Court Opinion

ID: 9661025
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:26:54.160134+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:24.486280
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Judge
(dissenting).
I have no disagreement with the legal principles discussed in the majority opinion, but the fact basis herein for their application is lacking. Proximate cause of an injury is the immediate cause uninterrupted by a new and independent cause *250which produces the injury. Schmeling v. Jorgensen, 77 S.D. 8, 84 N.W.2d 558. The evidence as to the negligence of Arnold McPherson is without material conflict and reveals that when he bled the tank within the camper that he knew or should have known of the danger created by the negligence of the defendant. Where one who acts negligently was or should have become aware of a potential danger created by the negligence of another and thereafter by an independent act of negligence brings about an accident with injurious consequences to others the first tortfeasor is relieved of liability because the condition created by him was a circumstance and not the proximate cause of the accident. 65 C.J.S. Negligence § 111(2). It may be observed that "if the second actor does not become apprised of the danger arising from the first actor's, negligence until after his own negligence, added to the existing peril, has made an accident with injurious consequences inevitable, both actors are liable, since the negligence of the one concurs with the negligence of the other proximately to cause the injury." 38 Am.Jur., Negligence, § 72. There was no evidence on which the jury could base a finding that McPherson was not apprised of the danger until after his own negligence. I think, therefore, that the claimed errors not affecting the results in the actions were without prejudice and the judgments appealed from should be affirmed.