Court Opinion

ID: 9530858
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:04:27.012368+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:16.213995
License: Public Domain

SADLER, Justice (dissenting in part). With so much of the prevailing opinion as reverses action of the trial court in granting judgment notwithstanding the verdict on the first cause of action, let me be recorded as being in complete disagreement. When the verdict of a jury contradicts a physical fact in a material respect it should be disregarded and judgment rendered notwithstanding it. State ex rel. Kansas City Southern R. Co. v. Shain, infra. That is exactly what the trial judge did in the case at bar with the verdict for plaintiff on the first cause of action, and his ruling merits our approval. If under the facts, a plaintiff be guilty of contributory negligence, we should unhesitatingly so declare as a matter of law, just as the trial judge here did. Gildersleeve v. Atkinson, 6 N.M. 250, 27 P. 477; Caviness v. Driscoll Construction Co., 39 N.M. 441, 49 P.2d 251; Gray v. Esslinger, 46 N.M. 421, 130 P.2d 24; Koock v. Goodnight, Tex.Civ.App., 71 S.W.2d 927; State ex rel. Kansas City Southern Ry. Co. v. Shain, 340 Mo. 1195, 105 S.W.2d 915; Sinclair Refining Co. v. Tompkins, 5 Cir., 117 F.2d 596. If one throws a lighted match into a can of gunpowder; or, attempts to cross a railroad track, having failed to stop, look and listen; or, points a pistol at another and fires, thinking the chambers empty; the one so doing is guilty of negligence as a matter of lazo. If suffering injury himself in the act, he would be absolutely barred of recovery by his own contributory negligence. It would avail him naught to say he did not know the powder would flash and explode, or was in complete ignorance of the presence of a train in the vicinity; or, that he did not know the gun was loaded. There are certain immutable facts of life that cannot be ignored and of which one cannot plead ignorance. One such fact is that to stand above the fire box of a stove and pour over live coals or hot ashes therein a liquid so highly inflammable as petroleum, contaminated or not, a flash fire inevitably will follow, frequently to the serious injury or death of the person so engaged. Such a result followed here which ended in death. The jury found in answer to a special interrogatory that there were live coals in the stove. It could not find otherwise under the evidence. The decedent, herself, who survived the injury for a few days, told officer Rodriguez she poured liquid petroleum over the “live coals,” as the witness first expressed it, or over “hot ashes” as he later modified her statement so told him. It matters not which, either was negligence as a matter of law, but the jury’s special finding was there were live coals in the fire box. It, obviously, was negligence of the plainest sort to do what this poor woman did in attempting to start a fire and for which, unfortunately, she paid with her life. The majority have quoted at length in their opinion from the testimony of William Chaffee, a petroleum chemist, testifying as an expert. Frankly, there is little else in the record on which to rest the majority action besides the testimony of experts, going almost wholly to the question of defendant’s negligence in contaminating the petroleum. This is something assumed by me, but it fails to destroy the effect of decedent’s contributory negligence as a bar to recovery. Nevertheless, let us look at the testimony of the expert, Chaffee, as a whole. On cross-examination he renders absolutely innocuous what he says on direct examination. He was asked and gave answers, as follows: “* * * Mr. Catron: You mean to tell the jury, Mr. Chaffee, that the pouring of even standard kerosene on live coals is perfectly safe, is that it? * * * A. No. * * * ■ * * * “Mr. Catron: You don’t mean to tell them that? A. No, I don’t believe it would be perfectly safe to do that. * * * * * * “Mr. Catron: So that what you do mean to testify or tell the jury, is that it is hazardous? A. Yes. “Q. But in any event, to wind up, Mr. Chaffee, isn’t it a matter of common knowledge, of your knowledge, that the pouring of straight kerosene of 115 degrees on live coals is hazardous? A. There is an element of hazard to it. “Q. Did you ever pour kerosene, whether it was pure kerosene or contaminated kerosene, on live coals? A. I did not pour it. I threw it at live coals. “Q. And you threw it in because you did not want to get close enough to pour it in, isn’t that correct? A. I would say that is correct, yes. “Q. So you figured it was a hazard ? A. It was a hazard. “Q. And that was straight, pure kerosene ? A. Certainly.” How, in all reason, can it fairly be said that, even under the expert’s testimony, the decedent was not guilty of contributory negligence? Parton v. Phillips Petroleum Co., 231 Mo.App. 585, 107 S.W.2d 167. The weakness in the majority position is that it carries approval of a verdict of the jury based on surmise and speculation. It is all well and good to permit a jury to resolve issuable facts, provided it may do so without engaging in unwarranted and gossamer like inference. But where, as it here impresses me, the court has licensed the jury to stretch inferences to a thread-like fineness; indeed, beyond all reason, in order to reach the verdict it does, then, the court of its own motion should boldly say so, and render judgment notwithstanding the verdict. Here the trial court could not properly refuse to say as a matter of law, the decedent was contributorily negligent in pouring liquid petroleum into the fire box while standing in such proximity that any flash of the flames would envelop her body. Since the flash of fire was almost instantaneous, following the pouring of petroleum into the fire box, all question of causal connection is at once resolved against the verdict. If the decedent knew or should have known of the presence of either “live coals” or “hot ashes” in the stove, it was contributory negligence to pour the highly inflammable petroleum over the kindling with which she had covered same. Should she have known? There cannot be the slightest doubt on this score. Only a few short hours previously the family, including decedent, had warmed by a fire burning in this very stove. An exercise of the slightest care or caution would have disclosed the presence there, still, of burning embers or hot ashes in the fire box. This ill-fated woman discovered the presence of the live coals or hot ashes, but too late to save her own life and that of her small baby about 1% months old. It was a terrible accident and one to be deeply deplored. We may assume defendant’s negligence in contaminating the petroleum. Indeed, contributory negligence does assume defendant’s primary negligence. But the tragic sequence of events following on the heels of decedent’s negligence can no more be laid at defendant’s door than at the door of some stranger to the accident. The negligence of the one has completely neutralized that of the other and there properly can be no recovery. In a futile effort to find some evidence in the record to support an inference that would warrant a jury in absolving decedent of contributory negligence, the majority recite in their opinion the testimony of decedent’s husband, the plaintiff, that he saw no smoke following the placing by his wife of kindling wood in the fire box. Let us travel the tortuous trail of inference which one must follow from such negative proof to clear the decedent of obvious negligence. The husband, plaintiff, saw no smoke. (In this particular, it is not his negligence, of course, but that of the decedent wife which is important.) But the husband saw no smoke. Ergo, there either was no smoke, or the wife saw none. Hence, the wife was not negligent! This, in the face of the physical fact that wood placed on live coals, as a law of nature, produces smoke — that, actually,, there was smoke unless, conceivably,, the flash fire followed so soon the pouring .of liquid petroleum on the live coals and hot ashes, it had no time to form. How do we know deadly heat in the form either of live coals or hot ashes lurked in the fire box? Because the decedent herself said so! Because the special verdict of the jury said so! And, finally, because the instantaneous flash fire and explosion thundered an affirmation! In the face of such irrefutable physical facts as these, the majority find themselves able .to hold issuable before a jury the question of contributory negligence on the part of the decedent. The trial judge faced with a decision of the same question, promptly, and properly, accepted as conclusive the unanswerable story told by the physical facts and rendered judgment accordingly, notwithstanding the verdict. His judgment of the matter deserves a prompt affirmance by us. 'The unfortunate victim of this tragedy, under admitted facts, was guilty of inexcusable, unforgettable, and legally unforgivable negligence. Any verdict to the contrary impeaches the verity of a fact of life and indicts as false the general experience of mankind in the particular involved. A reversal, in my opinion, is wholly unwarranted. The majority ruling otherwise, I dissent.