Opinion ID: 1540571
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Child and Adult in This Case Apportionment of Comparative Negligence

Text: Under Delaware law, the trier of fact must conclude that at least two parties each failed to satisfy the requisite standard of care and was a proximate cause of the resultant injury, i.e., each was negligent, before undertaking any analysis of their comparative negligence. 10 Del.C. § 8132. The Superior Court judge properly distinguished these two separate stages of his analysis: negligence and comparative negligence. He also decided those issues in the appropriate sequence. First, he concluded that both Mr. Moffitt and the minor plaintiff [Carroll] were negligent each in a manner which was a proximate cause of the accident. Only then did the Superior Court judge proceed with the second stage of his analysis, which required a comparative apportionment of negligence between Moffitt and Carroll. Understood in context, the Superior Court judge's statement that [t]he degree of [Carroll's] negligence is reduced as a result of his being only seven and one-half years of age simply reiterates that a separate standard of care was properly applied by the trial judge, because of Carroll's young age, only as a subpart (standard of care) of the first stage of his analysis (negligence) in determining whether Carroll was negligent. This contextual reading is supported by the fact that the sentence which precedes the above-quoted language is the one in which the judge announced this conclusion: [Carroll] was contributorily negligent by failing to see the car. Thus, the record reflects that the Superior Court judge did not apply a separate standard in the second stage of his analysis, which required him to determine the relative causative effect of the child's [Carroll's] and the adult's [Moffitt's] combined negligence. Accordingly, the Superior Court committed no error of law in the apportionment of comparative negligence between Moffitt and Carroll. The Superior Court's finding that Moffitt was 80 percent at fault and Carroll 20 percent at fault is supported by the record and was the result of an orderly and logical deductive process. Levitt v. Bouvier, Del.Supr., 287 A.2d 671, 673 (1972). Therefore, the Superior Court's decision on the apportionment of comparative negligence is affirmed.