Trahan v. State, Dept. of Transp. & Dev.

536 So. 2d 1269, 1988 La. App. LEXIS 2745, 1988 WL 133787
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedDecember 14, 1988
Docket87-971
StatusPublished
Cited by40 cases

This text of 536 So. 2d 1269 (Trahan v. State, Dept. of Transp. & Dev.) 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
Trahan v. State, Dept. of Transp. & Dev., 536 So. 2d 1269, 1988 La. App. LEXIS 2745, 1988 WL 133787 (La. Ct. App. 1988).

Opinion

536 So.2d 1269 (1988)

Keith Wayne TRAHAN, Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
STATE of Louisiana, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION & DEVELOPMENT, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 87-971.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Third Circuit.

December 14, 1988.
Rehearing Denied January 23, 1989.

*1270 Hollier & Ringuet, Reginald J. Ringuet, James L. Daniels, Lafayette, for plaintiff-appellant.

*1271 Bertrand & Soileau, Carol S. Hunter, Charles E. Soileau, Rayne, George Privat, Lafayette, for defendant-appellee.

Before DOMENGEAUX, DOUCET and YELVERTON, JJ.

DOUCET, Judge.

This appeal arises out of an action instituted by plaintiff, Keith Wayne Trahan, for damages sustained as a result of severe injuries he received in a one vehicle accident. At the time of the accident, plaintiff was a guest passenger in an automobile owned and being driven by Mark Daigle (Daigle).

Named as defendants were Daigle, his liability insurer, Fireman's Fund Insurance Company, and the State of Louisiana, through the Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD).

After a bench trial, the district court rendered written reasons finding that Daigle's negligence was the sole cause of the accident, thereby absolving the DOTD from any liability. Formal judgment in the amount of One Million ($1,000,000) Dollars was signed in accordance with the court's reasons. It is from this judgment that plaintiff appeals.

The accident occurred on January 26, 1985, during the evening hours at approximately 10:30 p.m. At the time of the accident, the weather was clear and dry. Daigle, as operator of his vehicle, along with plaintiff and Dwynn Landry (Landry) as guest passengers, were en route from Eunice to Rayne. Daigle turned on to La. 95, traveling in a southerly direction. None of the occupants of the car had ever previously been on this road. Daigle had his cruise control set at 59 m.p.h. and had safely negotiated all of the curves previous to the accident curve. The last curve was signed for 45 m.p.h. While negotiating the last curve, Daigle disengaged the cruise control which slowed down the vehicle. Daigle then reset the cruise control and accelerated while coming out of the curve. As Daigle reset the cruise control, he saw the curve and 25 m.p.h. speed advisory signs and realized that a curve was ahead, but did not know the location of it. Daigle then applied his brakes to disengage the cruise control and began slowing down. After passing the signs, plaintiff admitted to being momentarily inattentive. It was at this point when Daigle looked up and the sharp curve appeared. Confronted with the imminence of the curve, Daigle applied his brakes, but was unable to stop the vehicle before going through the curve and striking a tree located nearly 13 feet away. All three occupants were knocked unconscious by the impact and the car was demolished. Daigle was ticketed for failure to maintain control of his vehicle. The trooper who investigated the accident confirmed that Daigle was not intoxicated, although he smelled alcohol on his breath.

We first address plaintiff's assertion that the district court erred in holding that Daigle's negligence was the sole cause of the accident.

In its written reasons for judgment, the district court made the following findings of fact: (a) the sole cause of the accident was the negligence of the driver, Mark Daigle, in not slowing down and for being inattentive just prior to the accident; (b) the DOTD did not breach its duty to the traveling public to alert Daigle to the location of the curve; and, (c) even if there had been a breach of the DOTD's duty, the breach was not the legal cause of the accident.

The finding of liability by the trial court is a finding of fact which a reviewing court may not disturb unless, (a) the record evidence does not furnish a sufficient basis for that finding, or (b) the finding is clearly wrong. Arceneaux v. Domingue, 365 So. 2d 1330 (La.1978); Canter v. Koehring Co., 283 So.2d 716 (La.1973).

Plaintiff asserts that the DOTD breached its duty to the traveling public to alert drivers such as Daigle to the location of the curve by not placing flat-arrow and/or chevron warning signs in the curve. The DOTD, of course, strenuously denies this assertion.

It is well established that the "duty-risk" analysis is the process employed in *1272 Louisiana for determining whether liability exists under the facts of a given case. The following questions are considered in this analysis:

(1) Was the conduct in question a cause-in-fact of the resulting harm?

(2) Was there a duty owned by the defendant to protect the plaintiff from this type of harm arising in this manner?

(3) Did the defendant violate the duty owed?

See Mart v. Hill, 505 So.2d 1120 (La.1987); Hill v. Lundin and Associates, Inc., 260 La. 542, 256 So.2d 620 (1972); Crowe, The Anatomy of a Tort, 22 Loy.L.Rev. 903 (1976); McNamara, The Duties and Risks of the Duty-Risk Analysis, 44 La.L.Rev. 1227 (1984).

Applying the duty-risk analysis to the facts of the instant situation leads us to the threshold question of whether the DOTD's failure to install flat-arrow and/or chevron signs in the curve to alert the drivers to the presence of the curve was a cause-in-fact of the accident.

An act of omission is considered to be a cause-in-fact of harm to another if it was a "substantial factor" in bringing about the accident. Dixie Drive It Yourself System v. American Beverage Co., 242 La. 471, 137 So.2d 298 (1962); Pierre v. Allstate Ins. Co., 257 La. 471, 242 So.2d 821 (1970); Lejeune v. Allstate Ins. Co., 365 So.2d 471 (La.1978). Restatement of Torts 2d, Sections 431-33 (1965). As noted in the restatement, factors which may be considered in determining whether the actor's negligence is a substantial factor include "whether the actor's conduct has created a force or series of forces which are in continuous and active operation up to the time of the harm ..."

The "substantial factor" test is akin to the "but for" test (i.e. the accident would not have happened but for the defendant's negligence), except that where more than one party's negligence would have caused the accident absent the other party's negligence, Dixie, supra, and Lejeune, supra, hold both to be causative.

As succinctly stated by the Louisiana Supreme Court in Lejeune, supra:

"As Prosser [on Torts, Section 41 at pp. 237-38 (4th Ed.1971) ] notes, the `but for' test (that the accident would not have happened but for the defendant's negligence), while it explains the greater number of cases, does not serve as an adequate test for the present situation: `If two causes occur to bring about an event, and either one of them, operating alone, would have been sufficient to cause the identical result, some other test is needed ...' In such cases it is quite clear that each cause has in fact played so important a role in producing the result that responsibility should be imposed upon it; and it is equally clear that neither can be absolved from that responsibility upon the ground that the identical harm would have occurred without it, or there would be no liability at all. Id., p. 239."

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536 So. 2d 1269, 1988 La. App. LEXIS 2745, 1988 WL 133787, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/trahan-v-state-dept-of-transp-dev-lactapp-1988.