Albert G. Stoll, Jr.Identifying, Evaluating & Proving Dangerous

Public Road Cases

Design Immunity of Government Code § 830.6

• If Government can show “discretionary approval of the plan or design prior to construction”

• Rational of Design Immunity: Prevent a jury from second guessing the judgment of government employees who have already weighed the risks and benefits of a particular design.

Defeating Design Immunity:First, Get The Plans ( I f Any) :

Scope of Design Immunity:• By its terms, the design immunity of section 830.6 is

limited to a design-caused accident. It does not immunize the government from negligence independent of design. Cameron v, State of California (1972) 7 Cal. 3d 318, at 329.

• This means that failure to warn of a dangerous condition is an independent basis for recovery, even if the dangerous condition itself was created as a result of an approved plan. Cameron at 327.

Theory Independent of Design: Failure To Warn of Icy Bridge….

Government Can Lose Design Immunity, if……

• Design has become dangerous because of a change in physical conditions; and

• Public entity had actual or constructive notice of the dangerous condition; and

• Public entity had reasonable time to fix the dangerous condition.

Notice: Citizen Complaints

Identifying, Evaluating, and Proving Dangerous Public Road Cases: Conclusion

1. Don’t be deceived by the apparent driver negligence. The cause of the accident may relate to the design of the road.

2. Get the government engineering plans to determine if immunity is applicable. If there are no plans there may not be a rational for immunity.

3. Investigate a claim of negligence independent from the roads design, such as a failure to warn.

4. Collect the evidence on the prior similar incidents to show an aberrant accident history putting the government on notice of the condition.

Want to learn more:

Check out article co-authored by Albert G. Stoll, Jr., Walter A. Haynes, IV and Sharon Arkin entitled “Identifying, Evaluating and Proving Dangerous Public Road Cases.”

This article is available online at:http://auto-accident-attorney-sanfrancisco.com