Trujillo v. City of Albuquerque

• Decision Date: 27 August 1990
• Docket Number: No. 18296,18296
• Citation: 798 P.2d 571,1990 NMSC 83,110 N.M. 621
• Parties: Lawrence TRUJILLO, Petitioner, v. The CITY OF ALBUQUERQUE, et al., Respondents.
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court

Page 571

798 P.2d 571

110 N.M. 621

Lawrence TRUJILLO, Petitioner, v. The CITY OF ALBUQUERQUE, et al., Respondents.

No. 18296.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

Aug. 27, 1990.

Motion to Compel Payment Granted Oct. 3, 1990.

[110 NM 622] Bruce P. Moore, Duhigg, Cronin & Spring, David L. Duhigg, Albuquerque, for petitioner.

James H. Foley, City Atty., Albuquerque, Hinkle, Cox, Eaton, Coffield & Hensley, Joe W. Wood, Ellen S. Casey, Santa Fe, Rodey, Dickason, Sloan, Akin & Robb, James C. Ritchie, Albuquerque, for respondents.

Carpenter & Goldberg, William H. Carpenter, Albuquerque, Michael B. Browde, Albuquerque, for amicus curiae New Mexico Trial Lawyers Ass'n.

Judith A. Olean, Steven Barshov, Santa Fe, for amicus curiae NM Mun. League.

Miller, Stratvert, Torgerson & Schlenker, Alice Tomlinson Lorenz, Albuquerque, for amicus curiae NM Medical Soc.

Modrall, Sperling, Roehl, Harris & Sisk, Kathryn D. Lucero, Albuquerque, for amicus curiae Risk Management Div.

OPINION

RANSOM, Justice.

Lawrence Trujillo obtained a personal injury judgment of $547,905.80 against the City of Albuquerque. His injuries occurred when a City employee, Clarence M. Wright, drove a City crane through a red light and collided with a cement truck driven by Trujillo. Negligent maintenance of the crane's brakes and its negligent operation were found by the court in this nonjury trial to be concurrent proximate causes of the collision.

The trial court determined that, under Section 41-4-19(A)(2) of the Tort Claims Act, NMSA 1978, Sections 41-4-1 to -27 (Repl.Pamp.1986), the accident involved two occurrences, and thus that the limit of the City's liability under the Tort Claims Act was twice the $300,000 cap for "any person for any number of claims arising out of a single occurrence." The court of appeals reversed this determination. The court of appeals also reversed the trial court's ruling that the damage provisions in question violated Trujillo's right to equal protection under the federal and state constitutions. We granted certiorari to review these issues. Amicus briefs were filed in this Court and before the court of appeals by the New Mexico Trial Lawyers Association (NMTLA), the New Mexico Municipal League, the New Mexico Medical Society, and the Risk Management Division of the State General Services Department (Risk Management). Upon review of the opinion of the court of appeals, the briefs, and the record, we affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand with instructions.

Negligent maintenance and negligent operation of vehicle gave rise to a single occurrence. The trial court found two proximate causes produced the accident: (1) the City's negligent maintenance of the crane's brakes, and (2) Wright's negligent operation of the crane. Trujillo argues that under a causation theory there are two occurrences. However, in Folz v. State, 110 N.M. 457, 797 P.2d 246 (1990), this Court rejected a causation rationale relied upon by the court of appeals to define a single occurrence in that case. In Folz we held that, when a governmental entity has committed successive negligent acts or omissions, the determination of the number of occurrences cannot be made simply by counting the number of such acts or omissions. As did the court of appeals in the present case, we specifically noted in Folz that multiple proximate causes attributable to the governmental en tity may combine with other concurrent causes to produce but a single occurrence.

Here, the City's negligent maintenance of the crane's brakes produced a risk of harm that was concurred in and triggered by Wright's negligent operation of the crane. The risk created by the faulty brakes gave rise to liability only when Wright drove the crane into the intersection. Therefore, we hold there was but a single occurrence when successive negligent acts or omissions of the governmental entity combined concurrently to create a singular risk (of collision) and to proximately cause injury triggered by a discrete event (the crane's entry into the intersection).¹

Constitutionality of individual cap--nature of the issue. The trial court found Section 41-4-19 to be unconstitutional because "no rational distinction [exists] between victims of a tort inflicted by a private person and victims of a tort inflicted by a public employee or [a governmental] entity." The court of appeals (applying heightened or intermediate scrutiny rather than the rational basis test employed by the trial court) reversed, stating "the Act's limitation on damages does substantially further an important state interest--the need to protect the public treasury from large awards." See Richardson v. Carnegie Library Restaurant, 107 N.M. 688, 692-98, 763 P.2d 1153, 1157-63 (1988) (discussing rational basis, intermediate scrutiny, and strict scrutiny tests under equal protection analysis). Because we do not believe a sufficient factual basis exists for the court of appeals' determination, we reverse and remand for further proceedings.

Interest of tort victims in "full recovery of damages" calls for intermediate scrutiny of Section 41-4-19(A)(2) under Article II, Section 18 of the New Mexico Constitution. As we use the term, "full recovery of damages" is delimited only by the measure of damages recognized in law as recoverable by any person wronged by the conduct of another. In Richardson we held that a tort victim's interest in full recovery of damages implicitly was protected under the state constitutional right of access to the courts. 107 N.M. at 692, 763 P.2d at 1157. We previously have recognized the right of access to the courts as a protected interest under the due process clause of Article II, Section 18 of the New Mexico Constitution. See id. at 696, 763 P.2d at 1161 (quoting Jiron v. Mahlab, 99 N.M. 425, 426, 659 P.2d 311, 312 (1983)). Richardson applied the equal protection clause of Section 18 to determine whether the damage cap in the dram shop act, NMSA 1978, Sec. 41-11-1 (Repl.Pamp.1986), discriminated between different classes of tort victims on an impermissible basis. Id. 107 N.M. at 698, 763 P.2d at 1162; see N.M. Const. art. II, Sec. 18 ("No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law; nor shall any person be denied equal protection of the laws.").

We declined to decide in Richardson, however, whether to apply strict scrutiny to such equal protection challenges in the future, "principally because we conclude[d] that the damage cap [in the dram shop act] is constitutionally invalid under the lesser, intermediate scrutiny test." Id. at 696, 763 P.2d at 1161.² The plurality came to this conclusion because "[n]o argument [was] presented ... to persuade us that the classifications created by the legislation are constitutionally legitimate." Id. at 699, 763 P.2d at 1164. Cf. id. at 702, 763 P.2d at 1167 (Ransom, J., specially concurring in result, but reserving judgment on ultimate question of statute's constitutionality) ("This case does not demonstrate ... that a substantial state interest might not have been shown if the defendant had pressed forward responsibly with the burden enunciated by this Court today."). Because this case is to be remanded for further proceedings, we find it necessary to decide the question avoided in Richardson--whether to apply strict or merely intermediate scrutiny.

--When particular classes of tort victims receive unequal treatment, importance of right to full recovery of damages requires more than rational basis review. Richardson appeared to base its interpretation of Article II, Section 18 in part on the history of tort recovery in New Mexico as an aspect of the right of access to the courts. 107 N.M. at 691, 692, 763 P.2d at 1156, 1157 (approving as correct the amicus curiae analysis that traced jury and access-to-court rights to their roots in Spanish and Mexican laws, Siete Partidas, Fuero Juzgo, and Kearney Code; such rights, amicus argued, formed an integral part of civil law prior to statehood and were incorporated into the New Mexico Constitution).³ The right to recover monetary damages for tortious injury has played a vital role in New Mexico since before the time of statehood as one aspect of the individual right to petition for redress of grievances. See id. at 696, 763 P.2d at 1161.

However, we do not interpret Richardson 's rejection of minimum rationality review as resting on the bare fact that monetary damages for tortiously inflicted injury were awarded prior to statehood. Instead, Richardson's application of heightened scrutiny ultimately rests on the continued importance of the right to such compensation today and on the possibility that the rights of particular classes of tort victims will be sacrificed to social expediency in the legislative process. See id. at 698-99, 763 P.2d at 1163-64 (tort victim's right to be compensated for injury and the sensitivity of particular classes of tort victims to injustice wrought by legislation limiting this right justify application of heightened scrutiny).

Our fault system of recovery, while by no means indispensable to our society in an abstract sense,⁴ today serves the important social functions of redistributing the economic burden of loss from the injured individuals on whom it originally fell, deterring conduct that society regards as unreasonable or immoral, and providing a vehicle by which injured victims may obtain some degree of compensation and satisfaction for wrongs committed against them and by which society may give voice and form to its condemnation of the wrongdoer. The debate over the policy question of whether the tort system is the best mechanism for performing the functions currently allocated to it is one of great current concern and importance. It is entirely appropriate that policy choices flowing from such debate take place in the legislative sphere. However, counterposed to society's interest in the workings of the tort system are undeniably important...