Hale v. City of Tuscaloosa
| Decision Date | 20 April 1984 |
| Parties | Holly Ann HALE, et al. v. CITY OF TUSCALOOSA. Gary N. BROWN v. CITY OF TUSCALOOSA. 83-325, 83-326. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
R. Gordon Pate of Hare, Wynn, Newell & Newton, Birmingham, for appellants.
Robert W. Ennis, IV, City Atty., and Robert B. Harwood, Jr. of Rosen, Harwood, Cook & Sledge, Tuscaloosa, for appellee.
These appeals are by the plaintiffs from a partial summary judgment entered in favor of the City of Tuscaloosa.
On January 24, 1981, Holly Ann Hale, Dennis Houston Brown, and Thomas Buell Adams were involved in an automobile accident when their car collided with a stopped railway tank car on Hackberry Lane in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Prior to the accident, the three students had been drinking alcoholic beverages at a local bar known as Tivoli's. They left the bar just after 11:00 p.m. in a car driven by Adams.
As they approached the railroad crossing, two separate pairs of warning lights were flashing, and the signal bells were working. The tank car had been parked at the crossing for approximately thirty-five minutes when the Adams vehicle ran under the tanker, critically injuring Miss Hale and killing Dennis Brown. The warning lights were kept flashing for the entire time the 144-car train was stopped. The driver of the car, Buell Adams, had a .14% blood alcohol reading, according to tests made after the accident. Adams was driving a small Honda automobile, and the specific railway car with which it collided was a black gas tank car; it had no reflectors on its side and was much higher off the ground than a regular box car, the bottom of the car being three to three and one-half feet above the top of the rail. The headlights of the Honda shown beneath the tank, giving the illusion of no blockage.
Miss Hale and her father brought an action to recover damages for her personal injuries and medical expenses, and Gary Brown, father of Dennis Brown, brought an action to recover damages for the wrongful death of his son. Named as defendants in their complaints are Southern Railway, the City of Tuscaloosa, Benners-Nichols Enterprises, Inc., d/b/a Tivoli's, and the Alabama Great Southern Railroad Company.
The plaintiffs' claims against the City are based on the theory that it breached its statutory duty to remedy a defect on a public road. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the City of Tuscaloosa, eliminating all claims against it except for the claim of negligent failure to maintain the crossing at which the accident occurred. The trial court limited this claim to the single factual allegation of the failure to maintain a painted emblem on the pavement of the street. The claims against the other defendants are not a subject of these appeals; the trial court entered an order pursuant to A.R.Civ.P. 54(b) to allow an appeal by the plaintiffs. For purposes of this decision, the Hale and Brown cases have been consolidated. We affirm.
It is true, as appellants argue, that summary judgment should be granted only when, after viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the non-moving party, it appears that there is no genuine issue of material fact, and the non-moving party cannot prevail as a matter of law; and summary judgment is improper if there is a scintilla of evidence to support the non-moving party. Allen v. Whitehead, 423 So.2d 835 (Ala.1982); Robertson v. City of Tuscaloosa, 413 So.2d 1064 (Ala.1982); Raley v. Royal Ins. Co. Ltd., 386 So.2d 742 (Ala.1980); Rule 56(c), A.R.Civ.P.
Tort liability of municipalities is governed by statute in Alabama. Jackson v. City of Florence, 294 Ala. 592, 320 So.2d 68 (1975). In this case, the plaintiffs' claim against the City is based on the theory that it breached its statutory duty to remedy a defect in a public road.
Section 11-47-190, Alabama Code 1975, states:
"No city or town shall be liable for damages for injury done to or wrong suffered by any person or corporation, unless said injury or wrong was done or suffered through the neglect, carelessness or unskillfulness of some agent, officer or employee of the municipality engaged in work therefor and while acting in the line of his duty, or unless the said injury or wrong was done or suffered through the neglect, carelessness or failure to remedy some defect in the streets, alleys, public ways or buildings after the same had been called to the attention of the council or other governing body or after the same had existed for such unreasonable length of time as to raise a presumption of knowledge of such defect on the part of the council or other governing body...
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