Trial Lawyers Takeaway: there can be more than one proximate cause under GTLA immunity exception, but must be "most immediate, efficient, and direct cause."
Kersch Ray ran cross-country on Chelsea High School’s cross-country team, which was coached by Eric Swager. During an early morning practice, Swager told the runners to cross an intersection even though the crosswalk sign warned “Do Not Walk.” When the runners crossed the street, Ray was hit by a car and injured.
The GTLA generally makes government employees immune from suit, but the statute makes an exception for when the employee’s conduct amounts to gross negligence that is the proximate cause of the injury or damage. The question is whether the statute’s phrase “the proximate cause” is different from a proximate cause.
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Helen Yono stepped into a pothole and broke her ankle when she approached her car, which was parked in a parallel parking lane on M-22 in Suttons Bay. She sued the state for failure to maintain the road in a reasonably safe condition. The state claimed governmental immunity under the Governmental Tort Liability Act, MCL 691.1407(1), which grants immunity to any governmental agency “engaged in the exercise or discharge of a governmental function.”
There is one exception to this immunity, however, and that is the (familiar to many attorneys) “highway exception.” The Legislature codified the highway exception in MCL 691.1402(1) by stating that the agency responsible for highways “shall maintain the highway in reasonable repair so that it is reasonably safe and convenient for public travel.” But what the Legislature giveth, the Legislature taketh away: the statute goes on to say that the highway exception “extends only to the improved portion of the highway designed for vehicular travel.” And this brings us to Ms. Yono’s case. Was the parallel parking line—a very common road design in smaller Michigan towns—part of “the highway designed for vehicular travel”?
Trial-Lawyers’ Bottom Line: Governmental immunity extends to parallel parking lanes, so the municipality is not liable for failing to maintain that portion of the road.
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