Court Opinion

ID: 9859228
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 19:20:00.994686+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:28:08.090216
License: Public Domain

Oliriiant, J.
(dissenting). I would affirm the judgment below largely for the reasons expressed in the majority opinion of the Appellate Division. 23 N. J. Super. 9 (1952).
There is no evidence whatever as to how the infant plaintiff received his injuries. There was no contact between him and *564the bulldozer. He was seen by his teacher running across the school playground toward the church property and shortly thereafter she was informed he had been injured. The case; was tried on the theory that the defendant was negligent by reason of its failure “to safeguard a dangerous and hazardous condition, well knowing the proximity of the school yard and the fact that minor children customarily played thereon.” The majority opinion here and the minority opinion in the Appellate Division applied the rule enunciated by this court in Strang v. South Jersey Broadcasting Co., 9 N. J. 38 (1052). As I read that opinion, liability was predicated on the maintenance of an instrumentality “highly dangerous” or “likely to cause death or serious bodity harm.” A furrow three or four feet deep is not so inherently or potentially dangerous a condition as to warrant application of the rule enunciated in that case or to make such an unwarranted extension of its doctrine as is here done. The philosophy of the majority in the instant ease leads to the inescapable result that the owner of lands or one who on behalf of the owner erects a structure or creates any condition thereon, be they farm lands or city property, is a virtual insurer against injuries sustained by infants thereon, even though they be trespassers or licensees.
Vanderbilt, C. J., concurs in this dissent.
For reversal—Justices Hei-ter, Waciieneeld, Jacobs and Brennan—4.
For affirmance—Chief Justice Vanderbilt, and Justices Oltctiant and Burling—3.