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City of Lynchburg v. Brown6/9/2005
Code ยง 15.2-1809 creates immunity from liability for ordinary negligence when a city is sued for personal injury damages resulting from the maintenance of any park or recreational facility. The statute provides, however, that a city shall be liable for gross negligence in the maintenance of such an area.
The sole question presented in the appeal in this civil action is whether the trial court erred by refusing to rule as a matter of law that a city was free of gross negligence under the facts of this case.
On October 15, 2001, appellee Judy Brown was injured when she fell from a spectator bleacher at Blackwater Creek Athletic Park, maintained and operated by appellant City of Lynchburg. She brought this action against the City alleging it was grossly negligent in failing to maintain the bleacher in a safe condition.
Following a jury trial, the court entered judgment on a verdict in favor of the plaintiff in the amount of $37,500.00.
We awarded the City this appeal to consider the foregoing issue.
There is little dispute in the evidence. Where there is conflict and according to settled appellate principles, we shall consider the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, who comes to this Court armed with a jury verdict approved by the trial judge.
The City operates 17 parks covering about 850 acres. One of the parks is the 20-acre Blackwater Creek Athletic Park, which includes a lighted softball field.
The bleacher in question was situated along the third base line of the ball field and was designed to seat about 30 people. The bleacher was free-standing and composed of five aluminum "risers" used for seating. Each riser was about 12 inches wide and approximately 18 feet long. Beneath the four uppermost risers were metal strips about six inches wide used as foot rests.
On the day of the accident, the plaintiff was at the Park in "the evening" attending a softball game in which her daughter was participating. " t was dark at that time and the lights were on."
The plaintiff had "walked over to the bleachers . . . went up the bleachers" and "sat on the next-to-top seat" to talk with a friend. After some time, the plaintiff "got up from the middle part of the bleachers . . . , walked down the bleachers sort of diagonally" to her left, "got to the very last seat on the bleacher, . . . stepped on it and slipped and fell off the bleacher."
A light pole was casting a shadow across the bleachers and the plaintiff stepped into that shadow. She said: "I could see the step, but . . . what I thought was a whole step ended up not being a whole step. I could see part of that step; I just assumed all of it was there."
A player's parent and a coach described the condition of the riser prior to the time the plaintiff fell. The parent said: "The seating part of the bleachers was bent down on the ends, and the walk boards were the same way . . . ." The coach said "that the ends of [the risers] were jagged, the end caps were missing . . . ."
The evidence was uncontradicted that the City did not have actual notice of the damaged bleacher seat. Due to the number and size of the City's recreational facilities, it did not have employees who worked full time at this Park. Nonetheless, workers would regularly report to the Park, perform "litter policing," grass cutting and trimming, and leaf disposal, and then leave. On the day of the accident, four employees were at the Park for 20 man-hours performing various tasks, including litter removal, and did not notice the bent bleacher.
The City had a policy of recording reports of damage to City prop
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