Court Opinion

ID: 9621562
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:00:27.52154+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:05.510370
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION OF
LEVINSON, J.
I dissent.
I would reverse the case and remand for a new trial on the “pure” comparative negligence theory. In Bissen v. Fujii, 51 Haw. 636, 640, 466 P.2d 429, 432 (1970), I set out my view in a comprehensive dissenting opinion that ample grounds for judicial action existed to justify the adoption of some form of comparative negligence rather than contributory negligence. I further concluded that “pure,” rather than “partial,” comparative negligence was preferable. The majority thought differently, however, and exercised “judicial restraint” allowing contributory negligence to remain the law of Hawaii prior to the effec*137tive date of the comparative negligence statute.
By perpetuating the doctrine of contributory negligence the majority now becomes involved in the vagaries of the doctrine of “last clear chance” — an artificial doctrine which has been judicially created to mitigate the harshness of the operation of contributory negligence as a complete bar to recovery. Prosser, Law of Torts § 65 at 438 (3d ed. 1964).1 If the doctrine of “last clear chance” applies the entire burden is shifted back onto the defendant who must then pay the full amount of the plaintiff’s damages despite the fact that the plaintiff was negligent. Either the plaintiff gets everything or he gets nothing; no middle ground is possible under the equally absurd doctrines of “contributory negligence” and “last clear chance.”
That this court should perpetuate such a result is difficult to understand in light of its ability to pioneer with new legal doctrine and its reluctance to accept legal dilemmas in other areas of the law.2 The unacceptability of the *138choice of all or no liability presented by this case should serve as a reminder that “judicial restraint” should never ■be allowed to cover up inequitable lacunae in the law of Hawaii.

Of the basis for the doctrine of last clear chance Dean Prosser, supra at 438, says:
The real explanation would seem to he a dislike for the defense of contributory negligence which has. made the courts rebel at its application in many situations, and • accept without reasoning the conclusion that the last wrongdoer is necessarily the worst wrongdoer, or at least the decisive one, and should pay. The doctrine has been called a transitional one, a way station on the road to apportionment of damages; but its effect has been to freeze the transition rather than to speed it. As an ultimate just solution, it is obviously inadequate, since, except in a few cases where a part of the plaintiff’s damages have occurred before the “last clear chance,” it merely transfers from the plaintiff to the defendant an entire loss due to the fault of both, [footnotes omitted].

 See Pickard v. City and County of Honolulu, 51 Haw. 134, 452 P.2d 445 (1969) (licensee-invitee dichotomy rejected); Loui v. Oakley, 50 Haw. 260, 438 P.2d 393 (1968) (rough apportionment among several tortfeasors allowed). See also Tamashiro v. De Gama, 51 Haw. 74, 450 P.2d 998 (1968) (parent-child immunity abolished); In re Estate of C. Q. Yee Hop, 52 Haw. 40, 469 P.2d 183 (1970) (cy pres doctrine used in trust violating Rule against Perpetuities); Stewart v. Budget Rent-A-Car, 52 Haw. 71, 470 P.2d 240 (1970) (strict products liability in tort adopted).