Court Opinion

ID: 9636880
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:47:01.437172+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:54:51.744521
License: Public Domain

Hulburd, C. J.,
dissenting. I believe that the trial court properly directed a verdict for the defendant as the evidence stood in this case. Moreover, in reaching this conclusion, I am not only willing to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, but also give him the benefit of the testimony which the majority have held was improperly excluded. The added fact that the driver had previously *96encountered difficulty with children around, or in, the truck on Allen Street still fails to make a case for the jury. There is nothing in this testimony which would suggest that the driver had experienced any conduct on the part of the children such as to create a perilous situation. It did not show that they had previously put themselves in positions of danger. Merely showing that the children had gathered about the truck on former occasions adds nothing to the case. It is abundantly clear that on the afternoon in question children did gather about the milk truck and that the driver was aware of the fact. The excluded testimony adds nothing to the case.
A proper consideration of this case requires first that we regard it in its true setting. This is not the sort of highway accident which arises because children are playing on or near the road. The children here are trespassers. The fact that the majority cite Robinson v. Cone, 22 Vt. 213 and Parker v. Gunther, 122 Vt. 68, 164 A.2d 152, cases in which the element of trespassing is not present, indicates, it seems to me, an unawareness that this element brings into a situation of this sort another factor, one to which the law properly attaches appropriate significance. An entirely different balance of policy considerations arises. To consider the present case as being analogous to a situation in which a young child at play topples into the road while balancing himself on the edge of the sidewalk perilously close to the road, as in Parker v. Gunther, supra, is far from helpful.
Trespassers are not devoid of all protection in the law, and properly so. On the other hand, it would seem obvious that a trespasser ought not to stand better than an invited guest. Accordingly, the general rule is that a motorist owes no duty to a trespasser on the vehicle whose presence is unknown; and when the trespasser’s presence is known, the motorist owes him only the duty not willfully or wantonly to injure him. 60 C.J.S. Motor Vehicles §401. Where the trespasser is a child and the operator knows of his presence on his vehicle in a position of peril, it has been generally held that the operator is bound to use ordinary care and take proper and reasonable precautions to avoid injury. Birmingham Ice & Cold Storage Co. v. Alley, 247 Ala. 503, 25 So.2d 37; Hernandez v. Murphy, 46 Cal. App.2d 201, 115 P.2d 565; Samuelson v. Sherrill, 225 Iowa 421, 280 N.W. 596; Levchik v. Shaffer, 327 Pa. 570, 194 A. 923. Actually this is hardly more *97than the application of the rule as first stated, since one who failed to use reasonable care to avoid injuring a person known to be in a position of peril might well be said to be guilty of willful or wanton misconduct. See Langford v. Rogers, 278 Mich. 310, 270 N.W. 692. There is this much difference, however. By speaking in terms of negligence rather than of willful or wanton misconduct we become drawn into the use of the language and law of negligence in circumstances where it seems to me not to be properly applicable. We are led into talking about what a defendant “ought to have seen.” This, it seems to me, is unfortunate. It results in treating the trespasser better than the invited guest. There is no logic in this. The present case affords a very good example in point. To me the majority have allowed themselves to be carried beyond a sound position even as regards the ordinary negligence situation. I would like to turn to the evidence at this point.
When the driver of the defendant’s milk truck left the customer’s house and started back toward the truck, he was under no duty to see the children sitting on the rear platform even though they were visible had he looked in that direction. He was under no duty to be looking at the truck at all. He was not in the position of a person in the act of operating a motor vehicle upon the public highway and so charged with seeing objects and persons in plain view. Aside from the fact of the plaintiff’s status as a trespasser, if he has any claim to a case, it is akin to but something less than that made by a plaintiff in a last-clear-chance situation. Under this doctrine we should have in mind the following law which seems of equal force and application to our present problem. The Restatement of the Law of Torts permits a plaintiff to recover if the defendant “would have discovered the plaintiff’s situation * * * had he exercised the vigilance which it was his duty to the plaintiff to exercise.” Sec. 479(b) (3). In the comment on this section, we find this: “This sub-clause has no application unless there is a duty on the part of the defendant to be on the alert to observe the presence of the plaintiff.” Thus it.cannot be said, that a defendant “ought to see” if the duty to see is lacking.
No such duty rested on the truck driver at the time of returning from the customer’s house to the truck, and this is the only time which the evidence makes it clear he could have seen the plaintiff. Upon *98reaching the truck, the driver found children in it and around the front of it. Before he set the truck in motion, a duty at that time came into effect requiring him to take notice of these children and to take reasonable steps to insure their safety. This he did by running them back to the sidewalk and by telling them to leave the vicinity of the truck. At this time, and at no time thereafter, does it appear in evidence that he could have seen the boys sitting on the back step. They were hidden from his view by the closed back doors. On argument counsel agreed that this was so. The plaintiff, himself, testified that he did not see the driver come out of the customer’s house nor did he see him at any time thereafter. No doubt we can now say that the truck driver could have discovered the plaintiff by getting out of his truck and going to its rear and looking. But this is hindsight, pure and simple. It is tantamount to saying that the driver should have made a search. Just where would such a search begin; when and where would it end? The expression “ought to have seen” does not include what one could have discovered by conducting a search. Wilson v. City of Long Beach, 71 Cal. App. 2d 235, 162 P.2d 658; Ostrander v. Armour, 161 N.Y.S. 961, 176 App. Div. 152; White v. Edwards Chevrolet Co., 186 Va. 669, 43 S.E.2d 870; and generally, Rosenfeld v. City of Detroit, 274 Mich. 650, 265 N.W. 490; Camp v. Spring, 241 Mich. 700, 217 N.W. 917; Curt v. Ziman, 140 Pa. Super. 25, 12 A.2d 802. One ought to see what one can see when there is a duty to see. It is only where a defendant is guilty of negligence so reckless as to betoken indifference to knowledge that we can say otherwise. Tribovich v. Burke, 255 N.Y.S. 100, 234 App. Div. 384; Chapin v. Stickel, 173 Wash. 174, 22 P.2d 290. That is not this case. It is well to keep in mind, it is not claimed by the plaintiff that the defendant’s employee was negligent in any manner other than his alleged negligent failure to discover the plaintiff in his perilous position. No fault, otherwise, is found in the way the truck drove off. On the evidence, it seems to me that no jury of reasonable men would be justified in saying that the truck driver was lacking in ordinary care in the situation as it presented itself to him. Compare Coffey v. Mayer & Co., 252 Wis. 473, 32 N.W.2d 235, 3 A.L.R.2d 753; Wilson v. City of Long Beach, 71 Cal. App.2d 235, 162 P.2d 658. Further than that, I would hold that the duty of a motor vehicle operator to use due care towards trespassing children extends only to those situ*99ations where the operator knows of the presence of the child on his vehicle in a position of peril or where the defendant is guilty of negligence so reckless as to betoken indifference to knowledge. This puts the rule in harmony with the basic proposition that a motorist owes a trespasser only the duty not wilfully or wantonly to injure him. It provides a proper and just differentiation between trespassers on the one hand and guests on the other. Unlike the majority opinion, which virtually requires a defendant to be an insurer to a wrongdoer in his wrongdoing, it draws the line of liability where it should be drawn. It avoids setting up a new rule of liability which would impose an intolerable and unreasonable burden on those carrying on an activity similar to that of the defendant. Its underlying sociology is sound. The trial court, in my opinion, properly directed a verdict for the defendant.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Shangraw joins in this dissent.