Court Opinion

ID: 9603104
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:03:16.692164+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:08.436049
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
specially concurring.
In regard to the liability of contractors for injuries to third parties which resulted from negligent work, many courts have adopted the so-called “modern rule” of foreseeability:
[A] building or construction contractor is liable for injuries to or the death of third persons, occurring after the acceptance of the completed work by the contractee, where the work is reasonably certain to endanger third persons if negligently prepared or constructed. 13 Am.Jur.2d Building and Construction Contracts § 140 (1964).
This rule has been reached by analogy with and parallel to the identical development of law in the area of products liability:
[I]t is now the generally accepted view that the liability of a contractor is the same as that imposed upon a manufacturer for injuries to ultimate consumers resulting from defective products. Under this view a contractor is held to the standard of reasonable care for the protection of third parties who may foreseeably be endangered by his negligence, even after acceptance of the work by the contractee, and the early theory that lack of privity of contract between the contractor and the injured third person was a valid defense no longer prevails. This so-called newer or “modern” view is applied in cases in which the contractor’s work was imperfectly performed, and the danger, from which injury was foreséeable, arose from such defective performance; in such cases the duty of proper performance is clearly owing and it is a breach of that duty which results in the injury. 41 Am. Jur.2d Independent Contractors § 50 (1968).
In Bush v. Albert D. Wardell Contractor, Inc., 165 Mont. 312, 528 P.2d 215 (1974), the architect’s plans for a building did not require any ties between 8 inch and 4 inch block walls which were built one inch apart. The contractor on making the observation that such construction was fraught with potential danger told the defendant subcontractor to build the 4 inch wall using the stabilizing ties protruding from the 8 inch wall. The defendant then built the wall 18 feet high using some of the ties but bending the majority of them over. About one week later the wall collapsed injuring the plaintiff. In affirming a jury verdict for the plaintiff the court at 217 and 218 of 528 P.2d said:
Since all the persons involved in this incident agreed that an unsupported, four inch wall of this height would be dangerously unstable, the evidence at least created a jury question as to whether a reasonably prudent and skillful contractor would have acted as defendant did.
*193The same considerations would apply to defendant’s failure to externally brace the wall, and to defendant’s one-step construction to a height of eighteen feet. It is true that no one told defendant to use braces or to proceed in steps, but the jury properly could determine whether a reasonable man with defendant’s knowledge of the wall’s instability would have taken such precautions.
Many other jurisdictions have adopted the rule that a contractor is liable for foreseeable injuries that arise due to his negligence even after acceptance of his work. Wright v. Creative Corporation, 30 Colo.App. 575, 498 P.2d 1179 (1972);. Talley v. Skelly Oil Company, 199 Kan. 767, 433 P.2d 425 (1967); Strandholm v. General Construction Company, 235 Or. 145, 382 P.2d 843 (1963); Strakos v. Gehring, 360 S.W.2d 787 (Tex.1962); Tipton v. Clower, 67 N.M. 388, 356 P.2d 46 (1960); Tomchik v. Julian, 171 Cal.App.2d 138, 340 P.2d 72 (1959); Russell v. Arthur Whitcomb, Inc., 100 N.H. 171, 121 A.2d 781 (1956); Hanna v. Fletcher, 97 U.S.App.D.C. 310, 231 F.2d 469 (1956), cert. den., 351 U.S. 989, 76 S.Ct. 1051, 100 L.Ed. 1501 (1956).
In the present case, it cannot be said as a matter of law that Northwest did not know or was not chargeable with knowing that the awning was defective in a manner which foreseeably could lead to injury.
As stated above, the rule of liability for foreseeable injury has thus replaced a rule of non-liability with many exceptions. The precise significance in a summary judgment case such as this one is that the question of foreseeability is one for the jury. Therefore, it was error for the trial court to grant Northwest’s motion for summary judgment.