Callier v. Lafayette City-Parish Consol. Gov't
| Docket Number | 21-598 |
| Decision Date | 02 March 2022 |
| Citation | 351 So.3d 370 |
| Parties | Estela CALLIER v. LAFAYETTE CITY-PARISH CONSOLIDATED GOVERNMENT, et al. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US |
C. Shannon Hardy, John W. Penny, Jr., Penny & Hardy, 600 Jefferson Street, Suite 601, Lafayette, LA 70502, (337) 231-1955, COUNSEL FOR DEFENDANT/APPELLANT: Lafayette City-Parish Consolidated Government
Gregory Jesse Logan, The Logan Law Firm, P. O. Box 52704, Lafayette, LA 70505, (337) 406-9685, COUNSEL FOR DEFENDANT/APPELLANT: Lafayette City-Parish Consolidated Government
Dustin B. Gibson, Dustin B. Gibson Law, LLC, 301 E. Kaliste Saloom Road, Suite 400, Lafayette, LA 70508, (337) 501-2418, COUNSEL FOR PLAINTIFF/APPELLEE: Estela Callier
Errol L. Cormier, Errol L. Cormier, APLC, 301 E. Kaliste Saloom Road, Suite 400, Lafayette, LA 70508, (337) 237-2100, COUNSEL FOR PLAINTIFF/APPELLEE: Estela Callier
Court composed of Sylvia R. Cooks, Chief Judge, Shannon J. Gremillion, and D. Kent Savoie, Judges.
The Lafayette City-Parish Consolidated Government (LCP) appeals a judgment in favor of Estella Callier that awarded her $200,00.00 in general damages, $16,051.56 in past medical expenses, lost wages of $5,600.00, and $11,000.00 in future medical expenses to be held in a reversionary trust, for injuries she sustained in a September 9, 2017, automobile accident. Ms. Callier answered the appeal and asks that we increase the trial court's award of future medical expenses to include expenses for a lumbar fusion surgery her treating orthopedic surgeon has recommended. For the reasons that follow, we amend the trial court's judgment and affirm as amended.
The accident
Ms. Callier was involved in a one-car accident on St. Esprit Road near Carencro, Louisiana, on the evening of September 9, 2017. Ms. Callier was driving from work at Pogie's, a bar in Carencro, to her home. Her friend, Michael DiBenedetto, was following her in his vehicle. The two had discussed the difficulty traffic in the area sometimes posed, and Ms. Callier was showing Mr. DiBenedetto an alternate route along St. Esprit Road. However, as Ms. Callier had only lived in the area for about three years, she was not thoroughly familiar with St. Esprit Road.
St. Esprit Road is a mostly rural, sparsely lit, asphalt road in Lafayette Parish. It generally flows in a north-south direction, but, in the area of the accident, the north-south flow is interrupted by a roughly 300-yard section that runs east-west. Along this east-west section lies the home of Mr. Louis Leger. Mr. Leger's home sits on the south side of St. Esprit Road. The road is lined by drainage ditches, and Mr. Leger's driveway crosses the ditch at a culvert topped by dirt or gravel and edged with railroad crossties.
Mr. DiBenedetto's vehicle was following Ms. Callier's at a distance of approximately twenty-five feet. He had no recollection of whether Ms. Callier's car was favoring one side of her lane. Mr. DiBenedetto saw Ms. Callier's vehicle's front right corner dip, then begin to flip end-over-end, then roll until it struck a tree. Mr. DiBenedetto immediately stopped his car and went to attend to Ms. Callier, who indicated that she did not feel injured. When ambulance personnel dispatched to the scene offered to transport Ms. Callier to the hospital, she refused.
Mr. DiBenedetto took photos of Ms. Callier's car. He also examined the roadway in the area where the car had dipped and noticed that a portion of the asphalt along the edge had broken. A chunk of broken asphalt at the scene was described by Mr. DiBenedetto as "dark black."
Ms. Callier described driving in her lane on St. Esprit Road, which she described as narrow, when she heard a "thump" as though she struck an object in the road. She believed that she was centered in her lane. Ms. Callier immediately felt as though someone had grabbed her steering wheel and jerked her car to the right. Ms. Callier does not recall how many times her car flipped or rolled. She believes that her car flipped after it struck the culvert at Mr. Leger's driveway.
After the accident, Ms. Callier spoke to the investigating police officer, who asked her to provide a written statement. In that statement, she indicated that she struck an object in the roadway. After Ms. Callier completed this brief written statement, she, the investigating officer, and Mr. DiBenedetto walked over to the scene of the accident and found one of the railroad crossties from Mr. Leger's driveway in the road. A tow truck driver removed the crosstie from the road.
Ms. Callier sued LCP, asserting that the roadway is unreasonably dangerous and that LCP had actual or constructive notice of its defects, yet failed to correct them.
The road
As previously stated, St. Esprit Road is a rural road. It has no fog line to delineate its edge.
Troy Broussard used to live on St. Esprit Road, but not at the area of the accident. Mr. Broussard described the road as deteriorating and narrow. He was involved in an accident on St. Esprit Road in which his tire went over the edge of the paved portion, causing him to veer off the roadway and hit a tree. The lane width at the scene of Mr. Broussard's accident was six feet; however, Mr. Broussard conceded that his accident was not at the same location as Ms. Callier's. Mr. Broussard had complained to his councilman about the condition of St. Esprit Road.
Mr. Leger has lived on St. Esprit Road for about twenty years. At the scene of the accident, there has been a cracked area "for a while;" however, he does not recall whether that cracking was present before Ms. Callier's accident. Mr. Leger does not believe that the cracking has narrowed the lane widths. Other than this particular area, Mr. Leger maintains, the road is fine. He stated that the area is cracked due to gradual erosion into the drainage ditch.
Mr. Leger thinks there have been three accidents in the vicinity of his house, but he cannot recall whether any accidents happened before Ms. Callier's. He agrees that LCP regularly repairs potholes and the like. He has never called LCP to complain about the road.
Mr. Warren Abadie is the LCP Director of Traffic, Roads, and Bridges. He oversees the Traffic Engineering, Sign, and Pavement Marking Divisions. LCP's total inventory of asphalt-paved roads exceeds 300 miles. Mr. Abadie estimates that rural roads such as St. Esprit comprise fifty to one hundred of those miles.
St. Esprit Road does not meet the criteria for definition as a low-volume road. It sees between 400 and 500 vehicles a day. The right of way is limited, so the opportunities for widening the road would pose significant costs.2 The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices3 does not mandate either center striping or edge striping, also known as a fog line, on roads such as St. Esprit; nevertheless, LCP has center-striped the road. St. Esprit Road is eighteen feet wide.
LCP relies on citizen service requests to identify immediate repair needs. Otherwise, roads are inspected regularly as part of the LCP overlay program. When a citizen repair request is received, that information is entered into a program called Cityworks. The program automatically refers that request to the maintenance foreman, who would then route it to the labor foreman.
One such request was received by LCP on April 11, 2017, regarding erosion of the road into the ditch. This request was forwarded to Mr. John Richard, then streets foreman, with instructions that the entire road be inspected. An inspector would mark areas in need of repair with white spray paint. The April 11 ticket was returned the following day with the notation that it had been completed.
Inspectors can distinguish fresh asphalt breakage from older because newly broken asphalt has a blacker color than an older break. Mr. Brian Smith, who was the Streets Superintendent for LCP until shortly before Ms. Callier's accident, was shown a Google Maps Street View image of the area of the accident dated January 2017 and compared that photo with one taken by Mr. DiBenedetto. This Google Maps image showed an area where asphalt had broken off. Compared to the photo taken by Mr. DiBenedetto, Mr. Smith testified, the Google Maps image showed a much smaller break.
Mr. Dwayne Meaux, who was a drainage labor foreman in 2017, testified about the excavation of ditches along St. Esprit Road. According to Mr. Meaux, he supervised the excavation of the area near Mr. Leger's house, but that work was performed on the ditch across the street and not the ditch in front of Mr. Leger's house. Mr. Meaux has witnessed drainage issues on St. Esprit Road causing deterioration of the road, but not at the area of Ms. Callier's accident.
Mr. John Richard is a retired labor foreman in the streets department. One of his tasks was inspecting roads for areas that needed repair. He recalled the April 11, 2017, service request. He inspected the entire road on both sides. This took him about two hours. Mr. Richard recalls that his inspection began right after lunch or his break. He would mark repair spots with white spray paint. After the work was finished, Mr. Richard would reinspect the repairs to ensure they had been done properly.
Mr. Richard was shown the photos taken by Mr. DiBenedetto. He testified that this "obvious" condition was the type of condition he was looking for when he inspected St. Esprit Road. Mr. Richard testified that had this condition been present on the day of his inspection, he would have marked it and seen to it that it was repaired; therefore, he does not believe that the condition was present on April 11, 2017. However, on cross examination, Mr. Richard looked at the January 2017 Google Maps image and identified this condition as one that he would have had repaired. The Google Maps image depicts a broken area that is smaller than the one in Mr. DiBenedetto's photograph. Also, the break in the DiBenedetto photo appeared fresh to Mr. Richard.
Mr. James J. Valenta is a highway safety engineer and accident reconstruction...
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