Stotler v. Dep't of Transp.

• Decision Date: 19 August 2014
• Docket Number: No. 19177.,19177.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Ellen STOTLER, Administratrix (Estate of Paul A. Stotler III) v. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION.

313 Conn. 158

96 A.3d 527

Ellen STOTLER, Administratrix (Estate of Paul A. Stotler III)

v.DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION.

No. 19177.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued April 30, 2014.

Decided Aug. 19, 2014.

Joel T. Faxon, New Haven, with whom, on the brief, was Eric P. Smith, for the appellant (plaintiff).

Ronald D. Williams, Jr., Trumbull, for the appellee (defendant).

ROGERS, C.J., and PALMER, ZARELLA, EVELEIGH, ROBINSON and VERTEFEUILLE, Js.

ROGERS, C.J.

The dispositive issue in this certified appeal is whether a defective highway claim based on the design of Route 44 across Avon Mountain falls within the purview of General Statutes § 13a–144,¹pursuant to which the state has consented to liability for certain injuries caused by a defective highway. The plaintiff, Ellen Stotler, administratrix of the estate of the decedent, Paul A. Stotler III, brought this action pursuant to § 13a–144 against the defendant, the Department of Transportation, to recover damages sustained when a truck descending Avon Mountain along Route 44 experienced brake failure and collided with multiple vehicles.² The defendant filed a motion to dismiss the action on the ground that the complaint failed to state a claim under § 13a–144 and, therefore, was barred by sovereign immunity. The trial court denied the defendant's motion to dismiss, and the defendant appealed from that decision to the Appellate Court.³ The Appellate Court determined that the plaintiff's complaint failed to state a cause of action under § 13a–144, and, accordingly, reversed the judgment of the trial court and remanded the case with direction to render judgment dismissing the plaintiff's complaint. Stotler v. Dept. of Transportation, 142 Conn.App. 826, 843, 70 A.3d 114 (2013). We granted the plaintiff's petition for certification to appeal limited to the following issue: “Did the Appellate Court properly conclude that the plaintiff's action should have been dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because the allegations in the plaintiff's complaint failed to state a cause of action under ... § 13a–144?” Stotler v. Dept. of Transportation, 309 Conn. 921, 76 A.3d 624 (2013). We answer this question in the affirmative and, accordingly, affirm the judgment of the Appellate Court.

The following facts and procedural history are relevant to our disposition of this appeal. The plaintiff brought this defective highway action against the defendant alleging that, on July 29, 2005, the decedent “was operating his motor vehicle easterly along [Route] 44, a public highway in Avon ... when a series of collisions occurred when a truck owned by American Crushing and Recycling, LLC, lost control as it traveled down Avon Mountain on Route 44 ... result[ing] in the death of [the decedent].”

The plaintiff alleged that the decedent's injuries and death resulted from the neglect or default of the defendant, “by means of a defective road, in one or more of the following ways:

“(a) in that [the defendant] utilized a plan of design, construction and/or repair for the area of Route 44 described above, adopted by the state of Connecticut and/or its employees, which was totally inadmissible,⁴ in that it created an unsafe condition; “(b) in that [the defendant] failed to provide adequate warnings and signage on the downhill grade on Route 44 before the intersection;

“(c) in that [the defendant] failed to construct a necessary runaway truck ramp;

“(d) in that [the defendant] failed to prohibit trucks on this roadway in the absence of other safeguards;

“(e) in that [the defendant] failed to have, or failed to have adequate, procedures for maintaining the downhill slope in a safe condition;

“(f) in that [the defendant] failed to train, or properly train, personnel in inspection of, or maintenance of, the signage and grade;

“(g) in that [the defendant] failed to maintain, or properly maintain, the roadway for traffic upon it;

“(h) in that [the defendant] failed to inspect, or properly inspect, the roadway so that it could be maintained or properly maintained;

“(i) in that [the defendant] failed to train, or properly train, personnel to inspect the roadway so that it could be maintained or properly maintained;

“(j) in that [the defendant] failed to have, or failed to have adequate, procedures for inspecting and maintaining the roadway so as to be safe for vehicular traffic;

“(k) in that [the defendant] failed to have procedures in place so adequate notice could be given to correct unsafe conditions on the roadway or so that the roadway could be closed;

“( l ) in that [the defendant] failed to follow procedures which were intended to give adequate notice so that unsafe conditions on the roadway could be corrected, or the roadway closed;

“(m) in that [the defendant] failed to provide adequate advance warning of said dangerous area to oncoming motorists so that they could avoid foreseeable out of control vehicles coming down the [Avon] [M]ountain;

“(n) in that [the defendant] failed to close the road until conditions could be made safe for travel;

“( o) in that [the defendant] failed to follow practices and procedures set forth in the state's Policy Manual;

“(p) in that [the defendant] failed to properly supervise state agents, servants or employees who were responsible for maintaining the roadway in a safe condition, and/or

“(q) in that [the defendant] failed to install visible street signage causing the truck to proceed down [Avon] [M]ountain missing the turn off.” (Footnote added.)

The defendant filed a motion to dismiss the action on the ground that the plaintiff's allegations were insufficient, as a matter of law, to state a claim under § 13a–144.⁵Specifically, the defendant claimed that the allegations did not fall within the limited exception to the general rule barring design defect claims under the defective highway statute. After a hearing, the trial court, Sheldon, J., denied the defendant's motion to dismiss.⁶ The trial court reasoned that “the plan of design providing for the steep downhill grade of Route 44, which has always been open to truck traffic, is alleged and may be proved by the [plaintiff] to have been defective from the outset because its incorporation into the roadway created a condition, intrinsic to the roadway, that constituted a nuisance, when the roadway was used as intended by trucks, from which injury [was] ultimately necessarily the inevitable or probable result.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.)

The defendant appealed from the trial court's decision to the Appellate Court.⁷ The Appellate Court concluded that the plaintiff failed to allege an actionable highway defect under § 13a–144 and, therefore, that her claim was barred by sovereign immunity. Stotler v. Dept. of Transportation, supra, 142 Conn.App. at 841, 70 A.3d 114. The Appellate Court reasoned that the trial court misconstrued the plaintiff's complaint as alleging that the steep downhill grade of the road alone is an actionable highway design defect.⁸Id., at 840–41, 70 A.3d 114. Instead, the Appellate Court construed the complaint to allege that the design of Route 44 providing for the steep downhill grade in combination with the lack of tangible safetymeasures rendered the road defective. Id., at 841, 70 A.3d 114. The Appellate Court determined that the absence of safety measures is not an actionable highway defect, and, therefore, the plaintiff failed to state a claim under § 13a–144. Id. Accordingly, the Appellate Court reversed the judgment of the trial court. Id., at 843, 70 A.3d 114. This certified appeal followed.⁹

We begin with the governing legal principles and standard of review. “[W]e have long recognized the validity of the common-law principle that the state cannot be sued without its consent.... Nevertheless, a plaintiff may surmount this bar against suit if, inter alia, he can demonstrate that the legislature, either expressly or by force of a necessary implication, statutorily waived the state's sovereign immunity.... Even when there is an express statutory waiver of immunity, however, the plaintiff's complaint must allege a claim falling within the scope of that waiver....

“Lack of a statutory waiver of immunity is a jurisdictional defect properly raised by a motion to dismiss. ... A motion to dismiss ... properly attacks the jurisdiction of the court, essentially asserting that the plaintiff cannot as a matter of law and fact state a cause of action that should be heard by the court.... [O]ur review of the court's ultimate legal conclusion and resulting [determination] of the motion to dismiss will be de novo....

“When a trial court decides a jurisdictional question raised by a pretrial motion to dismiss on the basis of the complaint alone, it must consider the allegations of the complaint in their most favorable light.... In this regard, a court must take the facts to be those alleged in the complaint, including those facts necessarily implied from the allegations, construing them in a manner most favorable to the pleader.” (Citations omitted; footnote omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Conboy v. State, 292 Conn. 642, 649–51, 974 A.2d 669 (2009).

“The state highway liability statute is a legislative exception to the common law doctrine of sovereign immunity and is to be strictly construed in favor of the state. While negligence was a common law tort, there was no liability of the sovereign at common law for a defective highway in negligence or on any other common law theory.... The state highway liability statute imposes the duty to keep the state highways in repair upon the highway commissioner; that is the statutory command. Therefore, because there was no right of action against the sovereign at common law, a plaintiff, in order to recover, must bring himself within § 13a–144.” (Citations omitted.) White v. Burns, 213 Conn. 307, 321, 567 A.2d 1195 (1990).

In order for a plaintiff to recover under § 13a–144, “the plaintiff must prove by a...