Day on Torts
Where plaintiff was injured by a dangerous condition on state property created by the gross negligence of a state employee, the Claims Commission Act did not provide a cause of action.
In Gordon v. State of Tennessee, No. W2023-01012-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Oct. 10, 2024), plaintiff child was injured when she cut her foot on a broken metal pipe under the surface of a state-owned lake. Plaintiff and her mom filed an action with the Claims Commission pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. § 9-8-307(a)(1)(C), which “relat[es] to negligently created or maintained dangerous conditions on state property.”
The Claims Commission initially ruled for plaintiff, finding that the pipe remnant was left in the lake when the pipe was replaced, and that “the child’s injury was foreseeable and proximately caused by the State’s negligence.” The State filed a motion to alter or amend, arguing that the Recreational Use Statute provided immunity here. The Claims Commission agreed that the Recreational Use Statute applied, but it ruled that the facts of this case constituted gross negligence, which is an exception to immunity under the Recreational Use Statute. The Claims Commission affirmed the damages award to plaintiff, and defendant State appealed.
On appeal, “the State argue[d] that Claimants find themselves in the proverbial catch-22, where the State is immune from a claim of negligence under the recreational use statute while also immune from a claim of gross negligence under the Claims Commission Act, and the Claimants cannot recover regardless of the State’s level of culpability.” The Court of Appeals “unfortunately” agreed.
This opinion analyzed two statutes—the Claims Commission Act and the Recreational Use Statute. First, the Court considered whether Tenn. Code Ann. § 9-8-307(a)(1)(C) included claims of gross negligence within the jurisdiction of the Claims Commission. This section applies to claims “related to negligently created or maintained dangerous conditions on state property.” Although the Claims Commission Act and the GTLA are separate statutory schemes, the Court found the Supreme Court’s recent decision interpreting the term negligence in the GTLA instructive. Lawson v. Hawkins County, 661 S.W.3d 54 (Tenn. 2023). The Court noted that negligence and gross negligence had distinct definitions before the Claims Commission Act was passed, and that other parts of the Claims Commission Act specifically use the term gross negligence. Although the Claims Commission Act is to be construed liberally, the Court found that it could not extend the statute beyond its plain meaning. In ruling that negligence in this context meant only simple negligence, the Court found that the Claims Commission Act was not ambiguous so as to permit claims of gross negligence under this provision.
Next, the Court considered the Recreational Use Statute and how it applied in this case. Tenn. Code Ann. § 70-7-102 provides immunity to landowners when a plaintiff is injured while engaged in recreational activities. There was no dispute that plaintiff was using the lake for recreational purposes here. The issue was whether the exception for gross negligence found in Tenn. Code Ann. § 70-7-104 allowed plaintiff to proceed in this matter. The Court explained that the Recreational Use Statute does not create new causes of action, stating that “the exception contained in section 70-7-104(a)(1) only applies to preserve the liability that otherwise exists for gross negligence…” (internal citation omitted). The Court reasoned:
Section 9-7-307(a)(1)(C), however, only waives the State’s immunity for negligently created or maintained dangerous conditions on State-owned property. As such, no liability for gross negligence “otherwise exists” to which the section 70-7-104 exception could attach. Unfortunately for Claimants, the “exclusive” way to impose liability against the State in this case was to show that the Child’s injuries resulted from “[n]egligently created or maintained dangerous conditions on state controlled real property.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 9-7-307(a)(1)(C). But “what Tennessee Code Annotated section 9-8-307(a)(1)(C) does to remove immunity from the State, the recreational use statute taketh away.” The recreational use statute simply cannot preserve something that never existed in the first instance. While this ruling leaves some claimants, particularly, like here, those that likely cannot show the personal liability of any particular State employee, without an easy remedy, it is well within the legislature’s constitutional authority to limit the exposure of our State to damages claims as it sees fit.
(internal citations omitted). The damages awarded to plaintiff were therefore overturned.
The Court acknowledged that this was an unfortunate result. Unless the Supreme Court or legislature address this issue, however, plaintiffs with similar claims may find themselves without an option for recovery.
This opinion was released 3.5 months after oral arguments in this case.