Ex Parte Yancey

• Court: Alabama Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: Bolin
• Citation: Ex Parte Yancey, 8 So.3d 299 (Ala. 2008)
• Decision Date: 31 October 2008
• Docket Number: 1070922.
• Parties: Ex parte Brett YANCEY. (In re Paul Dodd and Cynthia Dodd, as parents and next friends of Charles Alexander Coker, a minor v. Matthew Messer and Brett Yancey).

8 So.3d 299

Ex parte Brett YANCEY (In re Paul Dodd and Cynthia Dodd, as parents and next friends of Charles Alexander Coker, a minor v. Matthew Messer and Brett Yancey).

1070922.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

October 31, 2008.

Mark S. Boardman and Katherine C. Hortberg of Boardman, Carr, Hutcheson & Bennett, P.C., Chelsea, for petitioner.

Rex W. Slate and W. Cone Owen, Jr., of Smith & Alspaugh, P.C., Birmingham, for respondents Paul Dodd and Cythia Dodd, on behalf on their minor child, Alex Coker.

Rebecca A. Walker, Gadsden, for respondent Matthew Messer.

BOLIN, Justice.

Brett Yancey, a football coach and teacher employed by the Etowah County Board of Education ("the Board"), petitions this Court for a writ of mandamus directing the Etowah Circuit Court to enter a summary judgment in his favor on the basis of State-agent immunity as to the negligence and wantonness claims asserted against him by Paul Dodd and Cynthia Dodd, as next friends and parents of Charles Alexander Coker, a minor (collectively referred to as "Coker"), and by Matthew Messer.

Facts

At the time of the incident made the basis of this action, Charles was enrolled in the 11th grade at Southside High School ("the school"). Brett Yancey was employed as the head football coach and director of athletics at the school. In the spring of 2004, Charles was enrolled in the first-block weight-lifting class taught by Yancey for those students participating in the school's football program. Yancey was given no guidelines or direction on how to teach the weight-lifting class, and there was no textbook for the class. The weight-lifting class consisted of the students' lifting weights and participating in speed and agility drills as part of the strength and conditioning program for the members of the football team. The students were required by Yancey, as part of the weight-lifting class, to clean the weight room, locker room, and bathrooms located in the field house. Yancey stated that the purpose of having the students clean the field house was to help prepare them for football by instilling "team discipline" in the students.

On April 13, 2004, at the conclusion of the weight-lifting class and after the students had changed into their school clothes, Charles and the other students cleaned the field house as they normally did. After the field house was cleaned, Yancey directed several students, including Charles and Messer, to carry the filled trash barrels to the school's dumpsters, which were located behind the school's cafeteria, a relatively short distance from the field house. Messer, a licensed driver, retrieved his pick-up truck from a campus parking lot and drove it to the field house, where the students loaded the trash barrels onto the pick-up truck.¹ Although Yancey testified that he routinely allowed students to use their pick-up trucks to haul the trash barrels to the dumpsters, he did not specifically instruct the students—including Messer on this occasion—to use one of their vehicles to carry the trash barrels to the dumpsters.²

After the trash barrels were loaded onto Messer's pick-up truck, Messer and three other students climbed into the cab of the truck while Charles and Barry Hill, another student in Yancey's weight-lifting class, climbed into the bed of the pick-up truck with the trash barrels. Messer stated that he was not aware that Charles had climbed onto the truck. Charles, on the other hand, testified that Messer was aware that he had climbed onto the truck. The tailgate on Messer's truck was left down. Charles testified that he could have closed the tailgate and then climbed over it when he entered the bed of the truck but did not do so. Charles testified that he sat near the rear of the truck bed with his legs extended out in front of him. Hill testified in his affidavit that Charles kneeled on the tailgate and held onto the tailgate's support cable.

The field house is located at the end of the athletic practice field for the school. The practice field is surrounded by a track and enclosed by a fence. School parking lots are located on both the right and left sides of the practice field. A one-way street runs adjacent to the parking lot on the left side of the practice field. This one-way street, which runs in the opposite direction of the field house, separates the parking lot on the left side of the practice field from an additional school parking lot located across the one-way street. The school's cafeteria and dumpsters are located behind the field house.

There appears to have been three possible routes from the field house to the dumpsters. Yancey did not instruct Messer and the other students to take a particular route to the dumpsters. He testified that the route students normally took to the dumpsters, and the one he assumed the students would take on the day in question, required a truck to be positioned in the parking lot on the left side of the practice field close to the field house. The students would carry the trash barrels from the field house to the truck through a small opening in the fence that encloses the practice field. Once the trash barrels were loaded onto the truck, the truck would exit the parking lot and turn right onto the one-way street, going the wrong way. The truck would then travel a short distance in the wrong direction on the one-way street to the dumpsters. Yancey opined that this route did not require the students to actually leave the campus.

Yancey testified that when he carried the trash barrels to the dumpsters he would drag them along a walking path. This path runs to the rear of the field house along the left side and across a parking lot to the dumpsters.

The route actually taken by Messer and the students on the day in question allowed Messer to position his truck directly in front of the field house by driving onto the track surrounding the practice field through a gate on the fence on the right side of the practice field. Once the trash barrels were loaded onto the truck, Messer exited the practice field through the gate by which he had entered and drove into the parking lot on the right side of the field house. Messer then drove to the lower end of the parking lot and turned right onto a street.³ Messer then turned right off of this street onto the one-way street that bisects the parking lots and proceeded in the wrong direction on the one-way street to the dumpsters. This route, as opposed to the route students normally took to the dumpsters, required Messer to drive in the wrong direction on the one-way street for a greater distance in order to reach the dumpsters.⁴ As Messer was driving down the one-way street to the dumpsters his truck hit a "dip" and Charles fell from the bed of the truck and was severely injured.

Charles testified that the students could have walked the trash barrels to the dumpsters from the field house in less time than it took to retrieve Messer's truck and haul the barrels to the dumpsters. Charles also testified that he could have walked to the dumpsters to meet Messer and the other students to help them unload the trash barrels.

Yancey presented the affidavit of Jerome Wilkens, a retired member of the Board, who testified that the Board had no written policy prohibiting students from leaving the school campus in their vehicles during school hours. Yancey stated that students were permitted to leave campus during school hours to attend vocational school, baseball practice, and softball practice. However, the student handbook in effect at the time of the incident provides under its general rules provision that "[s]tudents are not permitted to go to a car or parking lot without permission of Principal or Assistant Principal." The student handbook also provides the following with regard to parking rules: "All students will come immediately into the school after parking their cars, and shall not return to the car until the end of the school day without permission from the administration. When possible an administrator will accompany the student to the car." Yancey stated that he was provided a copy of the student handbook but that he had not read it. Following the accident, Gene Johnson, the school's principal, notified Yancey by letter that when "giving instructions to students be very specific to detail and at no time can you let a student use their vehicle unless we have written permission from the parent."

Coker sued Messer, who was then a minor, alleging negligence and wantonness in the operation of his truck, which proximately resulted in Charles's being injured.⁵ On April 5, 2006, Coker amended his complaint to add Yancey as a defendant, alleging that Yancey had negligently and wantonly directed the students to remove the trash barrels to the school dumpsters and had negligently and wantonly supervised the students.

On May 4, 2006, Yancey answered the complaint, asserting among other defenses, State-agent immunity as a defense to Coker's complaint. On May 11, 2006, Messer answered Coker's complaint and cross-claimed against Yancey.⁶ Messer alleged that Yancey had negligently and wantonly ordered him to drive his truck off campus by requiring him to carry the trash barrels to the dumpsters without first obtaining permission from a parent and had negligently and wantonly failed to supervise the students Yancey had ordered to remove the trash barrels to the dumpsters.

On November 13, 2007, Messer moved for a summary judgment as to the cross-claim asserted against Yancey. Messer argued that Yancey was not entitled to State-agent immunity because, Messer argued, Yancey was not acting within the general scope of his authority because his actions violated school policy set forth in the student handbook. On November 15, 2007, Yancey moved for a summary judgment arguing, among other things, that he was entitled to State-agent immunity as to the negligence and wantonness claims asserted against him by Coker and Messer. The trial court, on...