Opinion ID: 1107805
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Whether the hazard was an unreasonable risk of harm

Text: The test for determining whether a risk apparent to one in the position of the actor is unreasonable is supplied by the following formula: The amount of precautions demanded of a person by an occasion is the resultant of three factors: the likelihood that his conduct will injure others, taken with the seriousness of the injury if it happens, and balanced against the interest which he must sacrifice to avoid the risk. L. Hand, J., in Conway v. O'Brien, 111 F.2d 611, 612 (2d Cir.1940); Allien v. Louisiana Power & Light Co., 202 So.2d 704 (La.App. 3rd Cir.1967); Goff v. Carlino, 181 So.2d 426 (La.App. 3rd Cir.1965); Posner, A Theory of Negligence, 1 J. Legal Stud. 29 (1972); Calabresi and Hirschoff, Toward a Test For Strict Liability in Torts, 81 Yale L.Rev. 1055 (1972); Harper, James and Gray, supra, § 16.9; Restatement (Second) of Torts, supra, § 291. The amount of caution tends to increase with the first factorthe likelihood that the actor's conduct will injure others. Compare Hebert v. Gulf States Utilities Co., 426 So.2d 111 (La.1983) with Kent v. Gulf States Utilities Co., 418 So.2d 493 (La.1982). See Terry, Negligence 29 Harv. L.Rev. 40 (1915); Restatement (Second) of Torts, supra, §§ 291-295. Other things being equal, the amount of care required will vary directly with the degree of likelihood of injury. Harper, James and Gray, supra, § 16.9. The amount of caution required also tends to increase with the second factorthe seriousness of the injury if it happens. If the harm that may be foreseen is great, conduct that threatens it may be negligent even though the statistical possibility of its happening is very slight. Harper, James and Gray, supra, § 16.9; See Culpepper v. Leonard Truck Lines, 208 La. 1084, 24 So.2d 148 (1945) (backing truck in dangerous place); Irelan-Yuba Gold Quartz Min. Co. v. Pacific Gas & Elec. Co., 18 Cal.2d 557, 116 P.2d 611 (1941) (high tension wires); Sullivan v. Mountain States Power Co., 139 Or. 282, 9 P.2d 1038 (1932) (electricity). The third variable factorthe interest the defendant must sacrifice or the burden he must assume in order to avoid the riskworks in the opposite direction and may sometimes be entitled to enough weight to prevent conduct from being negligent even where it involves virtual certainty of very great harm. The interest that must be sacrificed or the burden that must be assumed to avoid the risk is balanced against the danger. At this point there is the greatest need for careful analysis so as to focus attention on the precise interest that would be sacrificed, or the precise burden that would be assumed, and this in turn will depend on precisely what act or omission is challenged as negligent. The interest whose sacrifice is in question on the issue of negligence is the value of the particular act or omission that is challenged as negligent. Looked at another way, it is the burden of refraining from the particular act or of taking an effective precaution to cover that particular omission. It is not the value of the activity or enterprise as a whole, or the detriment that would flow from its abandonment. Harper, James and Gray, supra, § 16.9; Prosser and Keeton on Torts, supra, § 31; Restatement (Second) of Torts, supra, § 291, comment e; Id. § 292, comment a. Thus, the cost of precautions to avoid a recognizable risk is relevant, but the law imposes liability for failure to take precautions, even against remote risks, if the costs of the precautions would be relatively low. Allien v. Louisiana Power & Light Co., supra; See Malone, Work of The Appellate Courts, 29 La.L.Rev. 212, 213 (1969); Crawford, Work of Appellate Courts, 40 La.L. Rev. 564, 568 (1980); Harper, James and Gray, supra, § 16.9. The facts of the present controversy and other similar power line cases invite a sharp focus upon the essential balancing process that lies at the heart of negligence. See Malone, Work of Appellate Courts, 29 La.L.Rev. 212 (1969) (commenting on Allien v. Louisiana Power & Light Co., 202 So.2d 704 (La.App. 3rd Cir.1967)). In such a case, a paraphrase of the Hand formula helps to bring the elements of the process into relief: Since there are occasions when high voltage electricity will escape from an uninsulated transmission line, and since, if it does, it becomes a menace to those about the point of its escape, the power company's duty, as in other similar situations, to provide against resulting injuries is a function of three variables: (1) the possibility that the electricity will escape; (2) the gravity of the resulting injury, if it does; (3) the burden of taking adequate precautions that would avert the mishap. When the product of the possibility of escape multiplied times the gravity of the harm, if it happens, exceeds the burden of precautions, the failure to take those precautions is negligence. [2] The cost of prevention is what Hand meant by the burden of taking precautions against the accident. It may be the cost of installing safety equipment or otherwise making the activity safer, or the benefit foregone by curtailing or eliminating the activity. See Posner, A Theory of Negligence, 1 J. Legal Stud. 29, 32 (1972). No one, including Judge Hand thought reasonable care can be measured with mathematical precision, however. His formula in Carroll Towing merely suggests the kind of evidence that is relevant on the issue of reasonable care and how it should be weighed. See D. Robertson, W. Powers, Jr. & D. Anderson, Cases and Materials on Torts, supra, p. 85; Harper, James and Gray, supra, § 16.9; See also, Entrevia v. Hood, 427 So.2d 1146 (La.1983); Geny, Method of Interpretation and Sources of Private Positive Law (Louisiana State Law Institute trans. 2d ed. 1963); Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process (1921); Fleming, Is There A Future For Tort? 44 La.L.Rev. 1193, 1200 (1984). Applied to the situation in the present case, the likelihood that a roustabout's inattentiveness or that a malfunction of a rig would allow a mast to come close enough to the uninsulated power line to cause the electricity to escape varied between locations in the oil field. This danger was greatest on the E.C. Stuart # 2 well site at which the accident happened. This was the only location at which the power company suspended its uninsulated line completely across a road used by masted truck operators for access to a well. It was the one site where the uninsulated line was located only about two truck lengths from the well, leaving very little room for a high masted truck to maneuver safely. The fact that the power company systematically avoided these hazards elsewhere within the oil field possibly tended to make workers less wary of them at the accident site and thereby increased the likelihood of an accident. Under these circumstances, there was a significant chance that the power company's conduct would cause harm or death to one or more of the class of workers handling masted equipment at the well site. See Restatement (Second) of Torts, supra, § 293(b). The social value which the law attaches to each person's interest in life and freedom from physical harm is of the highest order. Fatal or disastrous harm is likely to be caused to these interests by a high voltage electrical accident. Moreover, electrical hazards located in oil fields or other industrial settings typically threaten harm to many workers when the risk takes effect. See Restatement (Second) Torts, supra, § 293. Consequently, the gravity of the harm, if the risk takes effect, is extreme. Plaintiff's experts testified that several different kinds of precautions could and should have been taken to eliminate or reduce the hazard caused by the operation of the bare high voltage line at the E.C. Stuart # 2 Well: (1) The power company could have routed the line differently so as to avoid creating a hazardous driveway crossing and a dangerously small workspace abutting the hot high voltage wires; (2) The company simply could have raised the line to a safer level at the site of the accident; (3) The utility could have replaced the line at the well with factory installed insulation or could have insulated the line temporarily with rubber hose type insulation; (4) The company could have attached one of various forms of warnings, i.e., signs on poles, stakes or on the line itself; or orange balls on the wires; (5) The power utility could have installed the line underground instead of overhead at the accident site. With the possible exception of underground installation, these experts indicated that the burden of these precautions were inexpensive and did not outweigh the magnitude of the risk. The defendants do not argue that the cost of taking these precautions would have exceeded the hazard of an electrical accident. Instead they contend that none of the preventative measures would have been effective or practical. The defendants' expert attempted to show that rerouting the power line would not result in any net gain in safety for oil field workers. He testified that placing the line on the other side of the main road from the Stuart Well, so as to avoid its access road and work area, would require either a dog-legged route or a traversal of the driveway at a different well site. He argued that the angles and guy-wires required in a dog-legged pattern created the danger of a weak and sagging line. From our review of the expert testimony and the plats of the well sites, however, we conclude that the power company could have eliminated the dangerous situation at the Stuart Well without creating any danger elsewhere. The utility avoided well access roads and other hazards consistently throughout the oil field by using right angles and zig-zags in selecting the course of the power line. There is no concrete evidence that this policy caused any danger from weak or sagging lines. Furthermore, a driveway traversal on the other side of the main road from the Stuart Well clearly would have been much less dangerous, because the well site on the other side of the road was considerably further back from the main road. The defendants' expert only quibbled at the precaution of insulation. His objection to insulation was that it would deteriorate and might give workers a false sense of security. His criticism must be discounted as being directed evidently at rubber hose type temporary insulation, rather than factory installed permanent insulation. The record discloses no reason why permanent insulation could not have been used at the accident site. Even if only temporary insulation were available, we are convinced from the evidence that this lesser precaution would reduce the risk substantially and be worth the burden it cost. As for the company's evidence that insulation of the line would have to be replaced from time to time, it is clear that this small additional cost would not cause the burden of precautions to outweigh the gravity of the harm threatened when multiplied by the likelihood that it would happen. As for the precaution of a warning, the defendants' expert objected to a warning attached to the power line poles because, he contended, it would present danger to workers climbing the poles. He apparently had no criticism of other types of warnings as presenting any danger to electrical workers. The power company argues generally, however, that no warning would have been effective as to Levi because he knew of the existence of the uninsulated line and nevertheless encountered the danger. The purpose of a duty or standard of care requiring a warning, however, is to attract and arrest the attention of a potential victim. It assumes both the possibility and probability of his inattention. Although such a legal obligation is not imposed to protect the utterly indifferent or foolhardy, at the same time, however, its protection is not restricted to those whose senses are precisely attuned to the prospect of the particular warning called for. Hailey v. Texas & P. Ry., 113 La. 533, 37 So. 131 (1904); cf. Bloxom v. Bloxom, 512 So.2d 839 (La. 1987); See Malone, Cause In Fact, 9 Standford L.Rev. 60, 74 (1956). The evidence does not indicate that Levi would have been oblivious to a warning sign or an orange ball warning on the power line at the E.C. Stuart well site. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe that if such a warning had been posted, because of the absence of warnings at other well sites (due to lack of necessity for them there), Levi's attention would have been drawn to the warning, causing him to be more attentive to the danger. The expert witness for the defendants apparently could find no fault with the suggested precautions of elevation of the line to a height safely above the reach of masted equipment or the precaution of underground installations. He was not asked about either safeguard and he did not volunteer any information on them. When the components of the evidence are brought into relief and weighed in the light of their interrelationships, reasonable minds must agree that the minimal burden of adequate precautions was clearly outweighed by the product of the chance and the gravity of the harm. Accordingly, the power company was guilty of negligence that was a legal cause of plaintiff's injuries, or, in other words, the company breached its duty to take precautions against the risk that took effect as those injuries, and the lower courts committed manifest error in not reaching this conclusion. For the reasons assigned, the judgment of the court of appeal is reversed, the judgment of the trial court is set aside, and the case is remanded to the court of appeal for it to review the balance of the merits of the controversy and to render a judgment consistently with this court's opinion. REVERSED AND REMANDED TO THE COURT OF APPEAL. MARCUS, J., concurs and assigns reasons. LEMMON, J., dissents and assigns reasons. COLE, J., dissents for reasons assigned by LEMMON, J.