Smith v. New Haven

• Decision Date: 11 September 2001
• Docket Number: (SC 16485)
• Citation: 779 A.2d 104,258 Conn. 56
• Parties: MARY E. SMITH v. CITY OF NEW HAVEN
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

258 Conn. 56

779 A.2d 104

MARY E. SMITH v. CITY OF NEW HAVEN

(SC 16485)

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued May 29, 2001.

Officially released September 11, 2001.

Borden, Norcott, Palmer, Vertefeuille and Zarella, JS. Audrey C. Kramer, assistant corporation counsel, for the appellant (defendant).

Michael S. Burrell, for the appellee (third party defendant).

Opinion

BORDEN, J.

The sole issue in this appeal¹ is whether a municipal defendant, sought to be held liable for breach of its statutory duty to maintain and repair local roadways under General Statutes § 13a-149,² may seek indemnification from a third party who, the municipality alleges, actively and negligently caused the plaintiff's injuries. The defendant, the city of New Haven, appeals from the judgment of the trial court granting the motion for summary judgment of the third party defendant, The Mary Wade Home, Inc. (Mary Wade Home), on the defendant's third party complaint. On appeal before this court, the defendant claims that application of the sole proximate cause doctrine to the facts of this case does not preclude a cause of action for indemnification. We disagree and affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The plaintiff, Mary E. Smith, brought the underlying action against the defendant pursuant to § 13a-149, the municipal defective highway statute. The defendant then impleaded Mary Wade Home, a private landowner whose property abutted the location of the plaintiffs accident. By its third party complaint, the defendant brought a claim for indemnification against Mary Wade Home alleging that its "active conduct and negligence," rather than any act or omission by the defendant, "was the direct and immediate cause of ... [the plaintiff's] injury...."³ Mary Wade Home moved to strike the defendant's third party complaint, and the trial court Blue, J., granted the motion. The defendant then filed an amended third party complaint for indemnification. Mary Wade Home moved for summary judgment on the third party complaint, which the trial court, Licari, J., granted, and rendered judgment accordingly. This appeal followed.

The facts and procedural history relevant to this appeal are as follows. The plaintiff brought an action against the defendant for injuries resulting from an April 23, 1996 incident that occurred on Pine Street in New Haven. As the plaintiff was descending a handicap ramp from the sidewalk into the street, she allegedly stepped into a hole. Her foot caught against the side of the hole and she fell, fracturing her arm and sustaining several cuts and bruises. The plaintiff then brought a complaint against the defendant pursuant to § 13a-149, alleging that the defendant had breached its duty to maintain its streets in a reasonably safe condition, which resulted in her injuries.

The defendant thereafter impleaded Mary Wade Home, whose property abutted Pine Street. By way of a third party complaint, the defendant alleged that Mary Wade Home had constructed the handicap ramp that the plaintiff was descending at the time of her accident, and that it had failed to obtain the requisite permit for the installation of the ramp. According to the defendant, the construction of the handicap ramp had caused the surface of the roadway to become "uneven, raised ... of varying heights and in a state of disrepair that it rendered pedestrian traffic hazardous and dangerous...." The defendant also alleged that Mary Wade Home had exclusive control over the locus of the accident, that Mary Wade Home knew or should have known that installation of the ramp had caused a tripping hazard to pedestrians, and that Mary Wade Home was negligent in not correcting or repairing the defect. As a result, the defendant alleged, Mary Wade Home had a duty to indemnify it against any damages recovered by the plaintiff.

Mary Wade Home moved to strike the third party complaint for indemnification, which the trial court granted. The defendant then filed an amended third party complaint against Mary Wade Home. Mary Wade Home moved for summary judgment on the amended complaint, claiming that the doctrine of sole proximate cause was incompatible with principles of indemnification. The trial court rendered summary judgment in favor of Mary Wade Home.

The defendant claims that the sole proximate cause doctrine regarding municipal liability under § 13a-149 does not preclude an action for indemnification. The defendant argues that the sole proximate cause doctrine precludes the liability of a municipality for injuries resulting from defects in its sidewalks or roadways only when the plaintiff was contributorily negligent. Thus, according to the defendant, a municipality can be held liable under § 13a-149 even when a third party's negligence was a contributing cause of the plaintiff's injuries. The defendant contends further that where, as here, the municipality has paid the plaintiff in satisfaction of her claims, it is entitled to indemnification by the alleged third party tortfeasor whose active negligence was primarily responsible for the plaintiffs injuries. We conclude that, because the sole proximate cause doctrine precludes municipal liability, not only where the plaintiff was contributorily negligent, but also where other purported tortfeasors or independent nontortious factors contributed to the injury, no right to indemnification exists in actions brought pursuant to § 13a-149. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.

We focus primarily on the scope of the sole proximate cause doctrine as applied in the context of the municipal defective highway statute because this issue is dispositive of the defendant's claim for indemnification.⁴ The roots of § 13a-149 extend as far back as 1672, when our legislature originally abrogated municipal common-law immunity for actions arising from defective highway conditions. See White v. Burns, 213 Conn. 307, 313, 567 A.2d 1195 (1990). The 1672 act was similar in both language and import to its progeny, § 13a-149. That act was codified at § 2673 of the 1887 revision of the General Statutes, and provided in relevant part that "[a]ny person injured in person or property by means of a defective road or bridge may recover damages from the party bound to keep it in repair; but no action for any injury shall be maintained against any town, city, corporation, or borough, unless written notice of such injury, and the nature and cause thereof ... be given to a selectman of such town or to the clerk of such city, corporation, or borough...."

We first identified sole proximate cause as the standard for determining municipal liability under the 1672 act in Bartram v. Sharon, 71 Conn. 686, 690, 43 A. 143 (1899). In Bartram, the court acknowledged that, under the statute, a municipality should be held responsible for any injuries resulting from a defect in the highway of which the town knew or should have known, and that the town failed or neglected to repair despite having reasonable time to do so. Id., 694-95. We also stated, however, that "[i]t is the statute only, which entitles the plaintiff to compensation for his injury when that injury is caused through or by means of a defect in the highway. If the negligence of himself or of a third person is also a proximate cause, he cannot say with truth that he was injured by the defect; he can only say with truth that he was injured by his own or another's carelessness and the defect, and the two combined give no cause of action under the statute." (Emphasis added.) Id., 690.

Thus, from the inception of the sole proximate cause doctrine, we have embraced the notion that a municipality's liability under the defective highway statute may be defeated by a showing of negligence on the part of either the plaintiff or some third party. See Sanzone v. Board of Police Commissioners, 219 Conn. 179, 197, 592 A.2d 912 (1991) ("[§] 13a-149 does not permit recovery unless the defect was the sole proximate cause of the injury, even if the concurring cause was a third party's negligence"); Roth v. MacDonald, 124 Conn. 461, 463, 200 A. 725 (1938) (driver's negligence was contributing factor to accident, relieving municipality of liability for passengers' injuries); Messina v. New Haven, 119 Conn. 166, 168, 174 A. 188 (1934) ("when an injury results from a defect combined with the culpable negligence of a third party it cannot be said to have been caused by the defect, and cannot be made the subject of recovery under the statute giving a right of action against a municipality for injuries resulting from such defect"). We also have recognized that natural causes or conditions may vitiate a municipality's liability under the statute. See Frechette v. New Haven, 104 Conn. 83, 89, 132 A. 467 (1926) ("if the injury would not have occurred but for the natural cause, the defect cannot be held to have produced the injury, nor can it be held to have been the essential cause of the injury"); Messina v. New Haven, supra, 168 ("[w]here ... the injury is the result of a defect combined with an accident—in the sense of an occurrence for which no one is responsible—or a natural cause which was a natural incident of the use of the highway, the municipality is liable unless it appears that the accident or natural cause was so direct and separate in its operation that it, and not the defect, must be held to have been the essential or proximate cause of the injury"); Agriesto v. Fairfield, 130 Conn. 410, 413, 35 A.2d 15 (1943) (same).

In two recent cases, Williamson v. Commissioner of Transportation, 209 Conn. 310, 321, 551 A.2d 704 (1988), and White v. Burns, supra, 213 Conn. 315, we confirmed that the presence of third party negligence vitiates statutory governmental liability for the failure to maintain and repair highways, roadways and bridges. Although these cases dealt specifically with General Statutes § 13a-144,⁵ the state defective highway statute, they are nonetheless persuasive authority with...