Town’s Highway Supervisor Not Exempt From Liability for Crash

A New York town’s highway superintendent is not protected from liability for a collision with another vehicle because he was not actually engaged in work on a highway at the time of the accident, New York’s highest court recently ruled, reversing lower courts.

The New York Court of Appeals ruled that Michael J. Simone, the Carmel superintendent of highways, was not entitled to the exemption for highway workers in the state’s Vehicle and Traffic Law.

The Vehicle and Traffic Law sets out a uniform set of traffic regulations, or “rules of the road,” which generally apply to drivers of all vehicles; however, the law has a section —§ 1103 (b) — that provides that those rules “shall not apply to persons, teams, motor vehicles, and other equipment while actually engaged in work on a highway.” Although such parties remain liable for “the consequences of their reckless disregard for the safety of others,” they bear no liability for ordinary negligence.

The accident occurred after Simone had fully completed his inspection of roadway conditions and mobilized his team to salt the town’s roads. At the time of the accident, when he drove through an intersection without looking to his right and collided with Ana Orellana’s vehicle, he testified that he was merely using the road to drive back to his office, according to the court and had no intention of conducting any road inspections while en route.

Orellana sued to recover for personal injuries sustained as a result of the accident, alleging that Simone was negligent in failing to look both ways before entering the intersection and causing the collision.

Simone and the town moved for summary judgment on the negligence claim and Orellana cross-moved for summary judgment as to liability on that claim. The sole disputed issue was whether the law exempts the town and its highway superintendent from liability for ordinary negligence and entitles them instead to be held to a recklessness standard.

A state Supreme Court had granted Simone’s motion for summary judgement, holding as a matter of law that his conduct was protected and the Appellate Division affirmed. The Court of Appeals granted Orellana’s appeal and has now reversed.

The high court explained that in drafting the law, the legislature aimed to support the work of “keeping the roadways clean and safe for everyone,” while accounting for the fact that vehicles performing those functions “may themselves cause risks to ordinary motorists with whom they share the road.”

According to previous cases, applicability of the exemption “turns on the nature of the work being performed (construction, repair, maintenance or similar work)—not on the nature of the vehicle performing the work.” Additionally, although the exemption is “broad” and “does not require that a vehicle be located in a designated ‘work area’ in order to receive the protection” it “applies only when such work is in fact being performed at the time of the accident.”

In line with these principles, the high court noted that the Appellate Division has consistently held that drivers are not “actually engaged in work on a highway” when they are merely traveling between work sites and not actively performing any protected task on the road itself. For example, in one case, a snowplow operator was not actually engaged in work on a highway when he was simply “traveling from complaint site to complaint site to salt or plow those roads as needed” and at the time of the accident “the plow was raised on a tilt.”

Had Simone been “actually engaged in work on a highway” at the time of the collision, state law would have exempted him from liability for ordinary negligence. But because the uncontested evidence demonstrates that Simone was not actually engaged in work on a highway at the time the accident occurred, the Court of Appeals found he is not entitled to the protections of the exemption.