Court Opinion

ID: 9547494
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:48:05.192125+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:17:48.762330
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
dissenting.
Michael A. Carroll was employed by the Bunker Hill Company as a repairman in its Crescent Mine, a silver producer, near Kellogg, Idaho. On September 18, 1975, he was assigned to “muck out” the mine’s number two shaft, a procedure which entailed cleaning out the ore and rock which had collected at the bottom of the shaft. This task was performed approximately every three weeks, and in the year-and-a-half that Carroll had been employed by Bunker Hill he had performed this operation over a dozen times.
While working in the shaft’s bottom, a “skip” (elevated platform), was positioned approximately 20 feet above him to prevent rocks and debris from falling on him. As Carroll worked, the hoist operator inadvertently released the brake on the skip and it fell to the bottom of the shaft, hitting him and causing serious injuries. Carroll’s injuries included a fractured spine resulting in paralysis from the waist down, a broken ankle, three broken ribs, a punctured lung, injury to an eye and infection which led to gangrene and resulted in a partial amputation. He was nineteen years old at the time of the accident.
The released handbrake was part of a clutch-brake interlock system, which when functioning properly should allow the hoist drum to move, even though the handbrake is released. Tests run by the Mine Enforcement and Safety Administration established that the system had malfunctioned. The record further reflects that proper safety procedures include the use of shoring in the shaft bottom to prevent the skip from falling to the bottom in the case of a malfunction. No such shoring was in use when the accident occurred.
At the time of the accident, Mr. Carroll’s union, United Steelworkers of America (USWA), and Bunker Hill were parties to a collective bargaining agreement which provided for a “joint safety committee” com*722prised of representatives of the USWA, the craft unions and the company. The committee was charged, inter alia, with the task of inspecting the mine for “safe working conditions, procedures and equipment at least once each month.” The agreement also provided that Bunker Hill compensate the members of the committee.
Mr. Carroll asserts that as part of the safety committee, USWA was negligent for its part in failing to develop an adequate program for inspection and safety, in failing to inspect the hoist in an operating configuration so as to discover defects which would appear only during such operation, and by failing to require that additional safety devices be used when workers were required to labor beneath hoists.
USWA moved for summary judgment, which motion was granted. In its memorandum opinion, the district court stated that it was unable to find any duty imposed upon the Union by law, or otherwise, which would give rise to a cause of action in negligence. The district court rendered its decision while conceding that, for purposes of USWA’s motion for summary judgment, it had to be assumed that the “safety committee,” of which USWA was a member, had not inspected nor made “any recommendations regarding safety corrections” —a rather euphemistic way of saying that the committee was negligent in its duties.
The basis for the district court’s decision, which this majority affirms, is that USWA had no duty whatsoever, as a matter of law, that would provide a basis for a cause of action in negligence. This conclusion ignores fundamental principles of tort law.
Without citation to any authority other than a hornbook, and in three perfunctory paragraphs, the majority states that USWA did not assume any duty toward Mr. Carroll. I find this holding seriously in error. What the facts do suggest when taken in a light most favorable to Mr. Carroll, as we must do on a motion for summary judgment, McÑeil v. Gisler, 100 Idaho 693, 604 P.2d 707 (1979), is the following:
(1) that USWA and Bunker Hill were parties to a collective bargaining agreement which, in part, called for the creation of a “joint safety committee”;
(2) that USWA representatives were on this “safety committee”;
(3) that this “safety committee” was charged with inspecting the mine in which Mr. Carroll worked for “safe working conditions, procedures, and equipment at least once each month”; and
(4) that the Idaho Minimum Safety Standards and Practices for Mining and Mineral Industry, Safety Code 5, § 3.5 (1974), a regulation promulgated by the Department of Labor and Industrial Services pursuant to I.C. § 44-103(g), states that such “safety committees” shall conduct regular safety inspections, making available to the employee written reports, consisting of findings and recommendations for actions to be taken as a result of its inspections.
It cannot be gainsaid but that the “safety committee” was negligent in its inspection duties, it having failed to conduct inspections or make reports as § 3.5 of the Idaho Minimum Safety Standards and Practices for Mining and Mineral Industry requires.1 Thus, as an active member of that committee USWA was also negligent.
The majority argues, however, that USWA is not liable for any negligence on the part of the safety committee. The majority argues that, although USWA contributed to the committee’s negligence, since Mr. Carroll never relied on USWA’s promise to participate in the “safety committee” inspections, USWA never assumed any duty toward Mr. Carroll. The majority then cites Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts for this proposition. Without debating the persuasiveness of one cite to a hornbook for authority in Idaho on an important tort issue, believing instead that *723Idaho jurisprudence deserves an independent analysis of the issue, I question the very use of this citation.
Prosser and Keeton mentions the rule cited by the majority but then label this rule as being “old” and harsh. It further states that the rule serves primarily as a “point of departure, and very little extra is required for the assumption of the duty.” Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts, § 56, p. 379 (5th ed. 1984). They go on to state that determination of when assumption of a duty begins is “nowhere clearly defined.” Id. Thus, for a rule labeled as old and harsh, merely a departure point for further analysis, and extremely difficult to articulate — and this all by the authors of the rule the majority relies upon — to be summarily applied without analysis or substance is poor judicial workmanship. Brevity and conciseness in judicial opinions are laudable goals, but they should not be pursued at the expense of articulate reasoning and argument.
Labeling its section the “Good Samaritan Rule,” the majority clouds the issue. The issue plain and simple is whether the Union assumed a duty towards Mr. Carroll by agreeing to participate on the “safety committee,” a committee which acted negligently in its statutory and common law duties. The rule as I always understood it to be for imposing liability when one renders services to another is found in § 323 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts:
One who undertakes, gratuitously or for consideration, to render service to another which he should recognize as necessary for the protection of the other’s person or things, is subject to liability to the other for physical harm resulting from his failure to exercise reasonable care to perform his undertaking, if (a) his failure to exercise such care increases the risk of such harm, or (b) the harm is suffered because of the other’s reliance upon the undertaking.
Mr. Carroll’s argument, as I see it, is that USWA’s participation in the “safety committee’s” negligence increased the risk of harm as to him. In other words, USWA’s participation on the safety committee dulled Bunker Hill’s vigilance in inspecting safety conditions,2 thus increasing the likelihood of a serious accident. This issue is a factual determination that should be decided by a jury, for it cannot be denied that when the facts are viewed in Mr. Carroll’s favor, a cause of action is made out in negligence under the principles set forth in Restatement (Second) of Torts § 323.
The gravamen of Mr. Carroll’s complaint is not simply that USWA failed to take any affirmative actions to protect him from harm, as the majority conveniently characterizes it, but rather that USWA failed to exercise reasonable care in the performance of duties it agreed to do, which negligent conduct increased the risk of receiving the severe injuries Mr. Carroll suffered. As alleged, and construing the facts in Mr. Carroll’s favor, I believe Mr. Carroll’s complaint states a legally cognizable cause of action, which should be decided by a jury upon its merits.3

. Violation of a regulation intended for protection of a person and others similarly situated which results in injury and is the proximate cause thereof is negligence per se. Anderson v. Blackfoot Livestock Commission, 85 Idaho 64, 73-74, 375 P.2d 704, 709-10 (1962).

. The accident investigator noted that "a contributing cause of the accident was the failure of management to have a definite, continuing and functionally operative procedure of testing [the equipment in issue].” R., p. 243.

. I cannot believe the majority really means to suggest that before liability will be placed upon an individual for injuries resulting from acts voluntarily done, the injured party must have relied upon the other party's actions. As the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 323, supra, indicates, this is one basis for liability but not the only one. The majority’s opinion suggests otherwise and thereby invites results which will be unfair and unjust.
If reliance is an essential prerequisite, does this mean that an unconscious person, treated in a grossly negligent way, cannot bring suit because he or she did not rely on the negligent party’s acts of attempting to help him or her? I hardly think so.
The only instance in which reliance is a crucial factor is when the harm suffered is caused by the injured party’s reliance upon the other party’s conduct. The unconscious plaintiffs injuries are not caused by any reliance upon another to act. Yet, as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, that person has a cause of action. The reason for imposing liability is that the other party’s voluntary acts have made things worse for the unconscious plaintiff — as the Re*724statement puts it, they have increased the risk of harm which did befall the plaintiff. Such conduct is wrong — a tort — and the suffering plaintiff deserves a remedy. That is why Mr. Carroll states a cause of action that overcomes the motion for summary judgment. USWA's negligence — attributable by the fact that it was on the committee which was negligent in its duties — increased the risk of the harm which befell Mr. Carroll and, if provable at trial, entitles him to compensation for the harm caused.