Opinion ID: 1967970
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: general standard of care

Text: SPECIFIC STANDARD OF CARE Turning to a consideration of the nature of the obligation owed by a manufacturer, wholesaler or retailer, we note that this is not an ordinary products liability case where the plaintiff seeks to recover by proving a defect in the product without carrying the burden of proving fault or negligence. Moning's claim is grounded in negligence. He asserts that his damage was caused by the fault of the defendants. In a negligence case, the standard of conduct is reasonable or due care. 2 The Restatement Torts, 2d, § 283, provides: [T]he standard of conduct to which [the actor] must conform to avoid being negligent is that of a reasonable man under like circumstances. [I]n negligence cases, the duty is always the same, to conform to the legal standard of reasonable conduct in the light of the apparent risk. Prosser, Torts, supra, § 53, p 324. It is the application of that general standard of conduct to the marketing of slingshots to children, the specific standard of care  not whether there is a duty of due care in such marketing  that is the primary area of disagreement in this case. Manufacturing and marketing slingshots necessarily creates a risk of harm. Moning does not, however, contend that manufacturing and marketing slingshots is negligence per se. His contention, rather, is that marketing them directly to children creates an unreasonable risk of harm. Moning relies on the doctrine of negligent entrustment, one of the many specific rules concerning particular conduct that have evolved in the application of the general standard of care. A person who supplies an article to a child which may pose a reasonable risk of harm in the hands of an adult but which poses an unreasonable risk of harm in the hands of a child is subject to liability for resulting harm: One who supplies directly or through a third person a chattel for the use of another whom the supplier knows or has reason to know to be likely because of his youth, inexperience, or otherwise, to use it in a manner involving unreasonable risk of physical harm to himself and others whom the supplier should expect to share in or be endangered by its use, is subject to liability for physical harm resulting to them. 2 Restatement Torts, 2d, § 390. [18] The common law has long recognized that a parent or other responsible adult who entrusts a potentially dangerous instrumentality to a child may be subject to liability. [19] Liability arises from [the defendant's] active misconduct; he has actually created an unreasonable risk to others by placing a chattel in the hands of a person whose use thereof is likely to create a recognizable risk to third persons. [20] The obligation to guard or secure objects which are dangerous to children arises because of the likelihood of their own intermeddling. [21] Persons dealing with children must take notice of the ordinary nature of young boys, their tendency to do mischievous acts, and their propensity to meddle with anything that came in their way. [22] Special rules for children are not unusual. The attractive nuisance doctrine, an exception to the general rule limiting the liability of landowners for injuries to trespassers, [23] is based on the child's inability to appreciate danger and his inclination to explore without regard to the risk. The doctrine does not depend on the landowner's knowledge that the individual child is incompetent. The doctrine of negligent entrustment is not peculiar to automobiles but rather an ordinary application of general principles for determining whether a person's conduct was reasonable in light of the apparent risk. [24] It is grounded in the general principle that a reasonable person will have in mind the immaturity, inexperience and carelessness of children. If, taking those traits into account, a reasonable person would recognize that his conduct involves a risk of creating an invasion of the child's or some other person's interest, he is required to recognize that his conduct does involve such a risk. He should realize that the inexperience and immaturity of young children may lead them to act innocently in a way which an adult would recognize as culpably careless, and that older children are peculiarly prone to conduct which they themselves recognize as careless or even reckless. 2 Restatement, supra, § 290, comment k. [25] The issue whether the defendants are subject to liability cannot properly be taken from the jury on the supposition that an 11-year-old boy knows how a slingshot operates and, therefore, appreciates the risk. [26] Even if it is thought, without supporting evidence and as a matter of law, that children should be deemed to appreciate the risk, there still may be an unreasonable risk of physical harm to the child and others in marketing slingshots directly to them. Entrusting potentially dangerous articles to a child may pose an unreasonable risk of harm not only because the child may not appreciate the risk or may not have the skill to use the article safely but  even if he does appreciate the risk and does have the requisite skill  because he may recklessly ignore the risk and use the article frivolously due to immaturity of judgment, exuberance of spirit, or sheer bravado. One has no right to demand of a child, or of any other person known to be wanting in ordinary judgment or discretion, a prudence beyond his years or capacity, and therefore in his own conduct, where it may possibly result in injury, a degree of care is required commensurate to the apparent immaturity or imbecility that exposes the other to peril. Thus, a person driving rapidly along a highway where he sees boys engaged in sports, is not at liberty to assume that they will exercise the same discretion in keeping out of his way that would be exercised by others; and ordinary care demands of him that he shall take notice of their immaturity and govern his action accordingly. 3 Cooley, Law of Torts (4th ed), § 490, pp 433-434. Just as the driver of an automobile is expected to take precautions for the safety of children playing near a highway even though children can be expected to appreciate the risk and the driver does not know that the individual children are incompetent to look after themselves, [27] so too a supplier can be expected in marketing a product to take precautions for the safety of children and others even if the child may be expected to appreciate the risk and individual children may both appreciate it and be skilled in using the product. It is for a jury to decide whether any negligence in marketing slingshots directly to children is a cause in fact of plaintiff's loss. [28]