Train Collision at Gary, Ind. on Jan. 18, 1993, In re
| Decision Date | 18 January 1993 |
| Citation | 654 N.E.2d 1137 |
| Parties | In re TRAIN COLLISION AT GARY, INDIANA ON |
| Court | Indiana Appellate Court |
Terry Dillon, individually, and on behalf of all other passengers, spouses of passengers, dependent next of kin, and personal representatives of deceased passengers who are members of a certified class (hereinafter "the Class") appeal from the trial court's grant of partial summary judgment in favor of Chicago South Shore & South Bend Railway Company and the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District. The Class presents five issues for appellate review which we separate into seven and restate as follows:
I. Whether the Commuter Transportation Districts Act violates Art. IV, § 23 of the Indiana Constitution.
II. Whether the Commuter Transportation Districts Act violates Art. IV, § 22 of the Indiana Constitution.
III. Whether the Commuter Transportation Districts Act, as amended, violates Art. 11, § 13 of the Indiana Constitution.
IV. Whether the liability limitations of the Indiana Tort Claims Act violate Art. 1, § 23 of the Indiana Constitution.
V. Whether the liability limitations of the Indiana Tort Claims Act violate Art. 1, § 12 of the Indiana Constitution.
VI. Whether the procurement of liability insurance waives the availability of the liability limitations of the Indiana Tort Claims Act.
VII. Whether NICTD, as a governmental entity, is subject to punitive damages.
We affirm. 1
The facts pertinent to this appeal arise from a head-on collision between two Chicago South Shore & South Bend Railway passenger trains on January 18, 1993 in Gary, Indiana. The Chicago South Shore and South Bend Railway (hereinafter "the Railway") provides rail service from South Bend, Indiana to Chicago, Illinois.
The Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District (hereinafter "NICTD") was established in 1977 pursuant to the Commuter Transportation Districts Act 2 which allowed counties directly served by a commuter transportation system providing daily interstate commuter service, to join a commuter transportation district. The district was supervised and managed by a board of trustees which received federal, state, municipal, or county funds for the purpose of aiding commuter transportation systems serving the district. 3 Pursuant to the Act, NICTD provided funding to the Railway until the Railway filed for bankruptcy in 1989. In 1990, NICTD acquired a portion of the Railway's assets and operated the commuter transportation service between South Bend and Chicago. 4 NICTD has continued this operation and was operating the passenger service of the Railway at the time of the January 1993 accident.
As a result of the accident, seven passengers died and approximately 137 passengers were injured. Several parties filed civil actions against NICTD and the Railway, and the trial court certified this cause as a class action on April 29, 1993. Thereafter, the Class filed a fourth amended complaint alleging in excess of five million dollars in compensatory and punitive damages.
NICTD then filed a motion to strike count I of the Class' complaint on the ground that the Class' request for damages in an amount in excess of five million dollars exceeded the statutory limit of recovery against a governmental entity as provided by the Indiana Tort Claims Act 5. NICTD also moved to dismiss Count II of the Class' complaint on the ground that as a governmental entity under the Indiana Tort Claims Act, NICTD was not subject to punitive damages.
The trial court treated NICTD's motion as a motion for summary judgment pursuant to Ind. Trial Rule 12(B). The trial court found that no genuine issue of material fact existed and granted NICTD's motion to dismiss Count II. The trial court also struck Paragraph 8 of Count I of the Class' complaint but found that the Class could proceed to trial on Count I of its complaint with recovery limited to the amounts provided by the Indiana Tort Claims Act. The Class now appeals.
The Class contends the Commuter Transportation Districts Act ("the Transportation Act") is unconstitutional under Art. IV, § 23 of the Indiana Constitution.
The Indiana Supreme Court has set forth the following standard of review for assessing constitutional challenges:
Legislation under constitutional attack ... is clothed in a presumption of constitutionality. The burden to rebut this presumption is upon any challenger, and all reasonable doubts must be resolved in favor of an act's constitutionality. When a statute can be construed to support its constitutionality, such construction must be adopted.... Further, it is the challenger's burden to show that the alleged constitutional defects are clearly apparent.
Matter of Tina T. (1991), Ind., 579 N.E.2d 48, 56-57 (citation omitted).
The Class challenges the establishment of NICTD pursuant to the Transportation Act. First, the Class contends that the Transportation Act violates Art. IV, § 23 because it is a special law. Art. IV, § 23 provides that "[i]n all the cases enumerated in the preceding section, and in all other cases where a general law can be made applicable, all laws shall be general, and of uniform operation throughout the state."
A determination that a legislative act does not operate uniformly throughout the state renders it a special law and thus, violative of our Constitution. State Election Bd. v. Behnke (1974), 261 Ind. 540, 307 N.E.2d 56, 58. A law which appears to be general in form, but upon investigation of the subject matter is found to be local or special in substance, will be declared a special law by the court. Id.
A statute authorizing the creation of an authority, district or commission is not characterized as a local or special law simply because at the time of its enactment it applies to but one city. Graves v. City of Muncie (1970), 255 Ind. 360, 264 N.E.2d 607, 610. The fact that one governmental unit presently qualifies under a particular statute and the statute was apparently drafted with that one unit in mind does not render the statute unconstitutional if the terms of the statute permit other units to eventually qualify. North Twp. Advisory Board v. Mamala (1986), Ind., 490 N.E.2d 725, 726, reh. denied.
The Transportation Act provides in pertinent part:
(a) A county served by a system of commuter transportation and through which the line, road, route, or right-of-way of the system passes, is a member, subject to subsection (b), of a commuter transportation district. The district is created and shall be composed solely of counties which are served by the system and through which the system passes.
(b) A county is a member of a district if that county's board of county commissioners adopted an ordinance authorizing the county's membership in the district under this chapter before January 1, 1987.
(c) A district shall be a distinct municipal corporation and shall bear a name including the words 'commuter transportation district'. Such municipal corporation shall include all the territory of the counties that are members of the district and shall be coterminous with such counties.
(d) Membership of the district is limited to counties which are directly served by a commuter transportation system which provides daily interstate commuter service and which owns and operates over trackage within the boundaries of the county.
I.C. 8-5-15-2 ( 1987 Ind. Acts, P.L. 385-1987(ss), Sec. 2). 6
The Act was specifically enacted to maintain the operation of interstate commuter transportation systems. 7 At the time of its enactment, two such systems qualified: the Railway at issue here, and a railway system which operated between Valparaiso, Indiana and Chicago, Illinois. 8 Only the counties operating the Railway chose to establish a commuter transportation district under the Act.
This case presents issues of first impression in Indiana regarding the constitutionality of the Transportation Act. In assessing the constitutionality of the Transportation Act, we rely upon the Indiana Supreme Court's recent decision of Indiana Gaming Comm'n v. Moseley (1994), Ind., 643 N.E.2d 296 which rejected a constitutional challenge to the Indiana Riverboat Gambling Statute 9.
In Indiana Gaming, the Indiana Supreme Court addressed whether the Riverboat Gambling Statute was unconstitutional under Art. IV, § 23. The court instructed that the first inquiry in determining whether a statute is special legislation is whether the subject of the statute is amenable to a general law of uniform operation throughout the state. Id. at 301. If the answer is no, the inquiry of the court ends and the act is constitutional under Section 23. Id. (). The court explained that the drafters of our constitution expressed a preference for general laws but also recognized that special laws were sometimes necessary. Id. at 300. The court noted that the constitution provided no clear guidance to aid in identifying those cases in which a local law should be allowed....
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