Catri v. Hopkins

• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: KELLEHER
• Citation: Catri v. Hopkins, 609 A.2d 966 (R.I. 1992)
• Decision Date: 26 June 1992
• Docket Number: No. 91-239-A,91-239-A
• Parties: Cynthia E. CATRI v. Thomas E. HOPKINS et al. ppeal.

Page 966

609 A.2d 966

Cynthia E. CATRI v. Thomas E. HOPKINS et al.

No. 91-239-Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

June 26, 1992.

Anita E. Flax, Coffey & Martinelli, Aram Schefrin, Providence, for plaintiff.

Ellen Evans Alexander, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Joel K. Gerstenblatt, Gerstenblatt & Gerstenblatt, Dennis J. Roberts, II, Roberts, Carroll, Feldstein & Peirce, Heath Comley, Roberts, Carroll, Feldstein & Peirce, Providence, for defendant.

OPINION

KELLEHER, Justice.

In this controversy the plaintiff, Cynthia E. Catri, in her capacity as administratrix for the estate of Alan W. Catri (Catri), appeals from a Superior Court order granting summary judgment in favor of the defendants, the State of Rhode Island and the town of South Kingstown. ¹ We affirm the decision of the trial justice.

On September 5, 1982, Catri was driving westbound on Tuckertown Road, a highway in the town of South Kingstown. Thomas E. Hopkins was traveling northbound on Ministerial Road, a state highway also designated as Route 110. At the intersection of Tuckertown Road and Route 110, a collision occurred in which Catri died. At the time of the collision, Tuckertown Road was equipped with stop signs but Ministerial Road was not, despite numerous requests by the town to the State Department of Transportation and the State Traffic Commission for the installation of traffic-control signals and signs in order to improve the safety of this intersection. The record indicates some evidence that stop signs had been installed on Ministerial Road and were removed because the intersection had not been officially designated a proper four-way stop. Mrs. Catri maintains that both the town and the state contributed to the unsafe condition of the intersection that caused the unfortunate incident and thus are exposed to tort liability as each defendant falls into the exception to the public-duty doctrine set forth in Verity v. Danti, 585 A.2d 65 (R.I.1991). Mrs. Catri further contends that neither the state nor the town may escape liability on the basis of discretionary immunity.

The public-duty principles established in Knudsen v. Hall, 490 A.2d 976 (R.I.1985), control matters involving the State of Rhode Island's allegedly negligent maintenance of its public roadways. Since the public-duty doctrine and its reasoning has been extended by this court to municipalities as well, Barratt v. Burlingham, 492 A.2d 1219 (R.I.1985), we shall discuss both the state and the town as one entity. In Knudsen, which involved a collision that occurred at the intersection of two state roads, this court created governmental immunity for those claims that arise out of discretionary governmental actions. 490 A.2d at 978. The public-duty doctrine immunized the state from tort liability in the absence of circumstances giving rise to a special duty owed to a plaintiff by the state. Id. In other words, a special relationship is a prerequisite to a court's imputation of liability. See Gagnon v. State, 570 A.2d 656, 659 (R.I.1990); Barratt v. Burlingham, 492 A.2d at 1222. The existence of a special duty, which we have previously defined as one "owing to a specific identifiable individual," is created in distinct circumstances. Orzechowski v. State, 485 A.2d 545, 548 (R.I.1984). A special duty has been held to exist in instances where "either the plaintiffs have had prior contact with state or municipal officials who then knowingly embarked on a course of conduct that endangered the plaintiffs, or they have otherwise specifically come within the knowledge of the officials so that the injury to that particularly identified plaintiff can be or should have been foreseen." Knudsen, 490 A.2d at 978 and n. 4. The record indicates that Catri had no contact with either state or town officials nor has come within the specific ambit of knowledge necessary so as to be denoted as an identifiable plaintiff. Consequently the state did not owe Catri a special duty for which liability would attach in the controversy before us.

However, this court has monitored a substantial and deliberate erosion of governmental immunity in order to afford individuals the necessary recourse for tortious injury sustained as a result of egregious governmental conduct. Bierman v. Shookster, 590 A.2d 402, 404 (R.I.1991). For this reason, proof of the existence of a special duty is not always required; the public-duty doctrine is inapplicable in instances in which the activity conducted by the state is of a type that any private individual may perform. Catone v. Medberry, 555 A.2d 328, 333 (R.I.1989); O'Brien v. State, 555 A.2d 334, 338 (R.I.1989). One particular exception to the public-duty doctrine, and one on which Catri...