Colorado’s second-highest court ruled last month that the city of Colorado Springs cannot be held liable for a vehicle crash in which traffic lights were functioning normally in one direction and were inoperative in the perpendicular direction.

The Colorado Governmental Immunity Act, with limited exceptions, shields public entities from lawsuits over injuries they cause. Its purpose is to protect tax dollars and prevent a flood of lawsuits from disrupting government services.

One of those exceptions, however, allows governments to be sued due to their “failure to repair a traffic control signal on which conflicting directions are displayed.” The question for the state’s Court of Appeals was whether an intersection in which some cars see a working traffic light and other cars are met by an unlighted signal amounts to “conflicting directions.”

No, determined a three-judge appellate panel.

Under Colorado’s traffic laws, explained Judge Ted C. Tow III, the driver with a green light should proceed normally and the driver facing an inoperative light has the obligation to proceed only when the intersection is clear.

Because the drivers who collided “could have followed these directions simultaneously without issue, the signals were not incompatible,” he wrote in the Oct. 31 opinion.

In the underlying case, construction was occurring at the intersection of S. Tejon Street and E. Costilla Street in August 2019. Bernard E. Sandoval drove up to the intersection and faced an unilluminated light. Treating the intersection as a four-way stop, he proceeded and was hit by a driver traveling in the perpendicular direction whose light was green.

Sandoval sued various parties for negligence, prompting the city to invoke the governmental immunity law.

District Court Judge Amanda J. Philipps declined to dismiss the lawsuit, finding the conflicting-directions exception applied.

“The eastbound driver had a green light as he approached the intersection, Plaintiff had no operable traffic light as he approached the intersection, there were conflicting traffic signals to the drivers,” she wrote in January.

On appeal, the city maintained the signals did not conflict because it was possible for Sandoval to treat his light as a stop sign and for the other driver to proceed on green without inevitably colliding.

“If it’s sufficiently confusing that it’s creating a dangerous condition, does that change our analysis?” asked Judge Neeti V. Pawar during oral arguments.

“I don’t think it does,” responded W. Erik Lamphere of the Colorado Springs city attorney’s office.

Sandoval’s lawyer, on the other hand, argued drivers should treat an intersection as a four-way stop when the lights are dark for all directions.

“But what if the lights aren’t out for all. What do you do?” asked Tow.

“That’s the conflict,” said attorney Brian Hugen.

“The driver with the green thinks he has a green light, which he does. The driver on other side thinks he has a stop sign, which means he can’t go until it’s safe,” countered Tow. “There has to be an actual conflict, according to the statute.”

The panel agreed with the city that the circumstances of Sandoval’s collision did not involve conflicting traffic signals. Drivers who face an inoperative light are not required to treat the intersection as a four-way stop, Tow noted. Rather, they must treat their light as a stop sign and wait for any vehicles that may have the right-of-way.

“Sandoval’s assumptions that all signals were out and that other cars would stop does not rest on any legal authority,” Tow concluded.

The case is Sandoval v. City of Colorado Springs.