Lasyone v. Kansas City Southern RR

• Decision Date: 03 April 2001
• Docket Number: No. 2000-C-2628.,2000-C-2628.
• Citation: 786 So.2d 682
• Parties: Terry LASYONE v. KANSAS CITY SOUTHERN RAILROAD, State of Louisiana through DOTD and the Parish of Pointe Coupee through its Governing Authority, the Police Jury of Pointe Coupee Parish.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

786 So.2d 682

Terry LASYONE v. KANSAS CITY SOUTHERN RAILROAD, State of Louisiana through DOTD and the Parish of Pointe Coupee through its Governing Authority, the Police Jury of Pointe Coupee Parish.

No. 2000-C-2628.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

April 3, 2001.

Walter L. Smith, Craig S. Watson, Baton Rouge, Counsel for Applicant.

Bobby S. Gilliam, Shreveport, Arthur H. Andrews, Kenneth W. Benson, Jr., Baton Rouge, Counsel for Respondent.

KNOLL, Justice.

This case involves a determination of whether the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (hereafter "DOTD") should be held liable to a motorist because of the placement of a 90-foot longitudinal guardrail¹ on a road shoulder just before a railroad crossing. In particular, this case involves the collision of an 18 wheel tank truck and a freight train at a single track crossing marked with railroad crossing lights. The appellate court reversed the trial judge's holding that the longitudinal guardrail on the road shoulder posed an unreasonable risk of harm. Accordingly, the appellate court found the motorist totally at fault and reversed the trial judge's assessment of 50 per cent fault to DOTD. Thus, once again this court is faced with a case that strictly calls into question the appropriateness of the appellate court's reversal of a trial judge's decision contrary to the manifest error doctrine. After carefully reviewing the record, we reverse the appellate court, finding no manifest error in the trial judge's adjudication of this matter which found both parties equally at fault.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

This accident occurred at approximately 6:00 a.m. on October, 20, 1986, as Terry Lasyone (hereafter "Lasyone") drove his tank truck northbound on Louisiana Highway 1 (hereafter "Highway 1") just south of the community of Lettsworth in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana. At the time, Lasyone was transporting a load of 80,000 pounds of asphalt for his employer, James White Trucking.

A single track railroad crosses Highway 1 just south of Lettsworth and generally runs in a north-south direction.² It is undisputed that the following warnings preceded the railroad crossing: a yellow warning sign at 825 feet; an additional warning sign at 550 feet; and a RXR sign painted in white on the northbound lane at 550 feet. It was also undisputed that there was a pair of cantilevered signal lights at the railroad crossing, one on each side of the track facing oncoming traffic; each light was located in the clear zone, 11-feet from the edge of Highway 1. Each signal had four flashing lights. It was not seriously disputed that the signal lights were functioning at the time of the accident.³

As pertaining to northbound motorists (east of the railroad track), DOTD erected a guardrail 6-feet from the highway's edge which runs from the cantilevered signal light 90 feet on the north shoulder of Highway 1, parallel to the highway; a similar guardrail runs along the south shoulder of Highway 1 across (west of) the railroad track. The guardrail, a metal Wbeam, is attached to 6 by 6 inch creosote wood posts spaced approximately 6-feet apart.⁴

At the point where the railroad crossing and Highway 1 coalesce, the roadway is generally oriented east-west. A 24-inch (diameter) concrete drain crosses beneath the highway and runs basically parallel to the track. This drain begins south of the highway and exits north of the highway beyond the highway shoulder (past the guardrail). The end of the culvert is marked with a striped warning deliminator. The culvert channels water by gravity flow down a sloping embankment into Bayou Lettsworth, a small waterway located well north of Highway 1; because of the topographic layout, the bayou functions as a shallow ditch. A small elevated railroad bridge crosses Bayou Lettsworth north of the highway and an embankment is formed by the raised aggregate earthen work which elevates the track between the bayou and the highway.

As Lasyone came out of a long, sweeping curve in the highway, he failed to notice the railroad crossing and the approaching Kansas City Southern Railway Company (hereafter "KCS") train that was traveling southbound at approximately 40 m.p.h.⁵ After twice reducing his speed from 40 m.p.h., Lasyone attempted to take evasive action to avoid the train by maneuvering to the northern (right) side of the highway shoulder. Instead, it is contended by Lasyone that his truck struck the 90-foot long longitudinal guardrail placed on the northern shoulder of the highway which then redirected his tank truck into the path of the train. The cab of Lasyone's truck struck the fifth or sixth rail car behind the train's three leading locomotives; the tank portion of the truck did not contact the train.

Lasyone was thrown from his vehicle to the highway just before the collision destroyed the cab of the truck. Lasyone suffered numerous severe injuries to his left arm, right leg, and both ankles.⁶ Subsequently, Lasyone sued KCS, DOTD, and the parish of Pointe Coupee (hereafter "Parish").

On December 21, 1987, the trial judge dismissed the Parish on a motion for summary judgment, finding that it was not contractually obligated to provide and had not provided maintenance or signing services with respect to Highway 1, the railroad, or the intersection. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company (hereafter "Liberty Mutual") intervened in Lasyone's lawsuit, seeking reimbursement of the disability compensation and medical payments it paid to Lasyone pursuant to a policy of worker's compensation insurance that it issued to his employer, James White Trucking. In its intervention, Liberty Mutual alleged that it was owed weekly benefit payments totaling $87,694.49 and medical benefits of $85,543.60.

Just prior to trial, KCS settled with Lasyone and was formally dismissed by court order dated October 1, 1998. Liberty Mutual also settled part of its intervention claim as to KCS and received $22,500.00, thereby reducing Liberty Mutual's claim to $150,738.09. Trial of this matter then proceeded only against DOTD.

The trial judge heard this matter on March 24 and 25, and June 2, 1998. On October 7, 1998, the trial judge rendered judgment finding Lasyone and DOTD each 50 per cent at fault. It awarded damages totaling $2,960,168.60 (reducible by 50 per cent)⁷ and recognized Liberty Mutual's intervention in the sum of $150,738.09.

In its written reasons for judgment, the trial court found that Lasyone attempted to take evasive action, but the placement of the longitudinal guardrail directed his truck into the path of the train and deprived him of his only avenue of escape. The trial court held that DOTD breached its duty to protect Lasyone from the unreasonable risk of harm that the placement of the longitudinal guardrail posed to vehicles approaching the railroad crossing. In its assessment of fault to Lasyone, the trial court commented that although the railroad crossing lights were working prior to the collision, Lasyone was "simply inattentive until it was too late."

The appellate court reversed the trial court, finding that Lasyone failed to prove that the guardrail posed an unreasonable risk of harm. Accordingly, it found that Lasyone was solely responsible for this accident. Lasyone v. Kansas City So. R.R., State of Louisiana through DOTD and the Parish of Pointe Coupee through its governing authority, the Police Jury of Pointe Coupee Parish, 99-0735 (La.App. 1 Cir. 6/23/00) (unpublished opinion). We granted Lasyone's writ application to more closely examine the question of manifest error.⁸ Lasyone v. State of Louisiana through DOTD, 00-2628 (La.12/8/00), 776 So.2d 457.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

A trial court's finding of fact may not be reversed absent manifest error or unless clearly wrong. Stobart v. State of Louisiana, Through Department of Transportation and Development, 92-1328 (La.4/12/93), 617 So.2d 880. The reviewing court must do more than just simply review the record for some evidence which supports or controverts the trial court's findings; it must instead review the record in its entirety to determine whether the trial court's finding was clearly wrong or manifestly erroneous. Stobart, 617 So.2d at 882. The issue to be resolved by a reviewing court is not whether the trier of fact was right or wrong, but whether the factfinder's conclusion was a reasonable one. Id. The reviewing court must always keep in mind that "if the trial court or jury's findings are reasonable in light of the record reviewed in its entirety, the court of appeal may not reverse, even if convinced that had it been sitting as the trier of fact, it would have weighed the evidence differently." Stobart, 617 So.2d at 882-83, citing Housley v. Cerise, 579 So.2d 973 (La.1991) (quoting Sistler v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co., 558 So.2d 1106, 1112 (La.1990)).

These standards for manifest error review are not new. They are the guiding principles that aid our courts of appeal, which are our error correcting courts, when reviewing a trial court's factual determinations. A manifest error review is applicable to the fact-driven determinations of the present case.

DOTD'S LIABILITY

We must determine whether DOTD was at fault. Under Louisiana law, liability for injuries sustained by one as the result of a defective condition of a thing is based on legal fault, i.e., strict liability. See LA. CIV.CODE ANN. art. 2317.⁹ Louisiana's codal provision for legal fault is found in LA. CIV.CODE ANN. art. 2317 which provides:

We are responsible, not only for the damage occasioned by our own act, but for that which is caused by the act of persons for whom we are answerable, or of the things which we have in our custody....

In an action asserting liability under LA. CIV.CODE ANN. art. 2317 before 1996, the plaintiff bore the burden of proving three elements: (1) that the thing which caused the damages was in the care, custody, and control (garde) of the defendant;¹⁰ (2) that the thing had...