Traylor v. Shelby Cnty. Bd. of Educ.
| Decision Date | 27 February 2014 |
| Docket Number | No. W2013-00836-COA-R3-CV,W2013-00836-COA-R3-CV |
| Court | Tennessee Court of Appeals |
| Parties | GREGORY CHARLES TRAYLOR, BY AND THROUGH HIS PARENT, DAVID TRAYLOR, and DAVID TRAYLOR, INDIVIDUALLY v. SHELBY COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION |
Appeal from the Circuit Court of Shelby County
This is a slip and fall case under the GTLA. The plaintiff high school student slipped on a patch of ice on the sidewalk at his public high school and sustained injuries. The student filed this action against the county board of education alleging negligence. After a bench trial, the trial court held that the defendant school board had constructive notice of the ice on the sidewalk and thus was liable under the GTLA. The school board now appeals. After carefully reviewing the record, we find insufficient evidence in the record to support the finding of constructive notice and so reverse the trial court's decision.
Bolton High School ("Bolton") is situated on approximately 54 acres in Arlington, Shelby County, Tennessee. The school operates under the auspices of the Defendant/AppellantShelby County Board of Education ("School Board"). In 2010, Plaintiff/Appellee Gregory Charles "Charlie" Traylor was one of approximately 2,000 students who attended Bolton.
Temperatures in Shelby County dropped below freezing on Monday, February 8, 2010 and Tuesday, February 9, 2010, and during that period, Shelby County received approximately 1.61 inches of precipitation. As a result of the frozen precipitation, all Shelby County schools, including Bolton, were closed on February 8 and 9. By early morning on Tuesday, February 9, all precipitation had apparently ceased.
During the two days on which Bolton was closed, the school principal and the school's plant manager both spent eight hours each day shoveling and clearing all of Bolton's sidewalks and parking lots. In addition, the plant manager enlisted the assistance of a "Bobcat" operator1and used ice melt2 on all of the parking lots and sidewalks, to make certain that the walkways and parking lots were properly cleared.
School resumed on Wednesday, February 10, 2010 without incident. No accidents or incidents involving the weather were reported to Bolton school officials that day.
On Thursday, February 11, 2010, plaintiff Traylor arrived at school and attended his first two classes with no problems. At approximately 9:00 a.m., Traylor walked across a grassy area to get to his next class.3 As he stepped off the grassy area and onto the sidewalk, he slipped on some ice and fell. As a result, Traylor broke his ankle in five different places.
The Bolton school nurse examined Traylor shortly after the fall, and then he was transported to the hospital. Traylor eventually underwent surgery that included the placement of screws and metal plates in his ankle. His medical expenses totaled approximately $21,000.
On February 8, 2011, Traylor filed the instant lawsuit against the School Board in the Circuit Court for Shelby County, Tennessee. The complaint alleged that the School Board negligently failed to ensure that the school sidewalks were safe for students and sought damages for Traylor's personal injuries.
In its answer to Traylor's complaint, the School Board asserted sovereign immunity under the Tennessee Governmental Tort Liability Act ("GTLA"), Tennessee Code Annotated § 29-20-101, et seq. Specifically, the School Board relied on Tennessee Code Annotated §§ 29-20-203 and -205(1); it contended inter alia that it did not have constructive notice of ice in the area where Traylor fell. The School Board also asserted comparative fault; it claimed that Traylor was negligent and that his negligence was the sole and proximate cause of his injuries. Discovery ensued.
After the parties had engaged in discovery, the School Board filed a motion for summary judgment. The trial court denied the motion and scheduled a bench trial.
The trial court conducted the trial in March 2013. It heard testimony from numerous witnesses, including Traylor, the school's plant manager, the school principal, and the school nurse.
Traylor testified at the outset of the trial. He said that he was a sophomore at Bolton at the time of the incident. Prior to his own fall, Traylor said, he had never seen anyone fall at the school as a result of ice or precipitation. He saw no problems when school resumed on Wednesday, February 10, after the two "snow days."
Traylor saw no ice or snow on the school's walkways when he arrived at Bolton on the morning of Thursday, February 11, at approximately 6:40 a.m., and saw none when he attended his first two classes. After he left his second class, Traylor made his way to his third class at 9:00 a.m. by walking from the south building to the other side of the campus and through a courtyard toward the north building. He then walked on a walkway headed toward the east building. Traylor testified that, while on the walkway, he was looking where he was going; he said that he walked "through the grass" and did not see anything on the walkway that appeared to be a hazard. He described the area as "kind of [] sloped" toward the teacher's parking lot and said that the way that he walked was a path that he and other students normally took. The area was not shaded and there were no warnings, cones, or ropes.
As soon as he stepped off the grass, Traylor said, he "stepped on the ice [and] slipped and fell." He heard a loud "snap" when he fell. Afterward, Traylor testified, the pain from the break was intense, about a 9½ on a 10-point scale. Traylor was first examined by the school nurse and then transported to the hospital. Once there, Traylor underwent surgery in which two plates and ten screws were surgically placed in his leg. He was unable to walk for several weeks and in significant pain for approximately three and a half months.
The trial court next heard testimony from Bolton's plant manager, Randall Tate. Tate said that he had been in that job position for approximately 16 years. His job as the school plant manager was to make sure "everything runs smooth and safe." This included "clearing the walkways in the event of some sort of weather event." He said that Shelby County provides him with the tools necessary to clear the school's walkways. In all the years he had worked at Bolton, Tate said, to his knowledge, no one had fallen as a result of any kind of precipitation.
On Monday, February 8, 2010 and Tuesday, February 9, 2010, Tate testified, Bolton was closed for snow days. On both days, Tate said, he and the school principal shoveled snow, put ice melt on the walkways, and enlisted the use of a Bobcat to ensure the school grounds were cleared. Tate noted that his own son attended Bolton at the time, so Tate had special incentive to ensure that the school's walkways were safe.
On February 10, the Wednesday that school resumed after the snow holidays, Tate put out additional ice melt before he left school. He said that he left for the day at 2:15 p.m. that afternoon. Tate recalled that the temperature went below freezing that Wednesday night.
On the morning of Thursday, February 11, prior to Traylor's fall, Tate inspected the Bolton campus, including the sidewalk on which Traylor later fell.4 Tate described the area where Traylor fell as a fairly high traffic area:
The best I can tell you it's a big common area, like [an] open area. There's no trees, there's no shade. You've got a building here and building there and sidewalks coming back out towards the parking lot here. It's just a big open area, common area. You've got a lot of people exiting and entering from the south building to the east from this way and some from the east going in that same route there.
Tate acknowledged there were places on the Bolton campus that Thursday morning where there was still some ice and snow on the ground, but he insisted that the area where Traylor fell was not one of them. In fact, as to the specific sidewalk on which Traylor fell, Tate testified: On cross examination, Tate reiterated,
After he heard that a student had fallen, Tate reported to the area where Traylor fell and treated it for ice. Tate testified that when he arrived at the scene of the accident, "[t]here was no ice there." Tate acknowledged, however, that he did not test the area for ice with his foot when he arrived.
The trial court next heard testimony from Bolton Principal David Stephens. Principal Stephens testified that, during his tenure at Bolton, no student had ever fallen because of frozen precipitation, other than Traylor. During the five years prior to Traylor's accident in which Principal Stephens had been Bolton's principal, Principal Stephens never saw ice accumulate in the area where Traylor fell, other than when there was snow and it accumulated everywhere. He said that he had no reports of ice in the area where Traylor fell on the morning of the incident, or any other time. Principal Stephens corroborated Tate's testimony that he personally shoveled an entire side of the campus on Monday and Tuesday, February 8 and 9, when the school was closed for snow days.
When he arrived at Bolton on Wednesday, February 10, Principal Stephens said, there were...
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