Court Opinion

ID: 9848355
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:17:51.611369+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:15.343109
License: Public Domain

DENECKE, J.,
specially concurring.
A majority of this court in Pozsgai v. Porter, 249 Or 84, 435 P2d 818 (1967), announced a rule of negligence per se for vehicle operation statutes. I dissented from that decision; however, this is now the accepted rule and I will no longer note my dissent.
This court, however, has not, prior to the opinion in the instant case, specifically approved negligence per se instructions such as here given. In my opinion such instructions are confusing and illustrate the fallacy of the majority view of negligence per se. In essence these instructions are as follows: Negligence is doing or failing to do something which a reasonably prudent person would do or not do, except that violation of a statute is negligence regardless of whether one acted as a reasonably prudent person, except that violation of a statute is excused if one has acted as a reasonably prudent person.
O’Connell, J., joins in this specially concurring opinion.