holding that DOT has no duty to install guardrails because absence of guardrails does not render highway unsafe for its intended use
How later courts described this case
- holding that DOT has no duty to install guardrails because absence of guardrails does not render highway unsafe for its intended use
- rejecting PennDOT’s contention “that the real estate exception does not apply merely because Appellee asserted that a concurrent cause of her injuries was the accumulation of snow on the highway”
- observing that “the lack of a guardrail does not render the highway unsafe for the purposes for [J-66-2017] - 3 which it was intended, i.e., travel on the roadway”
- observing that "the lack of a guardrail does not render the highway unsafe for the purposes for which it was intended, i.e., travel on the roadway"
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Cagey, J., Aplt. v. PennDOT, 179 A.3d 458 (2018)
Dean is inapposite and does not control under the facts presented here.
The opinion
NIGRO, Justice,
dissenting.
Since I believe the real estate exception to sovereign immunity clearly applies to the instant case, I must respectfully dissent. Unlike the majority, I see the guardrail as an obvious part of the highway and therefore, cannot agree with the majority’s conclusion that the real estate exception is not triggered by the absence of a guardrail on the shoulder of the road. If, as the majority contends, the absence of a guardrail does not affect the safety of the road for travel, I question why the Commonwealth would ever place a guardrail on a highway in the first place. For example, in the instant case, it seems clear that an appropriately placed guardrail at the scene of the accident would have stopped Mr. Bell’s truck from sliding over the embankment and therefore, would have prevented the serious injuries incurred by Ms. Dean.