Court Opinion

ID: 9672500
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:55:59.849262+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:16.631571
License: Public Domain

EUGENE A. BURDICK, Surrogate Judge,
specially concurring.
While I fully subscribe to the foregoing opinion, I share the view of the Garretts that a violation of a statutory standard of conduct is an act of negligence or negligence per se. This was the view of the Supreme Court of this State in a series of early decisions. George v. Odenthal, 58 N.D. 209, 225 N.W. 323 (1929); Johnson v. Mpls., St. Paul & S.S.M. Ry. Co., 54 N.D. 351, 209 N.W. 786 (1926). This position was reversed without rationale in Renschler v. Baltzer, 95 N.W.2d 574 (N.D.1959), and the Renschler, id., view was then followed in Hillius v. Wagner, 152 N.W.2d. 468 (N.D.1967), and Erdahl v. Hegg, 98 N.W.2d 217 (N.D.1959). Because this Court of Appeals is guided by the most recent pronouncements of the Supreme Court, the Hillius, id., holding must be followed until it is modified by the Supreme Court or by the Legislative Assembly.
In my view, the Legislative Assembly not only has authority to prescribe standards of care, but a failure to observe a statutory standard of care is an act of negligence. Whether or not the violation of a statutory standard of care is a proximate cause of an injury is a separate, distinct question. For example, the statutory rules of the road require a motorist to have a lighted red tail light while driving at night.' Failure to have the lighted red tail light while driving at night is clearly an act of negligence and not merely evidence of negligence. However, that act of negligence cannot possibly be a causative factor in a head-on collision, but it is likely a crucial, causative factor in a rear-end collision with the deficiently lighted vehicle. By holding that the violation of a statutory standard of conduct is “evidence of negligence,” the Supreme Court has confused actionable negligence with proximate cause. In applying the law of negligence, before liability can be imposed, the trier of fact must not only find the act of negligence upon which the claim is predicated. It must also find that the act of negligence was a proximate cause of the injury involved. See NDJI-CIVIL 115.