Blonski v. Metropolitan District Commission

Early summer is often marked by important decisions from the Supreme Court of the United States and the ensuing commentary and debate those decisions create.  In addition to the several interesting decisions by the SCOTUS, the Connecticut Supreme Court issued a decision on Friday July 5, 2013 that is of specific interest to people in the endurance sports community (I received several texts on Saturday morning, which prompted me to write this post).  In the case of Blonski v. Metropolitan District Commission (SC 18809), the Connecticut Supreme Court upheld a jury award of $2.9 million to a cyclist injured at the MDC Reservoir in West Hartford Connecticut (I should disclose that the Greater Hartford 1/4 Marathon, Solstice Sprint 5K and Hogsback Half Marathon all take place in part on MDC lands and the MDC is kind enough to allow me to hold events on their property each year).

The facts of the case are pretty simple (note all facts are taken from the various legal opinions in this case, I am not using facts from outside sources such as newspaper stories in my analysis as the Connecticut Supreme Court cannot consider facts not in the trial court record).  The Metropolitan District Commission (the"MDC") is a specifically charted municipal corporation that provides water to several towns in central Connecticut.  The MDC owns several thousands of acres of land in Connecticut, and allows the public to use this land for recreational activities.  On the MDC's property in West Hartford, there is a paved multi-use trail called the "Red Road."  The Red Road is a three mile loop, which has markings that establish a lane for cyclists and informs cyclists of the direction in which they are supposed to travel.  The Red Road also has gates, which the MDC originally installed to help prevent vandalism, theft, water contamination and the sale of drugs and alcohol on MDC property.  After September 11, 2001, the MDC made the decision to keep the gates locked at all times to protect the water supply.  On May 16, 2002, Maribeth Blonski was riding her mountain bike down a hill in the wrong direction at approximately 20 to 30 mph on the Red Road.  At trial Ms. Blonski testified that while riding a pipe gate on the Red Road appeared "out of nowhere" and that while she attempted to slide underneath the pipe gate she was unable to do so and hit her head on the gate causing severe injuries.

Ms. Blonski sued the MDC for injuries claiming that the MDC had negligently maintained the Red Road and the gate in a dangerous and defective condition and that the MDC had closed the gate in a manner that was unsafe and failed to warn bikers about the closure of the gate.  What this means is that Ms. Blonski argued that the MDC had a duty to erect and close its gates in a way that would not cause injury to cyclists and that the MDC also had a duty to warn cyclists that there were gates and that the gates were closed and could cause injury.  The MDC asserted two special defenses (in Connecticut a special defense is a legal reason why, even if the facts alleged by the plaintiff are all true, the defendant should not be responsible for the claim or allegation) to Ms. Blonski's claims -- that two Connecticut statutes prevented Ms. Blonski from filing suit against the MDC.

After Ms. Blonski put on her case at trial the MDC moved for a directed verdict.  A directed verdict is a verdict by the judge in a jury trial without consideration by the jury.  The MDC argued that the Sections 52-557n and 52-557g of the Connecticut General Statutes barred Ms. Blonski from suing the MDC.  Section 52-557n stated that if a governmental entitiy's (such as the MDC's) actions are not connected to its "proprietary function," the defendant cannot be liable.  Section 52-577g provides protection from liability for owners of land.  The trial court denied the MDC's motion for directed verdict.  After the MDC put on its defense, the case went to the jury, who determined that the MDC had been negligent and its negligence has an "inherently close connection" to the MDC's proprietary function of supplying water to residents of the district.  The jury also found that Ms. Blonski was 30% comparatively negligent in causing her own injuries and awarded her a total of almost $3 million in damages. Comparative negligence is a partial legal defense that reduces the amount of damages that a plaintiff can recover based upon the degree to which the plaintiff's own negligence contributed to cause her injurie. In this case, without the finding of 30% comparative negligence, Ms. Blonski would have been awarded damages in excess of $4 million. 

The MDC appealed the trial court's decision to the Connecticut Supreme Court on very narrow grounds.  The MDC's appeal was not of the total jury verdict but rather of the trial court's denial of the MDC's motion for directed verdict (for lots of rather complicated legal reasons, this was the MDC's best course of appeal).  On appeal the MDC argued that the trial court judge should have ruled in favor of the MDC without turning the case over to the jury because either Section 52-557n or 52-577g provided the MDC with immunity from Ms. Blonski's claims.  In reviewing the appeal, the Supreme Court is constrained by the applicable "standard of review."  The standard of review is the amount of deference the Supreme Court must give to the trial court's decision based on established case law.  The Supreme Court has very little authority to overturn a trial court's denial of directed verdict unless "a jury could not reasonably and legally have reached any other conclusion."

So with the narrowness of the appeal and the standard of review in mind, let's look at the Connecticut Supreme Court's decision.  The Connecticut Supreme Court agreed with Ms. Blonski and the jury and decided that neither Section 52-557n, nor 52-577g gave the MDC immunity from Ms. Blonski's suit (it should be noted that since the trial court's verdict in favor of Ms. Blonski the Connecticut Legislature has amended the law to specifically protect the MDC from future suits similar to Ms. Blonski's).

With regard to Section 52-557n, the Supreme Court found that a governmental entity (such as the MDC) may be held liable for a negligence lawsuit (such as Ms. Blsonki's) when the MDC's conduct is "inextricably linked to a proprietary function."  The Supreme Court agreed with the jury's decision that the MDC's installing and maintaining a closed gate on the Red Road was "inextricably linked" to the MDC's water supply operations in that the purpose of the gate was to protect the water supply.  Because the purpose of the gate was to protect the water supply and the purpose of the MDC is to provide water, the MDC could be sued by Ms. Blonski for her injuries attributable to the locked gate.  In the Courts own words -- "When a governmental entity engages in conduct for its own corporate benefit in a manner that poses an unreasonable risk of harm to others, we can perceive of no reason why it should not be held responsible for all of the consequences of that conduct, just as a private person would be." 

With regard (I know I keep using "with regard" such a lawyer phrase) to Section 52-577g, the court found that established precedent limited the protections of this section to "private landowners" and that the section does not extend protections to a governmental entity such as the MDC.  The Court used the Connecticut Legislature's amendment of this section in 2011 to specifically protect the MDC against future lawsuits to support its argument that the previous version did not extend protections to the MDC -- "It is clear, therefore, that the legislature in 2011 did not believe that the act provided immunity to a political subdivision of the state that is engaged in a proprietary function and that opens its lands to a recreational user who is injured as the result of the entity's proprietary activities." 

So, in my opinion did the Connecticut Supreme Court rule correctly?  Yes.  Was it the "right" decision?  Probably not.  The Court did what it was supposed to do and applied the law, as it existed at the time of Ms. Blonski's injuries, to the facts in the narrow appeal that was before them. The problem is the Supreme Court wasn't asked to (and in fact could not be asked to) rule on the actual merits of the case and the bigger of question of personal responsibility.  Ignoring all the facts being reported in the press, based on the evidence admitted at trial its is clear that Ms. Blonski was an experienced mountain biker traveling at 20 to 30 mph on a busy multi-use path that is also utilized by walkers, runners, roller bladers, dogs and horses (in the early morning hours I have seen the owner of mini horse taking the horse out for a jog on the Red Road).  Ask any serious biker and they will tell you how dangerous it is to ride on "bike paths" or multi-use paths (I suffered a separated shoulder and ruptured IT band from a crash on a "bike path" last summer).   Let alone to travel at 20 to 30 mph on these paths.  In addition, the pipe gate was painted yellow and is visible from several hundred yards away.  Ms. Blonski could not have been paying attention if the gate seemed to appear "out of nowhere."  Replace the word "pipe gate" in the facts of this case with "walker," "child" or "other cyclist" and you have an even more serious situation.  While I sympathize with Ms. Blonski's injuries, I also believe in personal responsibility.  Had Ms. Blonski exercised some personal responsibility and been more aware of her surroundings on May 16, 2002, this entire course of event may have been prevented.