The Second Department determined the county’s motion for summary judgment was properly denied in this intersection car accident case. Plaintiff alleged the county was negligent in failing to install a traffic control device with a left turn signal, because there was a designated lane for a left turn. The accident occurred when plaintiff attempted to make a left turn. Because the county did not demonstrate the issue had been adequately studied, it did not demonstrate government immunity applied. Therefore the county’s motion was properly denied without need to address the opposing papers:
A governmental entity has a duty to the public to keep its streets in a reasonably safe condition … . “While this duty is nondelegable, it is measured by the courts with consideration given to the proper limits on intrusion into the [government’s] planning and decision-making functions. Thus, in the field of traffic design engineering, the State is accorded a qualified immunity from liability arising out of a highway planning decision” … . Under the doctrine of qualified immunity, a governmental entity may not be held liable for a highway safety planning decision unless its study of a traffic condition is plainly inadequate, or there is no reasonable basis for its traffic plan … . Immunity will apply only “where a duly authorized public planning body has entertained and passed on the very same question of risk as would ordinarily go to the jury” … .
Here, the County failed to establish that the design of the subject traffic signal, including the determination that no left-turn signal was warranted, was based on a study which entertained and passed on the very same question of risk that the plaintiff would put to a jury … . Warren v Evans, 2016 NY Slip Op 07641, 2nd Dept 11-16-16
MUNICIPAL LAW (COUNTY DID NOT DEMONSTRATE THE NEED FOR A LEFT TURN SIGNAL HAD BEEN STUDIED, THEREFORE THE COUNTY WAS NOT ENTITLED TO SUMMARY JUDGMENT ON IMMUNITY GROUNDS)/IMMUNITY (HIGHWAYS, COUNTY DID NOT DEMONSTRATE THE NEED FOR A LEFT TURN SIGNAL HAD BEEN STUDIED, THEREFORE THE COUNTY WAS NOT ENTITLED TO SUMMARY JUDGMENT ON IMMUNITY GROUNDS)/NEGLIGENCE (MUNICIPAL LAW, HIGHWAYS, COUNTY DID NOT DEMONSTRATE THE NEED FOR A LEFT TURN SIGNAL HAD BEEN STUDIED, THEREFORE THE COUNTY WAS NOT ENTITLED TO SUMMARY JUDGMENT ON IMMUNITY GROUNDS)/HIGHWAYS (COUNTY DID NOT DEMONSTRATE THE NEED FOR A LEFT TURN SIGNAL HAD BEEN STUDIED, THEREFORE THE COUNTY WAS NOT ENTITLED TO SUMMARY JUDGMENT ON IMMUNITY GROUNDS)