Cestonaro v. United States

211 F.3d 749 (3rd Cir. 2000)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

P, his wife Giovanna, and their daughter, all Italian citizens, and residents, were vacationing in St. Croix, Virgin Islands. P parked their rental car in a lot on Hospital Street in Christiansted. Upon returning to their car after dinner, P was confronted by two armed gunmen. P was shot and died almost immediately. The Hospital Street lot is owned and controlled by the United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service. At the time of the murder, the Hospital Street lot was not an official parking lot. There were no signs designating or even indicating that it was a parking lot; it was neither paved nor striped. The lot's appearance, however, differed from the surrounding area in the Christiansted National Historic Site in terms of grade and surface, as it consisted of broken asphalt from a previous paving. Since the 1940s, the general public had used the Hospital Street lot as a parking area. The National Park Service was aware that crimes had occurred in the lot before December 28, 1993. The National Park Service also received regular complaints about safety in the Hospital Street lot from local business owners. The National Park Service had done nothing to deter nighttime parking in the Hospital Street lot. It had not posted signs prohibiting parking, nor signs warning of dangers of nighttime parking, nor issued tickets for illegal parking. In fact, the lot was lighted at night. P filed a wrongful death action against D under the Federal Tort Claims Act. P alleged that 'D was negligent in failing to provide adequate lighting and correct the known dangerous condition and to warn others about the existence of the dangerous condition' at the Hospital Street lot. D moved to dismiss under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1) because the actions P complained about fell under the discretionary function exception to the FTCA's waiver of sovereign immunity. The District Court dismissed the complaint and P appealed.