Court Opinion

ID: 9845829
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:29:06.046731+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:23.132247
License: Public Domain

DENECKE, J.,
specially concurring.
I concur in affirming the majority’s decision that the trial court was correct in directing a verdict for defendant. I do not join in the majority opinion because it is couched in words and phrases which I believed we had, and should have, discarded as misleading and inaccurate. The concurring opinion in Hills v. McGillvrey, decided June 3, 1965, indicates that a majority of the court does not believe that problems of this land are best solved in the terminology of “proximate cause,” “condition rather than a factor,” etc. Such phrases as “the primary negligence of the plaintiff has come to rest,” “negligence has spent itself,” and “continuing negligence” also are misleading and inaccurate and were criticized in Palmer v. Murdock, 233 Or 334, 378 P2d 271 (1963).
I also believe that it is advisable specifically to distinguish or overrule Palmer v. Murdock, supra. In my opinion the ease is distinguishable. That decision was made upon the basis of opening statements. Plaintiff stated that when defendant discovered plaintiff’s peril, plaintiff was in a position of danger from which he could not extricate himself. Our decision was that plaintiff should have the opportunity of introducing evidence that that was the fact. In the instant ease there is no evidence from which a jury could find that plaintiff was in a static or passive position from which he could not free himself, while defendant had an opportunity to avoid the collision by the use of reasonable care.