Ingram v. Salt Lake City
| Decision Date | 29 January 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. 21007,21007 |
| Citation | 733 P.2d 126 |
| Parties | Ronald L. INGRAM, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. SALT LAKE CITY, a municipal corporation, Defendant and Respondent. |
| Court | Utah Supreme Court |
Robert M. McRae, Vernal, for plaintiff and appellant.
Donald J. Purser, Salt Lake City, for defendant and respondent.
Plaintiff Ronald L. Ingram appeals from a summary judgment in favor of Salt Lake City on grounds that the city was immune from suit under the Utah Governmental Immunity Act. We reverse for a trial on the merits.
Ingram was injured when he stepped on a manhole cover located on a parking strip between the sidewalk and the curb in the Sugarhouse area where the city had undertaken a beautification program. The cover gave way under Ingram's weight, and he was trapped in the vault.
Salt Lake City had hired Okland Construction Company, which had performed the construction work in accordance with plans and specifications and directives given by the city. After trial proceeded against Okland, the jury found that Okland's workmanship in installing the meter vault and lid met the standard of care normally expected of contractors. No appeal is taken from that verdict.
Summary judgment is proper only if the pleadings, depositions, affidavits, and admissions show that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Utah R.Civ.P. 56(c); Bowen v. Riverton City, 656 P.2d 434 (Utah 1982). Although summary judgment may on occasion be appropriate in negligence cases, it is appropriate only in the most clear-cut case. Id. at 436; accord Apache Tank Lines, Inc. v. Cheney, 706 P.2d 614 (Utah 1985).
Of plaintiff's several arguments, we address only those raised by him in the trial court below. Bailey v. Deseret Federal Savings & Loan Association, 701 P.2d 803 (Utah 1985). Plaintiff claims that the city's claim for governmental immunity must fail in view of section 63-30-8 of the Governmental Immunity Act (the Act), which states:
Immunity from suit of all governmental entities is waived for an injury caused by a defective, unsafe, or dangerous condition of any highway, road, street, alley, crosswalk, sidewalk, culvert, tunnel, bridge, viaduct or other structure located thereon.
Defendant interposes section 63-30-9 and section 63-30-10(1)(d) of the Act, claiming that either the latent defect of the manhole lid or the city's failure to inspect constituted exceptions to the waiver of immunity under the Act.
The city has a nondelegable duty to exercise due care in maintaining streets and sidewalks within its corporate boundaries in a reasonably safe condition for travel and may be held liable for injuries proximately resulting from its failure to do so. Bowen at 437; Murray v. Ogden City, 548 P.2d 896 (Utah 1976). Streets from side to side, including the sidewalks and all area between, are primarily for the public use. The public use is paramount. Stringham v. Salt Lake City, 114 Utah 517, 201 P.2d 758 (1949); U.C.A., 1953, § 10-8-23; U.C.A., 1953, §§ 27-14-2, -3(3). The parkways are part of the public streets designed for the use of the public. Stringham at 529 (Wolfe, J., concurring in the result.)
Salt Lake City attempts to distinguish Murray and Bowen on the grounds that in the former, the plaintiff fell into a hole on the sidewalk and in the latter, the city's maintenance of a city street was at issue, whereas here the vault was not located on a public street. Both statutes and case law hold otherwise, and the city may not rely on section 63-30-10(1)(d) of the Act to torture the facts of this case into the provisions of that section. Cf. Andrus v. State, 541 P.2d 1117 (Utah 1975).
Alternately, Salt Lake City claims that the defective water meter lid should be governed by section 63-30-9 which does not waive immunity for a latent defective condition. A "latent defect" is a defect which reasonably careful inspection will not reveal. Vincent v. Salt Lake County, 583 P.2d 105, 107 (Utah 1978). Both...
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