O'Brien v. State

• Decision Date: 06 March 1989
• Docket Number: No. 87-449-A,87-449-A
• Citation: 555 A.2d 334
• Parties: Edward O'BRIEN v. STATE of Rhode Island. ppeal.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 334

555 A.2d 334

Edward O'BRIEN v. STATE of Rhode Island.

No. 87-449-Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

March 6, 1989.

Raul L. Lovett, Joyce A. Farone, Lovett, Schefrin & Gallogly, Providence, for plaintiff.

James E. O'Neil, Atty. Gen., Dorothy Fobert, Asst. Atty. Gen., for defendant.

OPINION

WEISBERGER, Justice.

This is an appeal from an entry of judgment in the Superior Court in favor of the defendant on its motion for judgment on the pleadings. The facts of the case insofar as pertinent to this appeal are as follows.

On June 24, 1983, Edward O'Brien, the plaintiff, was a patron at the Lincoln Woods State Park in Lincoln, Rhode Island. As plaintiff was walking on the park premises, he tripped over a horseshoe stake or iron bar that had been embedded amid the grass in such fashion that it was not visible to him. The plaintiff commenced an action in the Superior Court alleging that the state had been negligent in its maintenance of the park premises. The statement of facts in this instance has been briefly outlined because the question presented by this appeal is solely whether the complaint and answer as having been set forth in the pleadings could survive a motion for judgment on the pleadings on the single legal issue of whether the special-duty doctrine as enunciated in Knudsen v. Hall, 490 A.2d 976 (R.I.1985), would bar plaintiff's action as alleged as a matter of law. We are of the opinion that the special-duty doctrine is not applicable in this case and therefore, vacate the judgment.

In a series of cases beginning with Ryan v. State Department of Transportation, 420 A.2d 841 (R.I.1980), we enunciated the special-duty doctrine in a variety of contexts. In Ryan we held that the state through its Department of Transportation in the exercise of its licensing function did not owe a special duty to individuals to issue licenses in such a manner that they would not be injured by drivers who might have a propensity for negligent conduct. In Saunders v. State, 446 A.2d 748 (R.I.1982), we held that the beneficiary of a prisoner who was murdered by certain other inmates in the prison did not have a viable action unless prison officials should have had notice that dangerous propensities on the part of the attacker would be likely to give rise to the probability of an attack upon the plaintiff's decedent as a specific identifiable victim or as a member of a group of identifiable victims. In Orzechowski v. State, 485 A.2d 545 (R.I.1984), we again enunciated the special-duty doctrine and determined that no special duty existed on the part of the Rhode Island Parole Board toward the victim of a paroled prisoner who was released in circumstances that the plaintiff alleged were indicative of negligence. We stated, "[t]his duty runs to the public as a whole, and not to any particular individual or class of individuals--unless special circumstances are involved that bring the plaintiff specifically into the realm of the parole board's knowledge." Id. at 549. Thereafter in Barratt v. Burlingham, 492 A.2d 1219 (R.I.1985), we were called upon to determine whether the special duty doctrine applied to the conduct of a North Kingstown police officer who had permitted a young man to drive, even though the police officer had reason to believe that the young man may have been intoxicated. An additional fact in Barratt was that the young man who was permitted to drive was not in fact a licensed driver, though he represented to the officer that he had a license, stating that it was not on his person. A majority of the court held that a police officer's observation of a citizen's conduct that might foreseeably create a risk of harm to others, or the officer's temporary detention of the citizen, is not sufficient in itself to create a special relationship that imposes on the officer such a special duty. The officer's duty to the person whom he permitted to drive was not a special duty but merely a part of the duty owed to the public in general. Consequently, Barratt, who was injured after he and his friends arrived at Barratt's home and emerged again to drive further, alternating drivers at each stop, was held not to have a cause of action against the town of North Kingstown or the officer.

In that case one justice dissented from the rationale of the special-duty doctrine but concurred in the result, because he felt that there was no proximate cause in respect to the alleged injury as a result of the initial permission by the officer for Barratt to drive the automobile to his home. Barratt was injured because he continued to ride with alternating drunk drivers after he had reached his initial destination. In short, the concurring justice was of the opinion that the duty, if any, which ran from the officer to Barratt concluded upon Barratt's having reached his stated destination safely. The justice went on to suggest that we should abandon the public-duty doctrine and rely solely upon the negligence concepts of foreseeability and proximate cause. The concurring justice suggested further that by applying the public duty doctrine, we were in effect resurrecting the doctrine of sovereign immunity in spite of the fact that the Legislature by virtue of G.L.1956 (1969 Reenactment) § 9-31-1, as amended by P.L.1970, ch. 181, § 2 had mandated that the state should be liable in all actions of tort in the same manner as a private individual or corporation, subject to certain monetary limitations.

We are of the opinion that the special-duty doctrine does not resurrect the concept of sovereign immunity but it does take into account the unquestionable fact that many activities performed by government could not and would not in the ordinary course of events be performed by a private person at all. Among such activities would be those that we have considered in our cases, such as licensing of drivers, management and parole of incarcerated prisoners, and the exercise of the police power through officers authorized and empowered by the state to perform a police function. We believe that the exercise of these functions cannot reasonably be compared with functions that are or may be exercised by a private person. Within this category we believe that the activity under consideration in Knudsen v. Hall, supra, should be included. In that case the complaint alleged that the state had negligently maintained a rural intersection and had also failed to place and replace appropriate signs at that intersection. This involved the state's duty to maintain and lay out a highway system for the benefit of all the people who may travel within the state. We held that the special-duty doctrine was applicable and that the state had no notice of the particular duty that might be owed to the plaintiffs in that case and therefore, did not have such a special duty to the plaintiffs upon which liability might be predicated.

However, the state as a landowner or an owner of motor vehicles, to mention only two of its activities, performs the identical function that a private person might perform or which a private person might well parallel, and therefore, the duties of the state as landowner or owner or operator of motor vehicles should be the same as that of any private person or corporation as the Legislature has ordained in § 9-31-1.

In examining the tort liability of the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C.A. § 1346 (West 1976), 28 U.S.C.A. §§ 2671-2678, 2680 (West 1965), as that act might be applicable to the Texas City disaster, the majority of the Court in Dalehite v. United States, 346 U.S. 15, 73 S.Ct. 956, 97 L.Ed. 1427 (1953), sought to determine the intent of Congress in making the federal government...