PROVIDENCE, R.I. (Legal Newsline) - A man who dragged away a wooden pallet covering a manhole and then fell into it won $87,500 from the City of Providence after the Rhode Island Supreme Court reversed a trial judge’s determination that the jury verdict wasn’t supported by the facts.
James R. Battaglia was looking for a parking space near the Snookers sports bar in February 2013 when he found the ideal spot under a bridge. After he parked, however, his wife couldn’t open her door. Battaglia got out, found a wooden pallet blocking the door, dragged it aside and fell into the manhole beneath it, breaking his leg.
At trial, the city presented evidence it was suffering an epidemic of manhole cover thefts as people stole them to sell the iron plates for scrap. The city kept a log of missing manholes, and while the one Battaglia fell into wasn’t on the list there was evidence public works employees had placed the pallet there. City regulations required not only a wooden cover, but safety cones and caution tape.
The jury awarded Battaglia $87,500 and the city moved for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, which the judge granted under the public duty doctrine, which protects the city against liability unless it engages in egregious conduct that places “a reasonably prudent person into a position of extreme peril.” The fact the city put a pallet over the manhole didn’t meet that test, the trial judge held.
The Rhode Island Supreme Court reversed in a May 5 decision in a decision by Justice Erin Lynch Prata. The trial judge impermissibly made findings of fact instead of viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, the majority ruled. The city’s failure to move for a new trial was fatal to its appeal, the state high court continued, since the judge erred by dismissing the case on a matter of law when in fact the dispute was over the facts.
Justice William P. Robinson dissented, saying the plaintiff’s case failed even viewing the facts in the most favorable light. The city dealt with the open manhole by placing a pallet over it and Battaglia had no reason to move it, the judge wrote.
“The trial justice assumed that the alleged negligence occurred exactly as plaintiff contended without making her own independent judgment concerning those facts,” Justice Robinson wrote. “She then determined that the public duty doctrine applied and that the alleged negligence did not fall within the egregious conduct exception.”