Court Opinion

ID: 9748512
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:04:24.259947+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:36.500980
License: Public Domain

LAMBERT, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
Respectfully, I dissent from the majority opinion and would both reaffirm Bass v. Williams1 and affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals.
With the adoption of comparative negligence this state abandoned a legal relic, the sudden emergency doctrine. Sudden emergency instructions serve only to confuse the jury and are incompatible with comparative negligence. As the Court of Appeals well reasoned, “The instruction has a quality to it that diminishes the duties of the defendant-driver ... and is-in violation of the ‘direct proportion to fault’ concept ...”2 When a sudden emergency instruction is given, a lower standard of care is granted to the defendant, and his failure to exercise care appropriate to the circumstances is excused. Under comparative negligence, “[f]ault is determined by breach of duties and that is the sole factor upon which liability is fixed.”3 Every driver has a general duty to exercise ordinary care.4 “[T]he instruction on sudden emergency is unnecessary and potentially confusing and serves to overemphasize one portion of the case.”5
In my view, the majority opinion is a retreat from a modern and enlightened statement of law. While other states are moving away from the sudden emergency doctrine, we have done an about face without any indication of a demonstrable need for such action. Stare decisis is a legal principle that directs us to uphold our previous decisions, unless there is a sound legal and logical reason to do otherwise.6 Bass represents a sound judicial decision that has served this Court and this state well for twelve years.
The reasons supporting abandonment of the sudden emergency doctrine were well *7stated by the Supreme Court of Mississippi as follows:
The hazard of relying on the doctrine of “sudden emergency” is the tendency to evaluate its principles above what is required to be proven in a negligence action. Even the wording of a well-drawn instruction intimates that ordinary rules of negligence do not apply to the circumstances constituting the claimed “sudden emergency.” Also it tends to confuse the principle of comparative negligence that is well ingrained in the jurisprudence of this State. The fallacy is pointed out in the instruction itself when after seemingly commenting on the evidence, the court instructs that the defendant should have “used the same degree of care that a reasonably prudent automobile driver would have used under the same or similar unusual circumstances.” In this Court’s opinion, the same rules of negligence should apply to all circumstances in a negligence action and these rules of procedure adequately provide for instructions on negligence.7
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We conclude, therefore, that the orderly disposal of negligence cases would be best served by applying uniform principles of negligence under all circumstances.8
This view has been followed by a number of other jurisdictions.9 Until now, Kentucky has been in harmony with this modern view.
A simple jury instruction apportioning fault eliminates any need for the sudden emergency instruction. In negligence cases, instructions are designed to apportion between or among the parties. Such apportionment obviously permits a determination that a party had no fault whatsoever. The sudden emergency doctrine is simply unnecessary and will disserve the fact-finding process.
For the reasons stated herein, I dissent.
GRAVES and STUMBO, JJ., join this dissenting opinion.

. Bass v. Williams, Ky.App., 839 S.W.2d 559 (1992).

. Id. at 562-63.

. Id. at 563.

. Wemyss v. Coleman, Ky., 729 S.W.2d 174, 180 (1987).

. Dunleavy v. Miller, 116 N.M. 353, 862 P.2d 1212, 1218 (1993).

. Hilen v. Hays, Ky., 673 S.W.2d 713 (1984).

. Knapp v. Stanford, 392 So.2d 196, 198 (Miss.1980).

. Id. at 199.

.See Wiles v. Webb, 329 Ark. 108, 946 S.W.2d 685 (1997); Dunleavy v. Miller, 116 N.M. 353, 862 P.2d 1212; McClymont v. Morgan, 238 Neb. 390, 470 N.W.2d 768 (1991); Simonson v. White, 220 Mont. 14, 713 P.2d 983 (1986).