Cornette v. Department of Transportation

In Cornette v. Department of Transportation (2001) 26 Cal.4th 63, the plaintiffs were severely injured as a result of a cross-median accident. The Cornette plaintiffs contended the absence of a median barrier at the accident location created a dangerous condition that caused their injuries. ( Cornette v. Department of Transportation, supra, 26 Cal.4th 63, 67.) Caltrans responded that it was entitled to design immunity. The Cornette plaintiffs "stipulated that designing the freeway without a median barrier was reasonable when the freeway was built in 1964. However, the physical conditions had changed in the interim. Both the traffic volume and the number of cross-median accidents had significantly increased. As a result, on August 21, 1990, Caltrans decided to install a median barrier along a five-mile stretch of the freeway that included the location where this accident would later occur, and on July 27, 1991, the Caltrans district office recommended that a high priority be given to the project because five more cross-median accidents, three with injuries and two with fatalities, had occurred in 1990. Unfortunately, the project was not completed until January 18, 1996, long after this accident occurred. "What was in dispute was (1) when Caltrans had notice that changed physical conditions had made the freeway at that location dangerous without a median barrier; and (2) whether the installation of the barrier was unreasonably delayed. The evidence presented by the Cornette plaintiffs tended to show that Caltrans had notice by May 30, 1989, that the cross-median accident rate at that location greatly exceeded Caltrans guidelines for the installation of median barriers, and that, given the high priority the agency should therefore have attached to the project, Caltrans reasonably should have installed at least a temporary median barrier before the accident occurred almost three years later. The evidence presented by Caltrans, on the other hand, tended to show that Caltrans did not have notice until August 1990, and that a median barrier project usually takes Caltrans four and a half to five years to complete, so that Caltrans could not have been reasonably expected to have installed the barrier before this accident occurred in 1992. "Resolving the factual disputes in favor of Caltrans, the trial court found that Caltrans had established design immunity and had not lost it. Judgment was entered for Caltrans, the Cornette plaintiffs appealed, and the Court of Appeal reversed and remanded for a new trial. The trial court, the Court of Appeal held, had improperly denied plaintiffs their right to a jury trial of the disputed issues pertaining to the question whether Caltrans had lost its design immunity." ( Cornette v. Department of Transportation, supra, 26 Cal.4th 63, 67-68.) The Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeal, concluding "where triable issues of material fact are presented . . . a plaintiff has a right to a jury trial as to the issues involved in loss of design immunity." (Cornette v. Department of Transportation, supra, 26 Cal.4th 63, 67.)