 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Hicks v. State12/7/2001
road, called variously "Barr Road" or "Tin Top Road," enters the roadway in the curve. This road is a dirt road, and, at the point where the roads meet, DOTD built an apron of asphalt. The purpose of this apron is to prevent material (dirt, mud or rock) picked up by traffic on the dirt road from being deposited onto the state highway. The presence of such material on the roadway would itself present a hazard to the motoring public, especially at that point of curvature in the road. Essential to that function, the apron must slope slightly away from the plane of the highway itself.
The highway is "superelevated" or, in lay terms, banked, so that the centrifugal forces operating on a car moving through the curve will serve to push the car into the roadway, instead of pushing it sideways and off the road. A problem occurs when an automobile, traveling through a curve, encounters too great a change, i.e., when the tires leave a superelevated section of roadway and encounter another surface (here, the apron) with too great a difference in superelevation. According to the expert testimony, when the change in slope between the two surfaces exceeds .07, a "rollover effect" is experienced, in which the driver is not aided in overcoming centrifugal forces by the banked angle of the roadway, and the vehicle then is acted on more strongly by those forces that tend to straighten out its path. In sum, the driver who encounters this situation will have to steer more aggressively to stay in the roadway. From the evidence, Mr. Hicks encountered this situation and failed to recover.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
A trial court's finding of fact may not be reversed absent manifest error or unless clearly wrong. Lasyone v. Kansas City Southern R.R., 2000-2628 (La. 4/3/01), 786 So.2d 682, 688, citing Stobart v. State of Louisiana, Through Department of Transportation and Development, 92-1328 (La. 4/12/93), 617 So.2d 880. While we have reviewed the entire record to determine the reasonableness of the trial court's findings, we here delineate those factual findings that we deem to be reasonable, and which support the trial court's finding of liability on the part of the State of Louisiana, DOTD.
Defective Condition of Highway
The trial court found that the advisory speed sign of 35 mph was excessive, based on the testimony of Dr. Richard Robertson, the expert for DOTD. The expert testified that, based on his "ball bank" studies, the advisory speed should have been set at 30 mph and not at 35 mph. The trial court found that because the apron connecting Tin Top Road and La. Hwy. 846 was the same color as the highway, it gave the appearance that the road either was not curved, or made it appear to curve less than it actually did. Most importantly, the court found, and we accept as reasonable, that the apron/highway connection was built in such a way that when Mr. Hicks strayed slightly from the roadway, the rollover effect acted to force his car off the highway. The trial court found that the accumulation of gravel on the apron operated to prevent Mr. Hicks from recovering control of his vehicle after the rollover effect began. Finally, the court found that the lane in which Mr. Hicks was driving was measurably narrower than the other lane, and thus the "centerline" of the highway was misleading and not truly indicative of the width of the lane available to Mr. Hicks for safe travel.
Notice of the Defective Condition(s)
The trial court found, and we accept as reasonable, that DOTD had notice of the above-stated conditions. The court found that the testimony of former state troopers, a parish maintenance supervisor and a local resident established that the highway
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Louisiana Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|