So. 2d 124, 2002 WL 492680 (La. Ct. App. 2002).

Opinion

814 So.2d 124 (2002)

Wendy ROW, Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
PIERREMONT PLAZA, L.L.C. d/b/a Pierremont Plaza Shopping Center, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 35,796-CA.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Second Circuit.

April 3, 2002.

W. James Singleton, Shreveport, for Appellant.

Mayer, Smith & Roberts, by John C. Turnage, Shreveport, for Appellees, Essex Insurance Company and Dominic Cordaro.

Lunn, Irion, Salley, Carlisle & Gardner, by Gerald M. Johnson, Jr., Shreveport, for Appellee, Pierremont Plaza, L.L.C.

Before WILLIAMS, CARAWAY and KOSTELKA, JJ.

CARAWAY, J.

The trial court granted summary judgment based on the defendants' argument that plaintiff's description of her automobile accident demonstrated that the sight obstruction to the intersection allegedly created by defendants was not the cause-in-fact of the accident. Plaintiff's opposition affidavit and brief stated that because she did not understand the deposition questions, she made some inaccurate statements at her deposition. She claims that this opposition affidavit creates a genuine issue of material fact concerning the causation of the accident and seeks reversal. Finding no genuine issue of material fact, we affirm.

*125 Facts

Wendy Row ("Row") brought this action against defendants, Pierremont Plaza Shopping Center, Dominic Cordaro ("Cordaro") and Essex Insurance Company ("Essex"). Row was involved in an automobile accident while exiting a shopping center parking lot.

During the early evening of November 3, 1998, Row was driving her 1997 Pontiac Sunfire and leaving the parking lot of the Pierremont Plaza Shopping Center in Shreveport. It was dark at the time and the vehicle's lights were on. The parking lot is bounded on its north side by East 70th Street, a four-lane road running eastwest. Row drove her car to an exit at the northern edge of the parking lot and stopped, waiting to turn onto E. 70th. She intended to turn left onto East 70th and continue driving westbound. This maneuver would entail crossing both lanes of eastbound traffic. There are no traffic lights or other devices to control the movement of traffic on East 70th at this exit. The evidence indicates that cars proceeding east on East 70th approached the location of Row's car at right angles.

During her deposition, Row testified that she waited for the heavy traffic to subside at the shopping center exit. Looking to her left, she had a difficult time seeing through a pile of brush that had been stacked next to the curb on East 70th. Cordaro owns a restaurant in the shopping center, and evidently, his employees had trimmed some shrubbery that obscured the shopping center signage and placed the cuttings on that portion of the parking lot to the left of the exit Row used. According to the affidavit of another shopping center patron, Cynthia Russell:

On November 3, 1998, I tried to exit the lot located on 70th Street, by turning left, known as Pierremont Plaza Shopping Center. I could not see due to the bushes that were next to (sic) street obstructing the view of oncoming traffic. I eased out and then had to accelerate my vehicle in order to get out because of oncoming traffic. I stated to the passenger with me that with these bushes lying next to the street, this was an accident waiting to happen. The bushes were at least six feet tall. The following day, I observed the bushes being moved.

Row reported that the pile of brush was "probably as high as my car, maybe a little bit lower."

In her deposition, Row testified that a motorist in the outside eastbound lane (the lane closest to her) stopped to the west of the parking lot exit to let her out onto East 70th. Row drove her car out of the parking lot, into the outside eastbound lane. Because Row's deposition is central to the dispute, we quote from it extensively, as follows:

Q: Okay. Do you remember pressing the accelerator on your car from that stopped position to proceed on out into 70th Street; do you remember that?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you remember there being any cars stopped in the lane that you were trying to enter off 70th Street that was closest to the curb as if someone was stopping to let you out?
A: I believe—I mean, it's real foggy. I think so.
Q: Were there any street lights in the area?
A: No.
Q: Do you remember anything about a car being stopped in the curbside lane of 70th Street or the driver making any motions for you to come out?
A: I can't really remember. I just remember I think someone was stopped and I inched out a bit.
*126 Q: Okay. Do you know why someone had stopped there?
A: To let me out, I guess.
* * *
Q: Okay. But when that car stopped for you, you began to inch out into 70th Street; correct?
A. Yes.
Q: And before that, no part of the car had broken the plain (sic), so to speak, into 70th Street?
A: Right.
Q: And when you began to inch off, the car in the curbside lane had stopped?
A. Yes.
Q: And was that car that was stopped for you to enter 70th Street, was it obstructing your view of traffic that was coming in the lane right next to it?
A: No—I mean, I still could not really see too well the next lane over.
Q: But my question, is was your difficulty in seeing the next lane over because of the car that was stopped for you or was it because of the trees on the side of the road.
A: The trees.
Q: Okay. So when you were out in front of the car that was stopped in the curbside lane, your testimony is the trees were still obstructing your view of what I call the inside lane?
A: Right.
Mr. Singleton: Let me object to this. Is your question when she was out in front of the car, that means that she had intersected the intersection there? Is that your question? That she had already intersected the intersection or while she was still there inching out? Mr. Johnson: No. I think what my intention was to ask—and my understanding, Ms. Row, is you've told me—and you correct me if I'm wrong—but you told me that you inched out into 70th Street in response to this car in the curbside lane stopping for you.
A: Yes.
Q: Isn't that correct?
A: Yes.
Q: And did you get your car completely out into the curbside lane before you tried to enter—strike that. Did you get your car—let me make sure my terminology is right here.
When I say the car stopped in the curbside lane, I mean just that. The car that's in the lane next to the curb. And sometimes traffic people call that the outside lane—
A: Right.
Q:—because it's on the outside of the street. The lane right next to that is also an eastbound lane and we call that the inside lane. Do you understand that terminology?
A: Yes.
Q: When you exited the shopping center, you entered the outside lane of 70th Street in response to a car that had stopped for you to do so; correct?
A: Yes.
Q: When you entered, how far into— strike that.

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Bluebook (online)
814 So. 2d 124, 2002 WL 492680, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/row-v-pierremont-plaza-llc-lactapp-2002.