Opinion ID: 867601
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: In the court of appeals

Text: ¶ 13 We set out the reasoning of the court of appeals' majority and dissent in some detail because it clearly defines some of the issues as well as encompasses most of the arguments the parties make in this court. The majority first concluded that Gunnell violated the Underground Facilities Act by treating the line as abandoned and by cutting the line before having identified the pipe's true owner. Gunnell, 199 Ariz. at 385-86 ¶¶ 13-15, 18 P.3d at 179-80 ¶¶ 13-15. The court then rejected Gunnell's claim that principles of comparative negligence should apply if Gunnell were found negligent, holding that under A.R.S. § 40-360.28(B), Gunnell's negligent conduct was a superseding cause of the explosion. Id. at 387 ¶¶ 22-23, 18 P.3d at 181 ¶¶ 22-23. Acknowledging that this conclusion was inconsistent with Arizona's common law rule governing intervening and superceding causation, [11] the majority explained its holding as follows: The legislature determined, by writing the Act as it did, that the acts or omissions of either a facilities owner or excavator constitute something similar to the common law's intervening and superceding cause. But because the causation element for liability for the damages in this case is governed by statute, rather than common law, we need not defer to and endeavor to apply the common law's rules governing intervening and superceding causation. Id., ¶ 23, 18 P.3d 176. Thus, if an excavator, as the last in the line of [negligently] responsible parties, fails to comply with the conduct the statute requires, comparative negligence does not apply. Id. at 388 ¶ 25, 18 P.3d at 182 ¶ 25. Not only is the excavator barred from any recovery, he is liable as a matter of law for damage to the line and must indemnify the line's owner against any damages for which the negligent owner may be liable to any third party. Id. ¶ 14 The dissent disagreed with this reading of the Underground Facilities Act. Pointing out that APS was liable to the injured party under A.R.S. § 40-360.28(C) for failing to correctly locate its lines and that Gunnell was liable to the owner and third parties under subsection B of the same statute, the dissent noted that neither subsection purports to trump the other and the court's job should be to harmonize the two provisions Id., ¶¶ 31-32, 18 P.3d 176 (Fidel, J. dissenting). This could be accomplished with a fault-based proportionate allocation under the comparative negligence statutes. If the legislature wanted, it could explicitly adopt the interpretation followed by the majority; but the legislature did not profess to do so, so we should not use our interpretive powers to attribute to a silent statute an intent so inconsistent with Arizona's fundamental law of torts. Id. at 390 ¶ 43, 18 P.3d at 184 ¶ 43. ¶ 15 We disagree in part with both the majority and the dissent.