2010 WI App 150
court of appeals of
published opinion
Case No.: |
2009AP2297 |
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Complete Title of Case: |
†Petition for Review filed |
Opinion Filed: |
October 5, 2010 |
Submitted on Briefs: |
September 14, 2010 |
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JUDGES: |
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Appellant |
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ATTORNEYS: |
On behalf of the plaintiffs-appellants, the cause was
submitted on the briefs of C.M. Bye and Martha H. Heidt, of Bye, Goff & Rohde, Ltd., |
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Respondent |
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ATTORNEYS: |
On behalf of the defendants-respondents, the cause was
submitted on the brief of Patrick G. Heaney of Thrasher, Pelish, Franti & Smith, Ltd., |
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2010 WI App 150
COURT OF APPEALS DECISION DATED AND FILED October 5, 2010 A.
John Voelker Acting Clerk of Court of Appeals |
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NOTICE |
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This opinion is subject to further editing. If published, the official version will appear in the bound volume of the Official Reports. A party may file with the Supreme Court a petition to review an adverse decision by the Court of Appeals. See Wis. Stat. § 808.10 and Rule 809.62. |
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Appeal No. |
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STATE OF |
IN COURT OF APPEALS |
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Beverly Bronfeld and Stewart Bronfeld,
Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Pember Companies, Inc. and West Bend Mutual Insurance Company,
Defendants-Respondents, United States Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Defendant. |
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APPEAL
from a judgment of the circuit court for
Before
¶1 PETERSON, J. Beverly
and Stewart Bronfeld appeal from a summary judgment granted to Pember
Companies, Inc., and its insurer. The
Bronfelds allege Pember, a subcontractor working on a road construction project
for the City of River Falls, negligently constructed barricades and safety
signs and failed to maintain a safe site for the public. The trial court granted summary judgment to
Pember, concluding it was an “agent” of the city and was therefore entitled to
governmental immunity. We agree that
Pember is entitled to immunity and affirm.
BACKGROUND
¶2 During
the summer of 2007, the City of River Falls began a construction project at the
intersection of
¶3 The
city’s engineer, Reid Wronski, along with other city employees, assembled a set
of contracts and specifications for the project. Among these documents was a project manual,
which contained all the specifications for the project. The project manual is over 250 pages
long.
¶4 The
project manual includes a nine-page section titled “Maintenance of Traffic,”
which contains detailed specifications related to quality assurance, site
conditions, sequencing and scheduling, maintenance, equipment, preparation,
operations, and traffic control. This
section mandates the use of specific traffic control devices, signs, and
barricades. The operations subsection
specifies how these barricades and signs must be installed and provides further
specifications for pedestrian and traffic access during the course of the
project.
¶5 The
project manual also mandates that the project be conducted in accordance with
the Wisconsin Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. The Wisconsin Manual contains standards
pertinent to temporary traffic control and pedestrian safety practices.
¶6 In
addition, the project manual requires the general contractor, Monarch, to
submit a traffic control plan to the City of River Falls for approval. Monarch complied with this requirement. The traffic control plan submitted by Monarch
specifies particular traffic control devices that must be used and where they
must be placed. For instance, the
traffic control plan mandates the use of Type III barricades “for road closed
areas and to maintain a barrier between construction activity and the traveling
public.” It also calls for “sidewalk
closed” signs on Type II barricades at all locations where the sidewalk has
been removed. Wronski reviewed Monarch’s
traffic control plan, made revisions, and approved the revised plan.
¶7 The
contract between Monarch and the City of River Falls incorporated the project
manual. Pember did not have a contract
with the city, but its contract with Monarch incorporated the terms of
Monarch’s contract with the city. The
project manual and traffic control plan therefore applied to Pember, and Pember
was contractually bound to follow them.
¶8 Sometime
during the late summer or early fall of 2007, Pember began the concrete work at
the intersection of
¶9 Monarch
supplied the barricades for the project, and when Pember employees arrived at
the site, they moved the barricades into place.
As required by the traffic control plan, Pember employees placed one
Type III barricade in the right southbound lane of
¶10 On
October 4, 2007, while Pember’s concrete was curing, Beverly Bronfeld attempted
to cross
¶11 Later
that day, Wronski visited the accident scene with Bronfeld. Wronski thought the barricades were in their
proper places, and he did not think the location of the Type III barricade was
an obvious hazard. He had no criticism
of the types of barricades Pember used or of the locations where Pember had
placed them.
¶12 The
Bronfelds subsequently filed suit against Pember and its insurer, alleging
Pember negligently erected barricades and safety signs and failed to maintain a
safe site for the public. The trial
court granted Pember’s motion for summary judgment, finding that, as an agent
of the City of River Falls, Pember was entitled to governmental immunity
pursuant to Wis. Stat. § 893.80(4).[1] The Bronfelds now appeal.
DISCUSSION
¶13 Whether
a contractor is entitled to governmental immunity is a question of law that we
review independently. Estate
of Brown v. Mathy Constr. Co., 2008 WI App 114, ¶6, 313 Wis. 2d 497,
756 N.W.2d 417. We also review a grant
of summary judgment independently, applying the same standard as the trial
court. Green Spring Farms v. Kersten,
136
¶14 Here,
the Bronfelds contend summary judgment was inappropriate for two reasons. First, they argue this action involves a
“highway defect” under Wis. Stat. § 893.83(1),
which provides an exception to the general grant of governmental immunity under
Wis. Stat. § 893.80(4). Second, they argue Pember is not entitled to
immunity because it was not acting as an agent of the City of River Falls. We disagree with both arguments and affirm.
I.
¶15 The
Bronfelds first argue this case falls under Wis.
Stat. § 893.83(1), which is an exception to governmental
immunity. Section 893.83(1) states, “If
damages happen to any person or his or her property by reason of the
insufficiency or want of repairs of any highway that any town, city, or village
is bound to keep in repair, the person sustaining the damages has a right to
recover the damages from the town, city, or village.” If a plaintiff’s claim is actionable under
§ 893.83(1), governmental immunity does not apply. Morris v.
¶16 The
Bronfelds did not argue in the trial court that their claim involved a highway
defect under Wis. Stat. § 893.83(1),
and the trial court never ruled on this issue.
Generally, we will not consider an issue raised for the first time on
appeal. Evjen v. Evjen, 171
¶17 Furthermore,
even if the Bronfelds had properly preserved this issue, the undisputed facts
demonstrate this case does not involve an actionable highway defect. Wisconsin
Stat. § 893.83(1) only applies to a small area of negligent conduct
by a municipality, and in this area it does not necessarily cover all the
negligence that might relate to highways.
Morris, 219
¶18 Here,
Bronfeld tripped over a Type III barricade used to keep the public out of
Pember’s work area. Her allegations of
negligence relate to the placement of this barricade, which is not an
actionable highway defect under Wis.
Stat. § 893.83(1). See id.
at 227. Furthermore, the crosswalk where
Bronfeld tripped was closed. Thus, it is
doubtful the crosswalk was in the “traveled” portion of the road. There was no “want of repair” because the
traveling public was precluded from using the crosswalk while it was being
reconstructed.
II. Governmental immunity under Wis. Stat. § 893.80(4)
¶19 Wisconsin Stat. § 893.80(4)
immunizes local governments and their officers, employees, or agents from
liability for acts involving the exercise of discretion or judgment. Lodl v. Progressive N. Ins. Co.,
2002 WI 71, ¶¶20-21, 253
¶20 In
Estate
of
¶21 The
first prong of the
¶22 The
Bronfelds argue the City of River Falls never approved any reasonably precise
specifications for traffic control, safety signs, and barricade placement. However, the undisputed evidence demonstrates
otherwise. The project manual contains
over 250 pages of specifications for the
¶23 In
addition, the project manual calls for a traffic control plan. The traffic control plan approved by the city
specifies particular traffic control devices that must be used and mandates
where they must be placed. Together, the
project manual, the Wisconsin Manual, and the traffic control plan create a
reasonably precise plan for sign and barricade placement. As the trial court aptly noted, “To imagine
that it’s not [a reasonably precise plan] would be very difficult in this
case.”
¶24 The
Bronfelds argue no reasonably precise specifications exist because the record
does not indicate Monarch submitted an updated traffic control plan during
construction, as required by the project manual. However, the absence of an updated plan does
not make the project manual and original traffic control plan any less
precise. What is dispositive is the fact
that
¶25 The
Bronfelds also argue the project manual and traffic control plan are not
reasonably precise because they only provide “approximate locations” for sign
and barricade placement. However,
specifications need not spell out every minute detail of a project to qualify
as “reasonably precise.” We rejected a
similar argument in Brown. See Brown, 313
¶26 In
Brown,
the contract between a contractor and the Wisconsin Department of Transportation
required the contractor to install energy absorbing terminals within sixty days
of beginning a highway construction project.
[A] contract which does not require a specific item or timetable for installation can be as precise as one which does require those items. If contractor immunity required a contract to list not only all work and materials required but all work and materials not required, state contracts would approach encyclopedic proportions. A contract is reasonably precise if it reasonably and precisely lists items required; common sense dictates that items not required by the contract do not obligate the contractor to provide them.
¶27 The
Bronfelds are essentially making the same argument we rejected in Brown. The plaintiffs in Brown argued the contract
was not reasonably precise because it did not contain a requirement that energy
absorbing terminals be installed as soon as feasible. The Bronfelds contend that the project manual
and traffic control plan are not reasonably precise because they do not specify
the exact locations for barricade placement at each stage of construction and
do not contain specific provisions calling for “crosswalk closed” as opposed to
“sidewalk closed” signs. In both cases,
the plaintiffs point out safety precautions they believe the contracts should
have included. However, the relevant
question is not what other safety precautions a contract should have included,
but whether the specifications it actually included were reasonably precise. See id., ¶11.
¶28 The
Bronfelds also argue that while the City of River Falls approved the
specifications in the project manual and traffic control plan, it did not
require Pember to follow these specifications.
In support of this argument, the Bronfelds cite a number of project
manual provisions that seem to delegate responsibility for safety to
contractors working on the project. For
instance, the project manual states that a contractor is responsible for
compliance with “all Laws and Regulations applicable to the performance of the
Work.” It also states that, except where
expressly required by applicable laws and regulations,
¶29 However,
the safety provisions the Bronfelds cite do not change the fact that Pember was
contractually obligated to follow the specifications in the project manual and
traffic control plan. By mandating that
Pember comply with these specifications, the City of River Falls curtailed
Pember’s discretion. For instance, the
project manual contained an entire section of specifications on maintenance of
traffic and required Pember to use certain kinds of barricades and to place
them in certain locations. Why would the
city have included these requirements if it intended to delegate to Pember
complete discretion for traffic control, signs, and barricade placement
decisions? Furthermore, there is no
reason a contractor cannot be held generally responsible for safety on a job
site while also being required to follow reasonably precise specifications
approved by a governmental entity.
Governmental immunity and responsibility for safety are not mutually
exclusive.[4]
¶30 Here,
the City of River Falls dictated which traffic control devices Pember was
required to use and where these devices needed to be placed. It also decided Pember did not need to
construct a temporary crosswalk and did not need to use a “crosswalk closed”
sign as opposed to a “sidewalk closed” sign.
These specifications were reasonably precise and significantly curtailed
Pember’s discretion. The specifications
therefore meet the first prong of the
¶31 The
second prong of the
¶32 There
is no evidence that Pember failed to comply with the barricade and sign
specifications in the project manual and traffic control plan. While the Bronfelds insinuate that Pember
should have done something different from what the specifications required, they have not presented any evidence that Pember did not
comply. Because the undisputed evidence
demonstrates that Pember complied with the specifications, Pember has satisfied
the second prong of the
¶33 The
final prong of the
By the Court.—Judgment affirmed.
[1] All references to the Wisconsin Statutes are to the 2007-08 version unless otherwise noted.
[2] Wisconsin Stat. § 893.83(1), formerly Wis. Stat. § 81.15, was renumbered without
substantive change by 2003 Wis. Act 214, § 136. Morris
v.
[3] Governmental immunity extends to a subcontractor even though it has a
contract with a general contractor rather than with a governmental
authority. See Jankee v. Clark County,
222
[4] The Bronfelds’ argument would essentially render contractor immunity
under Estate of Lyons v. CNA
Insurance Cos., 207