Court Opinion

ID: 9652800
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:32:20.393679+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:54.236864
License: Public Domain

DONNELLY, Judge,
dissenting.
In my view, the jury system is without equal as an instrument of fairness. But juries should be allowed to function within a process designed for fairness. Adoption and application of a concept of pure comparative fault would expand the role of juries in the civil justice system and would make the matter of legal causation less important and less inscrutable. See Smith, Legal Cause in Actions of Tort, 25 Harv.L.Rev. 103 (1911).
The principal opinion holds that a landlord may be held liable to a tenant for criminal acts of a third person.
I would concur if I could persuade my brothers to permit the jury to allocate fault between the landlord, the tenant, and the criminal actor and to hold each of the three responsible “only in proportion to his fault”. Steinman v. Strobel, 589 S.W.2d 293, 296 (Mo. banc 1979) (Donnelly, J., dissenting). But I cannot. I respectfully dissent.