Sasnett v. Jons

Decision Date25 June 2013
Docket NumberNo. WD 75106.,WD 75106.
Citation400 S.W.3d 429
PartiesStephanie SASNETT, a Minor by and through her Guardian and Natural Mother, Maria Sasnett, et al., Appellants, v. Tina M. JONS and City of Kansas City, Respondents.
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals

400 S.W.3d 429

Stephanie SASNETT, a Minor by and through her Guardian and Natural Mother, Maria Sasnett, et al., Appellants,
v.
Tina M. JONS and City of Kansas City, Respondents.

No. WD 75106.

Missouri Court of Appeals,
Western District.

April 2, 2013.
Motion for Rehearing and/or Transfer to Supreme Court Denied April 30, 2013.

Application for Transfer Denied June 25, 2013.


[400 S.W.3d 432]


Andrew J. Gelbach, Christopher P. Sweeny and William D. Vandever, Kansas City, MO, for appellant.

Douglas McMillan, Chad Stewart, and James C. Morrow, Kansas City, MO, for respondent.


Before Division Two: KAREN KING MITCHELL, Presiding Judge, JAMES E. WELSH, Chief Judge, and LISA WHITE HARDWICK, Judge.

LISA WHITE HARDWICK, Judge.

The widow and three children of Stephen Sasnett (“the Sasnetts”) appeal from a judgment in their favor on their wrongful death claim against the City of Kansas City (“the City”) and Tina Jons (“Jons”). On appeal, the Sasnetts contend that the circuit court failed to instruct the jury that Jons owed a higher standard of care than the City owed and this error resulted in the jury allocating a low percentage fault to Jons. The Sasnetts also contend the court plainly erred in admitting Jons's testimony that she has three children and that she understood that the Sasnetts wanted her to go to jail. The Sasnetts allege this testimony caused the jury to allocate too little fault to Jons and to award them less damages. Lastly, the Sasnetts assert the court erred in denying their motion for costs. For reasons explained herein, we affirm.

Factual and Procedural History

Around 9:00 a.m. on December 21, 2005, Stephen Sasnett (“Sasnett”) was eastbound on 18th Street in Kansas City when he stopped at a red light at the intersection of 18th and Charlotte (“the intersection”). At the same time, Ronald Brooks (“Brooks”) was southbound on Charlotte and Jons was westbound on 18th Street. As Brooks approached the intersection, he had a green light. As Jons approached the intersection, she had a red light. Jons failed to stop at the red light and proceeded into the intersection at the same time as Brooks. Brooks's car hit the side of Jons's SUV, causing the SUV to go airborne. Jons's SUV landed on the cab of Sasnett's truck, killing him.

[400 S.W.3d 433]

Sasnett's wife, Maria, and his three children subsequently filed a petition for damages for wrongful death against the City, Jons, and Brooks. Before trial, the Sasnetts settled their claim against Brooks for $250,000. The case proceeded to a jury trial on the Sasnetts' claims against the City and Jons.

The evidence at trial showed that numerous accidents had occurred at the intersection in the past. Lynette Maxwell, an employee of the medical clinic located at the corner of the intersection, testified that, over the twenty-year period that she had worked there, she recalled as many as one or two accidents per month. In fact, Maxwell called 911 to report accidents at the intersection so frequently that she was instructed to stop calling 911 unless there was an injury. Maxwell testified that the two pedestal traffic signals for westbound drivers at 18th and Charlotte were hard to see and that drivers could confuse the overhead mast arm signal at the next intersection, which was 18th and Holmes, as being the signal for the intersection of 18th and Charlotte. Maxwell agreed that, “unless somebody was looking really, really, really, really hard it was hard to see and know the difference” between the signals for 18th and Charlotte and 18th and Holmes.

Brian Masterson, the police officer who investigated the accident, testified that the lights at those two intersections were not synchronized. Masterson agreed that, if the lights at 18th and Holmes were green and the lights at 18th and Charlotte were red, that could send a confusing message to drivers due to the placement of the signals.

Steve Worley, a former traffic engineer for the City, testified that the traffic signals at the intersection for westbound drivers met the requirements of the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices. Nevertheless, the City had identified the intersection as a high accident location more than four years before the accident because the intersection, despite its low traffic volume, had an average of ten accidents per year. This prompted Worley to ask Tony Nasseri, one of the City's subordinate traffic engineers, to investigate and evaluate the need for safety improvements to the intersection.

Following his investigation, Nasseri drafted a memo to Worley recommending safety improvements for the intersection. In the memo, Nasseri stated that, from January 1, 1999, to July 31, 2001, the intersection experienced twenty-six reported accidents. Fifty-eight percent of those accidents were right-angle collisions like the one that occurred in this case. According to Nasseri, the predominant cause of those accidents was that the driver did not see the traffic signal or failed to stop for a red light. Nasseri stated that, based upon his investigation of the site, poor visibility of the traffic signals may have contributed to the accidents.

Nasseri provided short-range and long-range recommendations in his memo to improve the intersection's safety. His short-range recommendation was to install “Signal Ahead” signs on westbound 18th Street and southbound Charlotte. His long-range recommendation was to install overhead mast arm signals for all approaches to the intersection. The City did not implement either of these recommendations before the accident on December 21, 2005.

Dr. John Glennon, a traffic engineer, testified on behalf of the Sasnetts as an expert in roadway design. Glennon opined that, even for drivers exercising the highest degree of care, the intersection was unreasonably dangerous because: (1) it did not have a mast arm traffic signal or a “Signal Ahead” sign leading up to it; (2)

[400 S.W.3d 434]

the signal for the 18th and Holmes intersection was fairly close to the intersection of 18th and Charlotte; and (3) the signals at the two intersections were not synchronized. Glennon testified that the distance between Charlotte and Holmes was “very, very short.” He explained that, while a normal short block is 440 feet, the block between Charlotte and Holmes was only 250 feet. Glennon testified that, when traveling westbound on 18th Street, the mast arm signal at the intersection of 18th and Holmes overwhelmed the pedestal traffic signals at the intersection of 18th and Charlotte for several blocks. According to Glennon, a driver could clearly see the overhead lights at Holmes but not the pedestal lights at Charlotte, and a driver could “quite easily” mistake the traffic lights of 18th and Holmes for the closer traffic lights at 18th and Charlotte.

Glennon testified that it is common knowledge in the field of traffic engineering that drivers can confuse lights that are too close together and that, in such circumstances, measures need to be taken to ensure that drivers are not looking at the wrong signal. Moreover, Glennon stated that anytime a pedestal light is close to a mast arm light, there is a risk of miscommunication to drivers. Glennon testified that, when the City installed the mast arm signal above the Holmes intersection prior to the accident, it should have looked at the signal at the intersection of 18th and Charlotte, especially in light of its high accident rate. According to Glennon, the installation of mast arm signals results in an estimated seventy-four percent reduction in right-angle collisions.

The evidence concerning Jons's involvement in the accident was that, on the morning of the accident, she was taking her son to a doctor's appointment at Children's Mercy Hospital. Jons testified that, as she traveled westbound on 18th Street, she saw the intersection of 18th and Charlotte from two blocks away but never saw the two pedestal traffic signals. Instead, she saw the mast arm signal at the intersection of 18th and Holmes. Because the mast arm signal was green, she proceeded into the intersection.

In addition to the pedestal traffic signals at the intersection, there was a two-foot wide stop bar painted on the street. Jons knew that a stop bar meant there was either a traffic light or stop sign at the intersection, but she thought the overhead mast signal at 18th and Holmes was the traffic signal for 18th and Charlotte.

Jons was not impaired, on her cell phone, or distracted by her son at the time of the accident, but she did not see Brooks until one second before the collision. Although Jons said she slammed her foot on the brake pedal, there were no skid marks or other evidence of her braking.

Jons testified that she was not traveling over the speed limit, which was thirty-five miles per hour. An eyewitness to the accident estimated her speed to be about twenty to twenty-five miles per hour. However, the City's accident reconstruction expert, Stephen Christoffersen, testified that Jons was traveling between thirty-seven and forty-five miles per hour and that Brooks was traveling between forty-three and fifty-three miles per hour. Christoffersen concluded that both Jons and Brooks were speeding and that, had they been traveling the speed limit, Sasnett would not have been fatally injured. Moreover, Christoffersen opined that Jons and Brooks could have seen each other about two and one-half seconds before impact, when Jons was 145 feet from the point of impact and Brooks was 175 feet from the point of impact.

Masterson and another officer who investigated the accident testified that nothing interfered with or made it difficult for

[400 S.W.3d 435]

westbound drivers like Jons to see the two pedestal traffic signals as they approached the intersection. No other drivers indicated that they had difficulty seeing the traffic signals that day, and there were no weather conditions at the time that would have prevented Jons from seeing the signals. Moreover, Maxwell testified that...

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11 cases
  • Henry v. Piatchek, ED105742
    • United States
    • Missouri Court of Appeals
    • July 10, 2018
    ...plaintiffs in wrongful death suit would be plain error because such plaintiffs are entitled to intervene as of right); Sasnett v. Jons, 400 S.W.3d 429, 437-438 (Mo. App. W.D. 2013) (describing plain error in civil cases as "when the injustice of the error is so egregious as to weaken the ve......
  • Brown v. State
    • United States
    • Missouri Court of Appeals
    • March 28, 2017
    ...in the first instance." Id. "[S]elf-invited [error] cannot serve as grounds for reversal on plain error review." Sasnett v. Jons , 400 S.W.3d 429, 438 (Mo. App. W.D. 2013). In any event, Brown has failed to establish that the trial court erred in admitting the evidence. As mentioned above, ......
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    • March 31, 2015
    ..., 693 S.W.2d 891, 893 (Mo.App.1985). “The award of costs is a matter within the circuit court's sound discretion[.]” Sasnett v. Jons , 400 S.W.3d 429, 441 (Mo.App.2013) ; Peet v. Randolph , 157 S.W.3d 360, 366 (Mo.App.2005).Because we are reversing the circuit court's judgment to the extent......
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    ...is rarely applied in civil cases, and may not be invoked to cure the mere failure to make proper and timely objections. Sasnett v. Jons, 400 S.W.3d 429, 437 (Mo.App. W.D.2013) (citation omitted). “We will reverse for plain error in civil cases only in those situations when the injustice of ......
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