ST. LOUIS — A Missouri appellate court affirmed a lower court's decision to dismiss an amended petition upholding the Missouri Veterans' Home's sovereign immunity from a lawsuit.
Patricia Nowell-Silman appealed a circuit court’s dismissal of her amended petition against the Missouri Department of Public Safety Veterans’ Commission (MVC) for premises liability and wrongful death after her father sustained injuries and later died following an incident at an MVC facility, according to an Aug. 20 decision in Division Three of the Missouri Court of Appeals-Eastern District.
The decision was authored by Presiding Judge Philip M. Hess and Judges Gary M. Gaertner Jr. and Renee Hardin-Tammons concurred in the decision.
The incident involved Nowell-Silman's father, a resident at the MVC skilled nursing facility in Cape Girardeau, who was confined to a wheelchair.
On June 29, 2019, Nowell-Silman's father left the facility unsupervised, fell from his wheelchair in the parking lot, and suffered injuries. He died a few days later while still under the facility's care.
Nowell-Silman’s initial petition claimed MVC failed to equip the facility with necessary safety features, such as monitors on her father’s wheelchair or person and coded locks on doors, which she argued constituted a dangerous condition that led to her father’s injuries and death.
The petition further alleged that MVC was negligent in failing to provide adequate safety measures given her father’s known physical and mental condition.
MVC moved to dismiss the petition, asserting that they were protected by sovereign immunity under Missouri law and that the petition failed to state a claim.
Nowell-Silman amended her petition to address this by arguing that the lack of safety measures created a reasonably foreseeable risk, making MVC liable under an exception to sovereign immunity for injuries caused by dangerous conditions on public property.
However, the circuit court dismissed the amended petition as well, leading to this appeal.
On appeal, Nowell-Silman argued that the circuit court erred in dismissing her petition, asserting that the absence of monitors and coded locks on MVC’s property constituted a dangerous condition.
MVC countered that these allegations did not point to a physical defect in the property, which is necessary to waive sovereign immunity.
The appellate court reviewed the case de novo and analyzed the applicability of sovereign immunity and the concept of a "dangerous condition" under Missouri law.
The court concluded that Nowell-Silman’s allegations of insufficient safety measures did not meet the criteria for a dangerous condition under section 537.600, which requires a physical defect in the property itself.
The court noted that her appeal did not argue a physical defect in MVC’s property but focused on the lack of certain safety features, which is insufficient to establish a dangerous condition.
"Even when giving these cursory allegations their broadest intendment that Decedent had physical and mental impairments placing MVC on notice he required a monitor on his person, his wheelchair, or to be housed in an area with coded locks to prevent him from leaving the facility, these allegations, in and of themselves, do not speak to whether a physical deficiency constituting a dangerous condition existed," Hess wrote in the decision.
As a result, the appellate court affirmed the circuit court’s decision to dismiss Nowell-Silman’s amended petition, upholding MVC’s sovereign immunity from the lawsuit.
The appellant was represented by Aaron N. Woods and Andrew R. Tarry.
The respondent was represented by Caleb A. Rutledge and John P. Sullivan.
The attorneys for the parties did not respond to requests for comments.
Missouri Court of Appeals-Eastern District, Division Three case number: ED112005