Day's Auto Body, Inc. v. Town of Medway

• Decision Date: 02 August 2016
• Docket Number: Docket No. Pen–15–555.
• Citation: 2016 ME 121,145 A.3d 1030
• Parties: DAY'S AUTO BODY, INC. v. TOWN OF MEDWAY et al.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

145 A.3d 1030

2016 ME 121

DAY'S AUTO BODY, INC.

v.TOWN OF MEDWAY et al.

Docket No. Pen–15–555.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Argued: May 5, 2016.

Decided: Aug. 2, 2016.

Arthur J. Greif, Esq. (orally), and Julie D. Farr, Esq., Gilbert & Greif, P.A., Bangor, for appellant Day's Auto Body, Inc.

John J. Wall, III, Esq. (orally), Monaghan Leahy, LLP, Portland, for appellee Town of Medway.

Gerard O. Fournier, Esq. (orally), and Heidi J. Hart, Esq., Richardson, Whitman, Large & Badger, Bangor, for appellee Emery Lee and Sons, Inc.

Panel: SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, HJELM, and HUMPHREY, JJ.

GORMAN

, J.

[¶ 1] Day's Auto Body, Inc., (Day's Auto) appeals from summary judgments entered in the Superior Court (Penobscot County, Anderson, J. ) in favor of the Town of Medway (the Town) and Emery Lee and Sons, Inc., (ELS) on Day's Auto's negligence claims arising out of the response to a fire at its business location. Day's Auto contends that the trial court erred in determining that the Town and ELS are immune from Day's Auto's claims pursuant to the Maine Tort Claims Act (MTCA), 14 M.R.S. §§ 8101

–8118 (2015). We affirm the judgments.

I. BACKGROUND

[¶ 2] Viewed in the light most favorable to Day's Auto, the nonprevailing party, the summary judgment record establishes the following facts. See Remmes v. Mark Travel Corp., 2015 ME 63, ¶ 3, 116 A.3d 466

. While responding to a fire at Day's Auto's shop on October 3, 2011, the Town's fire department filled hoses with water before the nozzles were opened, refused to allow firefighters to enter the building, sprayed water on a fireproof door, refilled fire trucks from a single hydrant instead of from two other available hydrants or from the nearby Penobscot River, drove a truck toward a water holding tank in such a way that it would be impossible to unload water into the holding tank, and connected a water hose to a nozzle improperly. These actions allegedly prevented the Town from limiting the damage that the fire caused to Day's Auto's property.

[¶ 3] ELS is a general contracting and excavating business in Millinocket. Emery Lee, ELS's owner and manager, received a call from someone at the Town's fire department directing him to report to the fire scene with an excavator to assist with the effort to extinguish the fire. When Lee arrived, members of the fire department directed him to take various actions using the excavator, including taking down walls and moving a large carrying beam from the center of what remained of the building.¹ After about four hours, the fire department indicated to Lee that the fire was under control and that he could leave the scene. ELS submitted a bill to the Town for its work at the fire scene based on four hours of work at an hourly rate.

[¶ 4] Two years after the fire, Day's Auto filed its complaint, alleging that the Town and ELS used vehicles, machinery, and equipment negligently in the course of their response to the fire.² The Town and ELS each moved for a summary judgment, claiming immunity from Day's Auto's suit pursuant to the MTCA.

[¶ 5] The court granted both motions. The court first concluded that the Town is immune from Day's Auto's suit because the exception to governmental tort claims immunity upon which Day's Auto relied—for “[o]wnership[,] maintenance or use of vehicles, machinery and equipment”—does not apply. See 14 M.R.S. § 8104–A(1)

. The court also determined that the Town is entitled to discretionary function immunity pursuant to 14 M.R.S. § 8104–B(3), so that even if the “vehicles, machinery and equipment” exception did apply, the Town would still be immune from Day's Auto's suit. With regard to ELS, the court concluded that discretionary function immunity applied because when ELS assisted the Town with the fire, it was, for purposes of the MTCA, acting as an employee of the Town and was engaged in a discretionary function. See 14 M.R.S. §§ 8102(1), 8111(1)(C). Day's Auto filed this appeal.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Standards of Review

[¶ 6] We review a court's entry of a summary judgment de novo, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonprevailing party to determine whether a genuine issue of material fact exists. Budge v. Town of Millinocket, 2012 ME 122, ¶ 12, 55 A.3d 484

; see M.R. Civ. P. 56(c) (requiring entry of a summary judgment where the record reveals “that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact ... and that any party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law”). “A fact is material if it has the potential to affect the outcome of the suit,” and an issue of material fact is genuine “when a fact-finder must choose between competing versions of the truth, even if one party's version appears more credible or persuasive.” Angell v. Hallee, 2014 ME 72, ¶ 17, 92 A.3d 1154 (quotation marks omitted). “When the material facts are not in dispute, we review de novo the trial court's interpretation and application of the relevant statutes and legal concepts.” Remmes, 2015 ME 63, ¶ 19, 116 A.3d 466.

[¶ 7] “Summary judgment is appropriate when a defendant is immune from tort liability.” Grossman v. Richards, 1999 ME 9, ¶ 3, 722 A.2d 371

; see

Moore v. City of Lewiston, 596 A.2d 612, 614 (Me.1991). Because “immunity is an issue distinct from liability,” Grossman, 1999 ME 9, ¶ 3, 722 A.2d 371 (quotation marks omitted), our review in this appeal is limited to the question of whether the Town and ELS are immune from suit pursuant to the MTCA as a matter of law.

B. Summary Judgment for the Town

[¶ 8] The MTCA begins with a broad grant of governmental immunity from tort claims: “Except as otherwise expressly provided by statute, all governmental entities shall be immune from suit on any and all tort claims seeking recovery of damages.”³ 14 M.R.S. § 8103(1)

. The statute then enumerates several exceptions to that immunity, including the provision that “[a] governmental entity is liable for its negligent acts or omissions in its ownership, maintenance, or use of” various types of “vehicles, machinery and equipment.” 14 M.R.S. § 8104–A(1). Because “the MTCA employs an exception-to-immunity approach rather than an exception-to-liability approach,” when we consider the exceptions to immunity for governmental entities, “we start from the premise that immunity is the rule and exceptions to immunity are to be strictly construed.” Thompson v. Dep't of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, 2002 ME 78, ¶ 5, 796 A.2d 674 (quotation marks omitted); see

Estate of Fortier v. City of Lewiston, 2010 ME 50, ¶ 14 n. 7, 997 A.2d 84 ; Carroll v. City of Portland, 1999 ME 131, ¶ 6 n. 3, 736 A.2d 279.

[¶ 9] Day's Auto argues that the summary judgment record reveals a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether the Town's actions fall within section 8104–A(1)

's exception concerning “vehicles, machinery and equipment,” and that the trial court therefore erred by entering a summary judgment in the Town's favor. We disagree. In a line of cases interpreting section 8104–A(1), we have made clear that the mere fact that a vehicle or piece of equipment or machinery is involved in the conduct that allegedly caused harm does not, in itself, implicate the exception to immunity. In Brooks v. Augusta Mental Health Institute, for example, where a patient's estate sued several government defendants for negligence when the patient died after jumping from a moving bus operated by the defendants, we held that the exception did not apply because “the gravamen of [the] claim [was] not the defendants' negligent operation, use or maintenance of the bus, but the monitoring and supervision of the decedent by [government] employees while the decedent was riding on the bus.” 606 A.2d 789, 790 (Me.1992) ; see

New Orleans Tanker Corp. v. Dep't of Transp., 1999 ME 67, ¶ 9, 728 A.2d 673 (“The major risk from the negligent use of vehicles with the power to move is that they will be driven or transported in locations where the general public is exposed to the possibility of a collision and resulting harm.”).

[¶ 10] We recognized this principle again in Thompson, where the plaintiff sought to invoke the exception after he was injured in a snowmobile accident. 2002 ME 78, ¶¶ 2, 6–9, 796 A.2d 674

. He alleged that a rescue effort by the Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife was unduly delayed and that it exacerbated his injuries because a rescue helicopter was inadequately fueled and its navigational and radio communications equipment was inadequate. Id. ¶¶ 2, 6. “[T]he kind of negligence falling within the exception to immunity provided in section 8104–A(1),” we stated, “involves harms that flow naturally or directly from the negligent use or maintenance of vehicles.” Id. ¶ 7. “[T]he focus is on the risk of harm naturally or directly caused by the vehicle's contact with the general public.” Id. ¶ 8.

[¶ 11] We apply the same reasoning here. It is true that fire trucks may, at times, come into contact with the general public to create a risk of collision. The gravamen of Day's Auto's claim against the Town, however, is that the Town made imprudent tactical decisions in the course of fighting the fire. Those decisions, if they were poor ones, could indeed create a risk of greater fire damage, but they do not create the type of risk for which the Legislature intended governmental entities to incur tort liability when it enacted section 8104–A(1)

. Section 8104–A(1) cannot be used to end a governmental entity's immunity from tort claims simply because vehicles or equipment were involved in the conduct that allegedly caused harm.

[¶ 12] Because section 8104–A(1)

's vehicle exception is inapplicable and Day's Auto makes no claim that any other exception to immunity applies, we conclude that the Town is immune from Day's Auto's suit pursuant to section 8103(1) and that the court therefore did not err when it entered a summary judgment in favor of the Town. We do not address the parties' arguments regarding the Town's discretionary function immunity pursuant to 14 M.R.S. §...