Court Opinion

ID: 9445160
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:21:23.385259+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:08.930258
License: Public Domain

RIVES, Circuit Judge
(specially concurring) .
In holding that the appellant was negligent, that the appellee had not assumed the risk, and in determining the extent of the contributory negligence chargeable to the appellee, the district court of its own motion considered an unusual situation which existed, according to its statement, in the Canal Zone:
“In the Canal Zone there exists an unusual situation as to tenancy. The employees of the Panama Canal Company also look to it for housing and although they exercise some *169preference in making application for available housing as there are various rental levels, they are still subject to assignment and must take what they are told to take by the housing authorities and have no rights of selection such as exist in a locality where everything is not government owned and there is competitive free enterprise. Therefore, if the plaintiff were dissatisfied with conditions she could not readily move into the apartment building of a competitor because the company is the sole owner and there are no competitors and she and her husband must deal with the company to get a new assignment or in fact any assignment at all.”
The district court’s opinion containing that statement was delivered on December 28, 1954. The court then continued the case to February 2, 1955, “in order to give counsel for the defendant time in which to advise the Court whether or not they desire to submit proof on the factual assumptions which the Court took judicial notice thereof.” On that date the entry shows, “Come counsel for the defendant and state that they do not want to offer additional proof for the reason that the matter is not at issue.” The case was again continued for argument, and on February 16, 1955 the final judgment was entered.
My brothers think that the “captive tenant” theory was advanced by the district court merely arguendo and that its consideration was completely innocuous. I cannot, in good conscience, brush aside so easily the “captive tenant” theory.
As pointed out in footnotes 6 and 7, supra, “assumption of risk” in two senses must be considered in determining whether the defendant owed the plaintiff any legal duty. If the appellee had assumed the risk, as the term is used in those senses, then the appellant was not negligent and the judgment should be reversed. In thet meaning of non-negligence, therefore, “assumption of risk” remained in this case.
That the district court considered the “captive tenant” theory most material in its consideration of assumption of risk clearly appears from the part of its opinion quoted in the margin.1
Likewise, the reasonableness of the conduct which might constitute negligence on the part of the appellant or contributory negligence on the part of the appellee was to be determined by the totality of all of the facts and circumstances. Here too, according to its opinion,2 the district court considered its *170"captive tenant” theory to be material. So viewing the case, I must meet squarely the fifth specification of error.
The saving grace of the ruling, I think, is that the district court expressly recognized the right of the appellant to dispute the matter judicially noticed by evidence if it believed it disputable,3 thus differing from those courts which refuse to hear evidence concerning matters of which they take judicial notice.4 The failure of the appellee to plead the matter, or otherwise to call it to the court’s attention, could not, in my opinion, deprive the court of the right to notice the matter pertinent to the issues within both its personal and judicial knowledge.5
We should, I think, recognize the superior opportunity for knowledge possessed by the distdict court as to matters of local notoriety in the Canal Zone.6 The district court exercises a broad discretion in finding whether a matter of fact is of sufficient notoriety to call for its judicial notice,7 and if, as here, there is an opportunity for rebuttal, judicial notice is not too harmful. In the absence of evidence on behalf of appellant, I think that we are not in position to say that the district court abused its discretion. An appellate court can and will take judicial notice of local conditions within the judicial knowledge of the trial court, when such knowledge is brought into the record as in this case.8
I, therefore, concur in the judgment of affirmance.

. “The picture presented to the court therefore is one of assigned housing to captive tenants and a defective unlighted stairway about which the plaintiff and her husband, the tenants, were complaining. 8 Harvard Law Rev. 470, 471, in a discussion of the difference between contributory negligence and the doctrine of Volenti non fit injuria, the writer said:
“ ‘A person does not necessarily assume the risk of the defendant’s negligent action, even if he knows of it. Thus, if A. knows that B. drives his cab carelessly and that he has run down many persons, A. does not necessarily assume the risk of being knocked down, by simply crossing a street in which he knows B. to be driving.’
“The writer further states:
“ ‘Where the relation between plaintiff and defendant is forced upon the plaintiff •' by the defendant’s action, then if the plaintiff is hurt, even with knowledge of the danger, it does not lie in the defendant’s mouth to say “Yes, but you assumed the risk of my misconduct.” The plaintiff may well say “it was not my choice. The danger and risk of making the choice was forced upon me by your action.” ’ ”
“Plaintiff’s only choice lay in resignation by her husband and a return hundreds of miles to the United States or removal to Panama, a foreign country with high rentals and conditions difficult for employees of the defendant coupled with immigration problems and inaccessibility to iie employment of plaintiff’s husband. The other alternative lay in securing another assignment from the defendant and as shown by the evidence, the same conditions existed in many similar houses.”

. “The Court in view of these circumstances is of the opinion therefore that the defendant owes an even higher degree *170of care than would ordinarily be imposed upon landlords because the tenants in this socialized form of housing are so greatly limited in their power of selection and their ability to move from a hazardous or dangerous condition.”
The term “higher degree of care”, I think, does not refer to a different legal standard, but means simply a different amount of care as a matter of fact.
“The concept of degrees of negligence, designated as ‘slight,’ ‘ordinary,’ and ‘gross,’ which appears to have been introduced into the common law from the civil law as it was expounded by scholastic jurists of the Middle Ages, is disapproved By the majority of modern common-law authorities as impracticable, and inconsistent with the theory upon which liability for negligence is imposed.” 38 Am.Jur., Negligence, § 43, p. 688.
See also, Prosser, Law of Torts, 2nd ed., p. 149; 65 C.J.S., Negligence, § 8(a).

. See Ohio Bell Tel. Co. v. Public Utilities Commission, 301 U.S. 292, 302, 57 S.Ct. 724, 81 L.Ed. 1093; United States v. Aluminum Co. of America, 2 Cir., 148 F.2d 416, 446; In re Bowling Green Miling Co., 6 Cir., 132 F.2d 279.

. See 20 Am.Jur., Evidence, § 26; 9 Wig-more on Evidence 3rd ed., § 2567.

. Lilly v. Grand Trunk W. R. Co., 317 U.S. 481, 488, 489, 63 S.Ct. 347, 87 L.Ed. 411; 20 Am.Jur., Evidence, § 25; cf. 9 Wigmore on Evidence, 3rd ed., § 2568.

. In re Bowling Green Milling Co., 6 Cir., 132 F.2d 279, 284.

. 31 C.J.S., Evidence, § 13 d. 9 Wigmore on Evidence, 3rd ed., §§ 2580, 2583 ; 20 Am.Jur., Evidence, §§ 18-20, 108.

. 3 Am.Jur., Appeal & Error, § 834, p. 376; 20 Am.Jur., Evidence, § 20; 31 C.J.S., Evidence, § 13 b.