Darlene ZANK, Respondent, v. Gary Arthur LARSON, Respondent, City of St. Paul, Petitioner, Appellant.
No. C3-95-1132.
Supreme Court of Minnesota.
Sept. 5, 1996.
552 N.W.2d 719
Based upon all the files, records, and proceedings herein,
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition for review filed by Dorian Waynewood, be, and the same is, granted for the limited purpose of affirming on a different ground than that relied upon by the court of appeals. The court of appeals, in affirming the district court‘s order denying post-conviction relief, ruled that a petitioner in a post-conviction proceeding may not challenge the ordеr certifying him for prosecution as an adult. We do not address or decide that issue. It is unnecessary to address the issue because petitioner, by pleading guilty, waived his right to post-conviction appellate review of the certification order.
Granted and affirmed.
BY THE COURT:
/s/ Alexander M. Keith
A.M. Keith
Chief Justice
Todd P. Young, St. Paul, for Respondent Zank.
Kay Nord Hunt, Ehrich L. Koch, Minneapolis, for Respondent Larson.
OPINION
STRINGER, Justice.
We determine whether statutory immunity under the discretionary function exception of
On January 16, 1990, a motor vehicle accident occurred at the intersection of three streets: Dale Street running in a north/south direction, Front Street running in an east/west direction, and Comо Avenue running in a northwest/southeast direction. Zank was traveling southbound on Dale Street and intended to make a right turn onto Front Street and proceed westbound. To make her turn onto Front Street, she had to cross Como Avenue. Zank claims that she had a green light as she was coming south on Dale but, as she entered the intersection, the light changed to yellow. As she crossed Como Avenue, her car was struck on the right side by Larson‘s truck, traveling southeast on Como. Larson maintains that he had a green light when he entered the intersection and that he was following a truck that entered the intersection before he did. Larson apparently did not see Zank‘s car until immediately before the impact and alleges that he was unable to avoid the accident. As a result of the accident, Zank suffered severe and permanent injuries to her head, neck, and back.
At the time of the accident, vehicles headed south оn Dale Street toward the intersection had a green light for 22 to 25 seconds followed by a yellow light change interval of 3.5 seconds, and finally a clearance interval of one second when all lights at the intersec-
The city, on the other hand, submitted an affidavit by the city‘s traffic signal timing engineer asserting that the one-second duration of the all red clearance interval at this intersection was sufficient for traffic to safely clear the intersection. The engineer further stated that the determination of how to time traffic control signals is made when the intersection is initially designed and involves the traffic design engineer, the traffic signal timing engineer, and the traffic maintenance engineer. State and federal guidelinеs, the volume of traffic, vehicle approach speed, the impact of signal timing on traffic flow, the configuration of the intersection, driving behavior, changing climate conditions, and the uniformity of signal timing throughout the city are taken into account, with the primary concern the “safe and efficient movement of people and goods.”
Ordinarily, interlocutory appeal is not available from the denial of summary judgment, McGowan v. Our Savior‘s Lutheran Church, 527 N.W.2d 830, 832 (Minn.1995), but an exception to this rule arises when the trial court denies summary judgment on the basis of statutory immunity. See
Discretionary immunity protects the government only when it can produce evidence its conduct was of a policy-making nature involving social, political, or economic considerations, rather than merely professional or scientific judgments.
525 N.W.2d 173, 175 (Minn.1994) (citations omitted).
In reaching our conclusion that the city is immune from liability for its decision relating to the timing of the traffic control signals, we look to the roots of the initial decision by the city as to what kind of traffic control device should be employed at the intersection based upon its configuration and the flow of pedestrian and vehicular traffic—clearly a policy determination for which the city has immunity. To control traffic with semaphores as opposed to other mеthods involved consideration of a variety of policy-based factors and is an activity that respondents admit is immunized. Respondents would draw the line on policy here, arguing that actions taken by the city in determining the traffic cоntrol signal sequence in implementation of the policy to install traffic control signals are not immune. The line between the adoption of policy and the implementation of policy is not as bright as respondents would have it, however, as we noted in Pletan v. Gaines:
The distinction between “making” and “implementing” policy is not so simple as plaintiffs would have it. Until people carry out a governmental policy, by doing or not doing something, the policy is a dead letter. Discretionary function immunity would afford little comfort if it did not extend to some of the consequences of the policy itself. Whether certain consequences are immune depends, as we have noted, on whether the сonsequential conduct itself involves the balancing of public policy considerations in the formulation of policy.
494 N.W.2d 38, 44 (Minn.1992); see also Smith v. Johns-Manville Corp., 795 F.2d 301, 308 (3d Cir.1986) (warning that decision making should not be “broken down into component parts” and isolatеd from the context of the overall plan).
Here we deal with the consequences of the policy to implement traffic control with a traffic control signal. One of those consequences is that because of the size and configuration of this particular intersection—three streets coming together as spokes into one intersection—it would require an all red sequence of over five seconds, according to the affidavit of rеspondents’ expert witness, to assure that all traffic—even the slowest traffic entering the intersection at the last possible moment during the yellow light change interval—would clear it before conflicting traffic movements begin. But an all red sequence of this duration creates its own risk of “traffic hazard“: that of causing confusion among drivers who mistakenly believe that the traffic control signal is malfunctioning and proceed into the intersection against the red signаl. For this reason, according to the city‘s traffic signal timing engineer, no intersection in the city has an all red signal longer than two seconds in duration:
Longer all red period[s] have been considered and rejected by the Traffic Enginеering Division because longer all red intervals give drivers the perception the signal is stuck and this often leads to driver confusion and vehicles entering the intersection prior to being given the green indication.
Thus, in determining the duration of the all red clearance signal here, the city balanced competing safety considerations and selected a one-second interval, perhaps on the not unreasonable assumption that drivers entering this complex intersection would at all times exercise caution and be alert to conflicting traffic movements.2 In any event, we conclude that the city‘s decision to provide a shorter all red signal resulted from a balancing of the safety considerations stemming from and in consequence of the city‘s initial determination as to the configuration of the intersection and the appropriate traffic control devices. The decision was thеrefore protected by statutory immunity and the city is entitled to summary judgment.
Reversed.
I concur in the result reached by the court.
Notes
| Green | Yellow | All Red Clearance | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dale Street | 22-25 sec. | 3.5 sec. | 1.0 sec. |
| Como Avenue | 7-24 sec. | 3.5 sec. | 1.5 sec. |
| Front Street | 7-25 sec. | 3.5 sec. | 1.0 sec. |