Opinion ID: 1743425
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Jury charge on foreseeability

Text: Williams argues that the trial court erred in charging the jury as follows: The Court charges that where a young child is under the sole custody and supervision of a parent, it is not foreseeable that the parent would fail to undertake basic precautions to safeguard her children from an obvious risk that is well known to the parent. Citing Williams v. Woodman, 424 So.2d 611, 613 (Ala.1982), Williams contends that this charge improperly permitted the jury to find in favor of BIC, notwithstanding that it may have found BIC to have been negligent, where a third party, and not the plaintiff, may also be guilty of negligence that contributes to cause the injury. Williams also maintains that this charge violates the rule that prevents the negligence of a parent from being imputed to the child. See Pilkington v. Peking Chinese Restaurant, 596 So.2d 586, 589 (Ala. 1992); Nunn v. Whitworth, 545 So.2d 766, 767 (Ala.1989); Alabama Power Co. v. Taylor, 293 Ala. 484, 306 So.2d 236, 249 (1975). In BIC II, an action against BIC arising out of personal injury and death that occurred as a result of children's playing with a butane lighter, this Court wrote: One issue that did play a prominent role in the trial, however, regarded the Beans' supervision of their children. That issue was relevant to at least two elements of the plaintiffs' prima facie case, namely, foreseeability and proximate cause. As to foreseeability, the court charged the jury: `The fifth element that the plaintiff[s] must prove to your reasonable satisfaction is that the lighter was being used in an intended or reasonably foreseeable manner at the time of the fire. The plaintiffs claim that it was reasonably foreseeable, at the time BIC marketed the lighter in question, that children too young to appreciate the dangers of operating the lighter, could obtain and operate the lighter. `... Whether it was reasonably foreseeable that children too young to appreciate the dangers of operating BIC lighters, could obtain and operate such lighters is a fact issue for you to decide based on all the evidence presented. ' Also, forcefully presented in closing argument was BIC's contention that the Beans had failed to supervise their children and that their failure in that regard was the sole proximate cause of the fire.  669 So.2d at 845-46. (Some emphasis added.) While a determination of the validity of these charges and of BIC's closing argument was not before the court in BIC II, its direct holding as to the relevance of foreseeability and proximate cause to the issue of appropriate parental supervision is sound. That holding compels us to conclude that an instruction linking conduct of a parent to these issues is appropriate under the facts of this case. In Williamson v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 626 So.2d 1261 (Ala.1993), this Court noted a distinction between the negligence of a parent in failing to supervise a child and the unforeseeability of such negligence. This Court stated: Although this Court has stated that the contributory negligence of a parent will not be imputed to his child so as to bar the child's recovery, a consideration of negligence on the part of Nicholas's father is useful in determining whether the injury to Nicholas was foreseeable to Smith. Id. at 1264. In Tyson Foods, this Court quoted with approval from Laser v. Wilson, 58 Md.App. 434, 473 A.2d 523 (1984), in which the Maryland Court of Special Appeals concluded: `The parental duty of supervision looking to the care and welfare of a child includes protecting it from known or obvious dangers.... If the parent has either been warned, or if the condition is or should be obvious to the parent, the [parent's] failure properly to supervise its child is the proximate cause of a subsequent injury.' 626 So.2d at 1265. While we acknowledge that Tyson Foods deals with premises liability, we would have to overrule BIC II in order to hold that foreseeability and proximate cause arising from failure of parental supervision have no bearing in a products-liability case. This we decline to do. The plaintiff tries to distinguish Tyson Foods by pointing to Looney v. Davis, 721 So.2d 152 (Ala.1998), where a dentist's defense to a wrongful-death action based on the death of a patient following a tooth extraction was based on the contention that the seriousness of the physical injury was so unexpected as to constitute a defense even when the kind of injury itself was foreseeable. In Looney, this court rejected that argument and referred to Tyson Foods as illustrating a rule by which a defendant cannot be held liable when the kind of physical injury sustained by the plaintiff was itself unforeseeable. Id. at 162. Here, as in Tyson Foods, a jury question was presented as to whether the kind of physical injury that occurred could have been foreseen, given the peculiar facts of the case. In his deposition, Franklin Williams testified that he had taught the children, all of whom were five years old or younger, to use a cigarette lighter to ignite fireworks and that he had allowed them to do so in his presence. At trial, however, he testified that he had never put a lighter in the boys' hands or showed them how to use one. He further testified that in the boys' presence he had used a lighter to light fireworks, cigarettes, and spray from aerosol cans. He also testified that the children had seen him using an aerosol can and a lighter to burn a trail of ants on the porch at the apartment, that he had done this in front of the children only once, and that he had had to use the lighter several times to kill all the ants. He stated that Cunningham had told him not to do that again in front of the children because, he said she told him, they got excited when he did it. He acknowledged that Mark and Dontavious were bad about playing with lighters. Cunningham acknowledged that she had seen Franklin Williams using a lighter and an aerosol can to make a torch in front of the children and that Franklin had used a lighter to burn trash in a drum in front of the children. She also testified that Franklin had used a lighter to light fireworks in front of the children. In addition, Formby testified that on several occasions she had seen Mark and Dontavious light cigarettes. She testified that she and Cunningham had on several occasions asked the boys to light cigarettes for them by using the gas stove in the apartment and that the boys had also lit cigarettes by using a cigarette lighter. She stated that it was not a surprise to her that the children knew how to use a cigarette lighter. The facts before the jury, although in conflict in many instances, could permit a rationally functioning jury to conclude that a manufacturer should not reasonably foresee the occurrence of this kind of physical injury under such circumstances as we have described herein. The jury could have concluded that Cunningham returned at 3:45 a.m. from a bar after drinking for four hours and, after she returned, left three children, ages two, three, and five, asleep in an adjoining room in the apartment, an apartment in which were located numerous cigarette lighters and aerosol cans containing flammable materials, including several lighters and cans in the bedroom. The jury also could have found that at least two of these children had been trained by an adult to use cigarette lighters to light fireworks and cigarettes and that these children had at least witnessed, if they had not tried themselves, the use of a cigarette lighter to ignite the contents of an aerosol can so as to produce a torch. The jury also heard evidence indicating that the mother was aware of Dontavious's attraction to cigarette lighters, having seen him lighting one at age three, six months before the incident, and having indulged him in this fascination by having him light her cigarette and permitting Formby to have him light her cigarette, and that she had seen Franklin Williams playing with fire, including igniting the contents of an aerosol can in the presence of the children. Finally, the jury could have concluded that, while the mother slept heavily in the living room from the effects of alcohol, Dontavious, age three, awakened in the bedroom, where there were numerous lighters and aerosol cans within his reach, used one of them to set fire to the curtains, and thereby caused his two-year-old sister to be severely burned. Under these facts, the jury could have reasonably concluded that the adults supervising the children, including Cunningham, were aware of the potential danger and displayed an incredibly casual attitude toward the dangers of allowing small children to be entertained by fire. Under these circumstances, we cannot say that as a matter of law BIC should have foreseen the conduct of the parent in this case; thus, we cannot hold the instruction on foreseeability inappropriate. The trial court was careful in recognizing a distinction between the impropriety of a charge on contributory negligence and the propriety of a instruction dealing with foreseeability and proximate cause. We hasten to add that an instruction on foreseeability is inappropriate when it constitutes merely a disguised means of authorizing a jury to deny recovery to a child because of negligence on the part of a parent. The determination whether a charge on foreseeability is appropriate must be based on the facts of the particular case. Where the evidence of the obviousness of the danger, coupled with the parent's egregious and systemic failure to supervise, is as compelling as it is in this case, an instruction on foreseeability does not constitute a disguised charge on contributory negligence. We therefore conclude that in this particular case it was appropriate to charge the jury that it is not foreseeable that a parent would fail to undertake basic precautions to safeguard her children from an obvious risk well known to the parent. AFFIRMED. HOOPER, C.J., and MADDOX, HOUSTON, COOK, SEE, and ENGLAND, JJ., concur. JOHNSTONE, J., concurs in Part II and concurs in the result in Part III. BROWN, J., concurs in the result.