Court Opinion

ID: 9852471
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:30:58.50381+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:28.400238
License: Public Domain

CARMODY, Justice (dissenting). I must dissent from the majority opinion, principally because I am convinced that the deceased boy was contributorily negligent as a matter of law. Certain facts do not appear in the majority opinion which, in my judgment, need be mentioned, in order to demonstrate the fallacy in the opinion of the court. It should be observed that this- is not an attractive nuisance case. The construction v ork had been proceeding for several months and the decedent had been warned by his parents not to go to the construction area “because it was dangerous.” The testimony is uncontradicted that the manhole had been excavated for at least four weeks and was only fifty to seventy-five feet from the deceased’s home. The hole had become filled with water, as a result of abnormally heavy rains which occurred over the preceding weekend. When the body was recovered, it was clothed in swimming trunks. The boy was of normal intelligence in every way, and there is nothing in the record to show otherwise. With these additional facts in mind, the failure to find contributory negligence as a matter of law places sympathy above the settled law. The effect of today’s decision is to practically make a contractor an insurer of the safety of children, no matter what deviltry the child becomes involved in, as long as that particular deviltry is the same type of thing exercised by children of a similar age, capacity, discretion, knowledge and experience, under similar circumstances. I pose the question: It is frequently claimed that most children are inclined to be reckless in the operation of automobiles; would this fact, if it is a fact, result in the conclusion that, no matter how reckless a child may be in operating an automobile, as long as other children do the same thing, he should not be found contributorily negligent? I do not believe this to be the law, and cannot conceive that the majority intend to propound such a broad rule. The majority refer to Mellas v. Lowdermilk, 1954, 58 N.M. 363, 271 P.2d 399, and distinguish that case on the contributory negligence phase by saying the statements made therein are dicta. Admittedly, the closing portion of the Mellas opinion held that the trial court was in error in failing to sustain a motion for a directed verdict because there was no evidence tending to show the defendants guilty of the wrongful acts charged. In the opinion, however, the court went to some lengths to examine the record and stated that the decedent in that case was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law. An examination of the briefs filed in Mellas discloses that the contributory negligence question was fully presented and argued to the court. A large portion of the opinion is devoted to the contributory negligence question, and, in the some nine years since the Mellas decision, in my judgment, the Bar has considered that the rule as to contributory negligence therein announced is the law of the State of New Mexico. It is the law that when more than one question is raised and argued, even though one point might have disposed of the entire case on the merits, the determination of the other question or questions is not dicta. United States v. Title Ins. Co., 1924, 265 U.S. 472, 44 S.Ct. 621, 68 L.Ed. 1110; Woodard v. Pacific Fruit & Produce Co., 1940, 165 Or. 250, 106 P.2d 1043; Stormo v. City of Dell Rapids, 1955, 75 S.D. 582, 70 N.W.2d 831. Mellas is direct authority, not dicta, that a legal presumption exists that a child of nine years of age had the capacity to comprehend and avoid the danger he incurred in that case. As was - stated in Mellas, quoting from Restatement of the Law, § 339(e): “ * * * The purpose of the duty [of a possessor of land] is to protect children from dangers which they are unlikely to appreciate and not to protect them against harm resulting from their own immature recklessness in the case of known danger. * * * ” The majority merely say that Mellas is distinguishable. This is understandable, because unless some distinction can be found (which I do not believe exists), the Mellas case would have to be overruled because of its announced rule as to the legal presumption of capacity to comprehend and avoid the danger, i. e., drowning. I believe such a presumption exists and the defendants were entitled to its benefits in this case. A presumption operates to protect or shield a person in whose favor it is invoked until credible and substantial evidence to the contrary is introduced, and it thereupon vanishes. Hartford Fire Insurance Co. v. Horne, 1959, 65 N.M. 440, 338 P.2d 1067. As stated, in the instant case there is not one word of testimony to the effect that the deceased, aged fourteen years and five months, did not have the capacity to comprehend and avoid the danger, and it therefore follows that he should have fully comprehended the danger and that he did not use care and self-control to avoid it. He was contributorily negligent as a matter of law. The majority cite Selby v. Tolbert, 1952, 56 N.M. 718, 249 P.2d 498, and Thompson v. Anderman, 1955, 59 N.M. 400, 285 P.2d 507, as to what is negligence on the part of a child fourteen years of age. The Selby case was an attractive nuisance one and related to an eight-year-old boy. The Thompson case was a pedestrian-automobile-bus case, involving a thirteen-year-old child with the mentality of a ten-year-old. Neither case involved drowning and nothing in either is authority in support of what is negligence on the part of a fourteen-year-old. The majority also cite the article in 47 California Law Review 427, which really has no application to our case, because it is a discussion by Dean Prosser as to the attractive nuisance doctrine and his suggestion as to how the Restatement of Torts 'relating to the doctrine might be revised. ■It is interesting to note, however, that the ■majority refer to pages 461-2 in the above article, but ignore completely the following paragraph on page 461: “The one basic reason for a rule which distinguishes trespassing children from trespassing adults is the inability of the child to protect himself against the peril which he encounters. If that reason does not exist, it has been generally agreed that the whole policy of the special rule fails with it. The courts have been very firm in their insistence that if the child is in fact fully aware of the condition, understands and appreciates the danger which it carries, and is quite able to avoid it, he stands in no better position than any adult with similar knowledge and understanding. The question is not what the defendant may expect of him, but what he understands in fact.” (Emphasis added.) The majority, without reliance upon any authority, state, in effect, that they do not believe there is a different rule involved where ponds or lakes cause injury, as distinguished from other dangerous instrumentalities. There is an extensive annotation in 8 A.L.R.2d 1254, and it appears that, in a great majority of the jurisdictions, recovery for the drowning of a fourteen-year-old child (and in many cases much younger) is denied, unless there is some hidden inherent danger. The rule is even applied in the few jurisdictions which recognize the attractive nuisance doctrine in drowning cases. Court after court has refused to allow recovery on the basis that it is a matter of common knowledge that the perils of water are instinctively known by children, even of a tender age. Melendez v. City of Los Angeles, 1937, 8 Cal.2d 741, 68 P.2d 971; Phipps v. Mitze, 1947, 116 Colo. 288, 180 P.2d 233; McCall v. McCallie, 1933, 48 Ga.App. 99, 171 S.E. 843; Heimann v. Kinnare, 1901, 190 Ill. 156, 60 N.E. 215, 52 L.R.A. 652; Plotzki v. Standard Oil Co. of Indiana, 1950, 228 Ind. 518, 92 N.E.2d 632; Harriman v. Incorporated Town of Afton, 1938, 225 Iowa 659, 281 N.W. 183; McKenna v. City of Shreveport, 1931, 16 La.App. 234, 133 So. 524; Van Alst v. Kansas City, 1945, 239 Mo.App. 346, 186 S.W.2d 762; City of Mangum v. Powell, 1946, 196 Okl. 306, 165 P.2d 136; Morris v. City of Britton, 1938, 66 S.D. 121, 279 N.W. 531; Massie v. Copeland, 1950, 149 Tex. 319, 233 S.W.2d 449; Washabaugh v. Northern Virginia Const. Co., 1948, 187 Va. 767, 48 S.E.2d 276; Brady v. Chicago & N. W. R. Co., 1954, 265 Wis. 618, 62 N.W.2d 415; contra, King v. Lennen, 1959, 53 Cal.2d 340, 348 P.2d 98 (involving a 1½-year-old child and disapproving Melendez v. City of Los Angeles, supra, insofar as applicable to children too young to appreciate the danger). Finally, with reference to the statement made by the majority as to the correct test in determining contributory negligence, I cannot believe it is applicable to this case •and, as stated, do not feel it is proper in any instance. Nevertheless, the above cited cases, each involving drowning, are but a few of those from the various jurisdictions in the United States which apply a rule contrary to that announced by the majority. Actually, it is very difficult to find cases holding the other way, and, although there are a few, the results therein reached are based upon some special factor which I am unable to find in this case. The fact that a concrete form was floating on the. pond as it filled with rain water is hardly justification for the announced ruling. Neither should the fact that the pool was in the street have any bearing upon the question of contributory negligence. The boy went into the pond, clothed for swimming, with full knowledge and comprehension of the dangers involved; he had been warned by his parents; he was a normal, healthy boy of almost fourteen and a half years. It is beyond belief that such a boy, living within seventy-five feet of the pool, did not know the depth of the hole and the obvious dangers in voluntarily swimming therein. I recognize that there probably should not be any fixed age at which a child is presumed capable of using the same judgment as an adult, Thompson v. Anderman, supra; but I am firmly of the opinion that the happening of the accident to this boy, over the age of fourteen, should not be sufficient to take the case to the jury, absent some showing on the part of the plaintiff which would rebut the presumption that the child failed to comprehend and avoid the dangers involved under the circumstances. I observe that Mr. Justice NOBLE also disagrees with the majority opinion, although on a different basis than I. While neither approving nor disapproving of Justice NOBLE’S analysis, in my judgment the contributory negligence of the deceased as a matter of law is determinative. Therefore, I dissent from the majority opinion.