Truesdale v. South Carolina Highway Dept.
| Decision Date | 16 April 1975 |
| Docket Number | No. 20000,20000 |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | Ralph C. TRUESDALE and Bertha Truesdale as Administratrix of the Estate of Kimberly Ann Truesdale, Respondents, v. SOUTH CAROLINA HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT, Appellant. |
Atty. Gen., Daniel R. McLeod and Asst. Attys. Gen. Donald V. Myers and Hardwick Stuart, Jr., Columbia, for appellant.
Holland, Furman & Tetterton, Camden, for respondents.
This wrongful death action was brought by respondents as the personal representatives of Kimberly Ann Truesdale against one Sara Lynn Young and against the South Carolina Highway Department, the appellant herein, the action against the Highway Department being controlled by the 'South Carolina Governmental Motor Vehicle Tort Claims Act' (1968 (55) 3027) codified as sections 10--2621 through 10--2625 in the 1973 Cumulative Supplement to the 1962 Code of Laws.
The plaintiffs sought damages in the total amount of $35,000. Prior to the trial plaintiffs executed a covenant not to sue Miss Young for a consideration of $6,000. Over the objections of the appellant Highway Department the trial judge allowed an amendment to the complaint eliminating Miss Young as a party defendant and seeking judgment against the department alone in the sum of $35,000. The jury returned a verdict for the respondents in the full amount of $35,000, which the trial judge reduced to the statutory limit of $10,000, under section 10--2623, after first offsetting the amount obtained for the covenant not to sue ($6,000) against the total verdict of $35,000. Since appellant contends, inter alia, that it was entitled to a directed verdict in its favor, it follows that the evidence and all the inferences reasonably deducible therefrom have to be viewed in the light most favorable to the respondents and we accordingly state the facts of the case in the light of such principle.
On November 11, 1971, Kimberly Ann Truesdale, the nine year old daughter of the respondents was fatally injured when struck by a vehicle driven by Miss Young who was travelling south along South Carolina highway S--28--88 in the county of Kershaw at a point about six miles south of the city of Kershaw. The accident occurred shortly after 4:00 p.m. On said date the department was engaged in doing certain grading repair work on the shoulders of the road in the vicinity of the accident. Shortly before the accident a motor grader working on the west shoulder and headed south had a flat tire. Some distance north of the motor grader, department employees James and Roach, with a pickup truck, were engaged in cleaning out the end of a pipe or culvert, James being the operator of the truck. These two were summoned by Murphy, the driver of the grader, to assist in removing the flat tire therefrom which had to be removed and taken to the shop before Murphy could quit work for the day, it then being about quitting time. James drove the pickup truck to the location of the grader and parked the same at least partially on the paved portion of the highway alongside, but somewhat to the rear of the grader. Still another department dump truck came upon the scene and parked to the rear of the grader, but at a right angle to and off of the paved road headed toward a field to the west of the highway. Such was the situation of the several vehicles of the department at the moment of the fatality and there was nothing to prevent the truck driven by James from having been parked completely off of the pavement had the driver thereof been so minded.
Several children, including the Truesdale child, were playing in an area to the west of the highway in the vicinity of the motor grader, which fact was known to the employees of the Highway Department. The Truesdale child pursued a puppy across the highway in front of the department truck parked thereupon and was struck by the Young automobile while at least partially in Miss Young's left-hand lane. The location of the several department vehicles completely obstructed the views of both Miss Young and the deceased child of each other until just a moment before impact. There was no flagman or sign of any kind upon the scene.
The liability of the Highway Department, if any, is predicated solely upon the alleged negligent and unlawful parking of the truck, operated by James, upon the paved highway. A primary contention of the appellant is that the truck was not in operation but parked at the time of the fatality and thus the infant was not fatally injured by the 'negligent operation' of a motor vehicle within the intent and meaning of section 10--2623. Said section in pertinent part reads as follows:
'Any person sustaining an injury by reason of the negligent operation of any motor vehicle while being operated by an employee of a governmental entity while in and about the official business of such governmental entity may recover in an action against such governmental entity such actual damages as he may sustain; . . .'
It is argued and contended that since this code section, being in derogation of sovereign immunity, has to be strictly construed, the phrase 'while being operated' restricts liability of a governmental entity to only those cases where damage and injury results from negligent operation that takes place during the time the mechanism of a motor vehicle is actually engaged and the vehicle is actually in motion as a result thereof.
It is true that the decisions of this Court have uniformly stated, if not held, that statutes waiving the State's immunity from suit, being in derogation of sovereignty, must be strictly construed. The Court has been just as consistent, however, in pointing out that this is only one rule of construction and that it is subservient to the cardinal rule of construction that the legislative intent must prevail if it can be reasonably discovered in the language used, which must be construed in the light of the intended purpose. Stated differently, this rule of strict construction is subject to the principle that all rules of statutory construction are merely for the purpose of ascertaining the legislative intent as expressed in the statute. Accordingly, a statute in derogation of sovereignty is never to be so strictly construed as to defeat the legislative intent. The act, as a whole, must receive a practical, reasonable and fair interpretation consonant with the purpose, design and policies of the law makers and must be construed in the light of the evil which it seeks to remedy and in the light of conditions pertaining at the time of its enactment. See numerous cases cited in West's South Carolina Digest, Statutes, k181, 184, 236 and 237.
It has been said that Lord Coke's language on the subject of interpretation of statutes (Heydon's Case 3 Co.Rep. 72, 76 Engl.Repr. 637, 1584) is difficult to improve upon even with the passage of much time:
It is not at all amiss to call attention to the title of the tort claims act which commences with the following language:
'An act to provide for causes of action against the State of South Carolina, its counties and municipalities for damage due to the negligence of their agents and employees in the operation of motor vehicles; * * *.'
When the act is read as a whole it seems obvious that the legislature intended, with one exception not now pertinent, to make the various governmental entities of the State uniformly liable for actual damages resulting from the negligent operation of motor vehicles when such negligence was that of an employee while in and about the official business of such governmental entity and to provide for a uniform extent of recovery equal to that which could be recovered under the minimum limits of automobile liability insurance carried upon other motor vehicles upon the highway.
The act is clearly remedial in nature and intended to give a minimum amount of protection to those persons who have sustained damage and injury as a result of the negligent operation of a motor vehicle by an employee of any governmental entity while about the business of such entity.
We are of the view that the extremely strict construction urged by the appellant would defeat the intent and purpose of the General Assembly. We think the phrase 'while being operated by an employee, etc.' was intended only to restrict liability to cases where operation of the vehicle was by an employee of such governmental entity, who was at the time of such operation in and about the business of such governmental entity. To hold that such phrase limits recovery to only those cases where the mechanism of the motor vehicle is actually engaged and the vehicle in motion would mean, for instance, that an employee of a governmental entity, while about the business of the employer, could run through a stop sign, ever so recklessly but bring the vehicle to a complete stop before being struck by a carefully operated automobile having the right-of-way, and the governmental entity be relieved of any liability for the negligent operation of the vehicle perforce the circumstance that its employee was able to bring the vehicle to a stop prior to impact.
In the instant case it is irrefutable that the stopping or parking of...
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