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Price v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation11/24/2000
d basic policy evaluation, judgment, and expertise in attempting to provide convenient access while seeking to remedy the safety difficulties inherent from railroad tracks running through the city. Documentary evidence shows that South Jordan debated a number of alternatives for improving traffic safety while considering budgetary and other practical constraints. The documents on which Plaintiffs rely to prove South Jordan's negligence reveal that the city was undertaking review of its options for improving public safety in relation to the railroad tracks traversing the city. Those options included, among others, constructing an underpass at 10600 South, rerouting the frontage road along the west side of the tracks, and combining the 10200 South crossing with another crossing. Deciding among these options required South Jordan to select alignments for public highways and prioritize public budgets while providing access to properties and industrial areas that had access over the tracks at the crossings slated to be closed. See Keegan v. State, 896 P.2d 618, 619-20, 624 (Utah 1995) (holding third requirement filled where agency decision "involved a determination of not only the degree of safety that would be provided by various options considered, but also what degree of safety would be an appropriate goal given time and cost constraints"). Although hindsight may reveal that South Jordan used poor judgment in not closing the crossing when the city recognized the crossing was dangerous and UDOT repeatedly asked it to install active restraints or close the crossing, our review is limited to whether basic policy evaluation, judgment, and expertise were exercised, not whether they were exercised well. See Utah Code Ann. § 63-34-10(1) (1997).
We are likewise persuaded that South Jordan acted under statutory authority. The city council has statutory authority to control the city's finances. See Utah Code Ann. § 10-8-1 (1999). Further, municipalities "may provide for or change the location, grade or crossing of any railroad." Id. § 10-8-34. Thus, in debating the appropriate course of action in expending the city's budget to improve public safety, South Jordan acted within its statutory authority. In essence, South Jordan's "decision involved just the sort of policy-driven weighing of costs and benefits that the discretionary function exception was meant to protect." Keegan, 896 P.2d at 624.
Plaintiffs argue that South Jordan exercised no discretion because UDOT exercises sole statutory authority to determine the type of warning device required at a crossing. UDOT is authorized to "provide for the installing, maintaining, reconstructing, and improving of automatic and other safety appliances, signals or devices at grade crossings," Utah Code Ann. § 54-4-15.1 (1994), and may prescribe a municipality's share of the cost of improving safety devices at crossings. See id. § 54-4-15.3. Even assuming that UDOT had the authority to order South Jordan to upgrade the devices at the crossing, there is no evidence of such an order or the allotment of funds to pay for such action.
We therefore need not determine whether South Jordan would be exercising its discretion if UDOT had ordered one or another course of action. Here, UDOT ordered no course of action, and South Jordan was exercising its discretion in debating how best to proceed with restructuring its road system around the safety issue at the crossing.
B. Failure to Maintain Passive Safety Devices
Plaintiffs further claim that South Jordan breached its duty to properly maintain the passive safety devices at the crossing. Plaintiffs allege that the safety devices were improperly placed and improperly reflectorized
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