Liability for Public Agencies

D uring the tim e that I have held the office of A ttorney G eneral for the State of Ind iana , it has becom e clear to m e, and I am sure to all o ther attorneys in the state who defend public highw ay agencies in the field of tort litigation, tha t there has been a consistent and dram atic increase in lawsuits filed by drivers and passengers of vehicles who sustain injury as a result of accidents on public roadw ays. This increase has certainly been reflected in the n u m b er of tort claim s filed against the State of In d ­ iana. State statutes require an injured party to file a notice of claim within 180 days after an accident before a form al lawsuit m ay be filed against a public entity. Statistics m aintained by the Office of the A ttorney General indicate that in 1975, the first full year after the adoption of the In d iana T o rt C laim s Act, 361 notices of claim were filed against the State of In d ­ iana. In 1981, the first year of m y adm in istration , 614 claims were filed and in 1985, this total rose to 1,497. O f the total notice of claim s filed in these years, approxim ately 75% to 80% involved claims directly against the In d iana D epartm en t of H ighw ays. I am sure tha t local county and city governm ents have also experienced sim ilar increases in roadw ayrelated tort claim s w ithin the last ten years. T he increase in claims and lawsuits filed against public highway agen­ cies has, of course, corresponded with a rise in the n u m b er and size of ju ry verdicts in the last ten years. Increasing litigation and judgm ent costs have particularly strained the resources of local governm ent agencies. At this point, I would like to shift em phasis away from m ethods and m eans by which public entities may insure for m onetary dam ages resulting from law suits to the type of actions you as state and local highw ay of­ ficials m ay take both on a day-to-day basis and also after the occurrence of a serious injury or fatality accident to m inim ize the possibility of u n ­ called for p la in tiff verdicts. In the typical vehicle crash case, a form al law suit is not filed until one to two years after an accident has occurred. O bviously, the a ttorney defending such a law suit on behalf of the public highw ay en tity will have had no prior knowledge of the particu lar circum stances of the case. As an atto rney , his im m ediate goal will be to assem ble all relevant facts su r­ rounding the accident and the charac ter and nature of the roadw ay in the vicinity of the accident at the tim e it occurred. T his is often difficult to do after a lawsuit is filed because, naturally , mem ories of eyewitnesses,