Key Points

  • Under Moreland v. Adams, land is open range under Idaho Code section 25-2118 if it lies outside a city, village or herd district, regardless of fencing, and the statute's reference to any highway on the range includes federal interstates.
  • The cow's owner and the grazing association are immune from liability for the I-84 collision because the plaintiff did not show the crash site lay within a city, village or herd district.
  • The Idaho Transportation Department's statutory duty to maintain highways runs to the general public, so under the public duty rule it gives an individual motorist no negligence claim, and the court found no special relationship, no duty to warn and no assumed duty.
  • A timely motion to reconsider ends the 42-day appeal period if, granted, it would alter the judgment, even when it fails to state grounds with particularity, and the court disavowed contrary dicta in DEQ v. Gibson.
  • The plaintiff's federal preemption argument failed because he did not challenge the district court's alternative ground for denying reconsideration.

The Idaho Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a rancher whose cow wandered onto Interstate 84 at night is immune from the injured driver's negligence suit, holding that Idaho's open-range law protects livestock owners even where the highway is lined with fences and cattle guards. Under that law, livestock owners on open range, which the statute defines as "all uninclosed lands outside of cities, villages and herd districts," owe motorists no duty to keep animals off the road.

The unanimous court also held that the Idaho Transportation Department owed the driver, Isaac Ludwig, no duty that could support a negligence claim. Justice Meyer wrote the opinion, joined by Chief Justice Brody and Justices Bevan, Moeller and Zahn. The decision affirmed summary judgment entered by Theodore Fleming, a Fourth Judicial District judge, in the Elmore County case.

The decision rejected the argument that fencing takes a federal interstate outside the open-range statute. The court held that its 2007 decision in Moreland v. Adams controls. Under Moreland, land is open range if it lies outside a city, village or herd district, an area where owners must keep livestock fenced, regardless of fencing. The court also held that the state and federal highway-maintenance statutes create a duty owed to the general public, which under the public duty rule gives an individual driver no right to sue.

According to the opinion, Ludwig was driving east on I-84 in Elmore County in 2019, through a construction zone, when he struck a cow owned by Robert Howard. Ludwig suffered significant injuries, and his vehicle was "damaged beyond repair." The department maintains fencing along both sides of the interstate's right-of-way and cattle guards on the ramps at the two exits closest to the crash site.

In March 2019, department crews cleared brush from the Hot Creek Tunnel, a livestock culvert under the interstate, at Howard's request. On March 30, Howard or Howard Grazing Association LLC, the named holder of grazing permits near the crash site, herded cattle through the tunnel. The day after the collision, Howard inspected the fence on the north side of the highway and found a hole "about a hundred yards" from the tunnel entrance.

Ludwig sued Howard, the grazing association and the department in 2021. The district court denied the Howard defendants' motions for summary judgment, finding factual disputes over whether I-84 was "fenced out." It denied their renewed motion too, finding a factual dispute over whether I-84 was unenclosed under the open-range statute. On reconsideration, the court applied Moreland and ruled for Howard and the association. It also ruled for the department, finding that the department owed no duty and was immune under the Idaho Tort Claims Act, which governs negligence suits against the state.

On appeal, Ludwig did not ask the justices to overrule Moreland. He argued instead that his case differed because "the collision occurred on a federal interstate, with a speed limit of 80 mph, not a two-lane county road," and because I-84 "was fully enclosed by lawful fences" that were "built by ITD to protect the traveling public."

Justice Meyer wrote that "it is unclear why the location of the collision on a federal interstate highway, or the highway's speed limit, is a material distinction." The statute relieves owners of any duty "to keep such animal off any highway on such range," the court noted. "The statute does not, therefore, exclude federal interstate highways or highways with higher speed limits from its ambit."

The opinion added that Moreland never turned on who built the fences, because the court there held that fencing is not part of the open-range test. Moreland had warned that reading "uninclosed" to require fence-free land would "create a test that is unworkable and could not have been intended by the legislature." Ludwig bore the burden of showing that the crash site lay within a city, village or herd district, and he did not meet it, the court held.

The claims against the department failed for a different reason. Ludwig argued that state law and the federal highway statute required the department to maintain I-84, including its right-of-way fencing. The court agreed that the department has a statutory duty to maintain state highways. But the statutes do not identify a "particular class of people" that benefits from that duty, Meyer wrote. "Rather, the duty appears to run to the general public."

The court also rejected Ludwig's theory that the department owed him the heightened duty a business owes its customers, writing that the department's "operation and maintenance of public highways is devoid of any commercial purpose." On the duty to warn, the court held that Ludwig "did not present a scintilla of evidence" that the department had notice that Howard had split cows and calves on opposite sides of the interstate or that a cow had broken through the fence.

Ludwig's assumed-duty argument rested on the brush clearing. The court held that the department cleared the culvert "at the Howard Defendants' request to facilitate cattle movement through the tunnel, not to enhance travel safety on the interstate." Because the department owed Ludwig no duty, the court did not reach its design and discretionary-function immunity defenses.

The department had also asked the court to dismiss the appeal as untimely. It argued that Ludwig's post-judgment motions to reconsider, which stated no grounds, did not stop the 42-day clock for filing an appeal. The court held the appeal timely because the appellate rules require only a timely motion that, "if granted, would alter the findings and conclusions or final judgment."

The court also disavowed language from its 2020 decision in Department of Environmental Quality v. Gibson stating that "when a motion for reconsideration is improperly and untimely filed, it will not serve to toll the time to appeal." The court called that statement dicta, a remark not necessary to the decision. Ludwig still lost his argument that federal highway law preempts the open-range statute, because the district court had rejected it on two independent grounds and he challenged only one on appeal.

Ludwig was represented by Evan S. Mortimer of Litster Frost Injury Lawyers. Ryan B. Peck represented Howard.

The judgment dismissing Ludwig's claims stands. The court awarded costs on appeal to Howard, the grazing association and the department as a matter of course.