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MONTGOMERY, Ala. (Legal Newsline) - Auburn University teachers who organized a field trip to examine Paleozoic rocks can’t be sued over a fatal accident that occurred after an allegedly intoxicated woman swerved across two lanes of traffic and hit a pair of students on the side of the road, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled.
The state high court upheld dismissal of two lawsuits under state immunity, rejecting plaintiff arguments the accident might not have occurred if the Auburn employees had required the students to wear orange safety vests.
In May 2018, Howard Cole Burton and Nicholas Lawrence Hood traveled with their class to “the Gadsden site” in Calhoun County, where a roadway slices through a tectonic formation known as a “foreland-fold-and-thrust belt.” They traveled in vans with 16 other students and split up in groups on either side of the highway to study the formation.
Jennifer Fulkerson was driving southbound on Highway 431 in what authorities later said was “an impaired state and under the influence of several prescription drugs.” She crossed a lane and drove into the median, overreacted and crossed both lanes to hit Cole and Nicholas as they studied the rock outcrop on the side of the road. Cole was severely injured, and Nicholas died a month after the accident.
A graduate student later said she found some orange safety vests in one of the vans but nothing in the student instructions required their use. Photographs taken at the time show Cole was dressed in an orange shirt carrying an orange backpack, while Nicholas was dressed in a red shirt.
Fulkerson was criminally indicted over the accident. Cole's and Nicholas’ families sued Fulkerson in 2018, then added Auburn employees John Hawkins, Charles Savrdra and Mark Steltenpohl in 2019 and 2020. They shared responsibility for the field-camp course, although Savrdra and Steltenpohl weren’t present on the day of the accident.
Auburn moved to dismiss the case based on state immunity and the plaintiffs argued against it, saying the faculty members had failed to require the students to wear orange safety vests and Hawkins had violated state law by standing too close to the shoulder of the road.
The trial court rejected those arguments and issued summary judgment in August 2021.
The Alabama Supreme Court affirmed the dismissals in a March 11 decision by Justice Mike Bolin.
Alabama, like most states, provides immunity to government employees against most negligence lawsuits if they are acting within the scope of their official duties and either exercising their own judgment or complying with relevant laws and regulations.
The plaintiffs argued the Auburn teachers acted outside of state regulations by failing to require students to wear safety vests. While Alabama has adopted a federal regulation requiring “workers” to wear high-visibility clothing around traffic, the court said, that definition doesn’t include college students.
Citing the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways, the court said the term “worker” applies to people involved with highway construction or maintenance. To support its reasoning, the court said the Federal Highway Administration considered, but ultimately rejected, a more expansive definition of “worker” that would have included anyone exposed to traffic, including volunteers, postal workers and others not involved in actual road work.
The plaintiffs also argued a jury might conclude Hawkins stood too close to the road and startled Fulkerson, causing her to lose control of her car. They cited an Alabama law requiring pedestrians to walk “as far as practicable from the edge of the roadway.” The decision of how far to stand from the roadway fell within Hawkins' exercise of judgment, however, and thus entitled him to immunity, the high court ruled.
Finally, the court rejected the plaintiffs’ argument they were entitled to delay summary judgment until Fulkerson’s criminal case was over and they could question her about what happened that day. Since the defendants were entitled to immunity, the court ruled, “any potential evidence obtained from Fulkerson would not have been `essential’” to determining whether the cases should be dismissed.