Court Opinion

ID: 9786881
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 00:04:10.219331+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:49.594723
License: Public Domain

BOSSON, Justice (specially concurring). {39} I fully concur in both the reasoning and the result of Justice Serna’s majority opinion which correctly construes and applies, and perhaps extends, existing New Mexico law. I wish to raise one additional issue. {40} New Mexico courts have been accused of using the foreseeable plaintiff “as a legal fiction for restricting or expanding liability.” Nancy Desiderio, Tort Law-Evolution of Duty in New Mexico: Torres v. State, 26 N.M. L.Rev. 585, 585 (1996). Perhaps our critics are right. Justice Montgomery came close to reexamining the Palsgraf question of whether we should continue to use foreseeable injury to a particular plaintiff as a test of legal duty. Despite concluding that “we do not perceive this case to be a good one in which to reexamine the social policy that limits a tortfeasor’s liability to the foreseeable plaintiff,” Justice Montgomery’s query lingers. Solon v. WEK Drilling Co., 113 N.M. 566, 569, 829 P.2d 645, 648 (1992). {41} Part of the confusion lies in our dual use of the term “foreseeability.” It is used first by the judge as ascertaining whether the defendant owes a legal duty of care, and later by the jury in determining factual issues of breach and causation. Perhaps the better question for the court should be “unforeseeability;” that is, whether no reasonable jury could find the injury foreseeable with respect to the plaintiff. As Justice Ransom has repeatedly reminded us, the overarching question for any court is whether issues of sound legal and social policy trump foreseeability and preclude imposing a duty in a particular case. Id. at 572-53, 829 P.2d at 651-52 (Ransom, C.J., specially concurring); see also Torres v. State, 119 N.M. 609, 612-13, 894 P.2d 386, 389-90 (1995). Perhaps policy issues like remoteness, aided by indications of legislative intent, are the better tools for shaping duty, and we should leave the foreseeable plaintiff for the jury. {42} UJI 13-1604 NMRA 2003 instructs: “Every person has a duty to exercise ordinary care for the safety of the person and the property of others.” (Emphasis omitted.) That sounds more like Judge Andrews’ dissent than Judge Cardozo’s majority opinion in Palsgraf. When we attempt to define legal duty in terms of a foreseeable plaintiff, it is all too tempting to use “foreseeability” as a surrogate for result-oriented conclusions. As Dean Prosser said almost fifty years ago on the difficulties inherent in defining duty in terms of the foreseeable plaintiff: “These are shifting sands, and no fit foundation. There is a duty if the court says there is a duty; the law, like the Constitution, is what we make it.” William L. Prosser, Palsgraf Revisited, 52 Mich. L.Rev. 1-32 (1953). {43} The modern view seems more inclined to classify the issue of the foreseeable plaintiff under proximate cause, normally for the jury to resolve. Restatement (Third) of Torts: Liability for Physical Harm § 6 cmt. f (Tentative Draft No. 2, 2002) (“Whether this requirement of a ‘foreseeable plaintiff is an aspect of the doctrine of duty or instead of the doctrine of proximate cause is a point that the Comment to § 281(b) [Restatement (Second) of Torts] does not make clear. Modern scholars tend to classify the issue of the foreseeable plaintiff under the general heading of proximate cause, as does this Restatement [Third] in Chapter 6.”); see also id. § 29 cmt. n (Scope of Liability). {44} I hope we will hear more on this issue in the future as attitudes change toward Palsgraf.