Court Opinion

ID: 9543707
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:48:26.80406+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:10:59.147124
License: Public Domain

WADE, Justice
(concurring in the result).
I concur with the result though I do not think the evidence was conclusive that plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence. Though in walking around the dark *295room plaintiff took some risks which he could have avoided by turning on a light, and he could not expect to keep in mind the exact position of a chair which can be expected to be moved almost anytime, still the test of negligence is did he use ordinary care, not whether he took known risks. Life is full of risks, sometimes ordinary, prudent persons avoid one risk only to create another, and sometimes they take risks to avoid inconvenience, discomfort or danger to others. There are many variations in the words and meaning of the definitions of negligence, but all of them suggest a relationship between negligence and what is ordinarily done under the existing circumstances by ordinary prudent people. It would seem that a person cannot fail to use ordinary care when he does only that which almost every one does at times under the circumstances and that in such a case we should not hold him negligent as a matter of law. Under the circumstances here presented I believe that most people not only might but do move around dark rooms without turning on a light. So I think it would not be unreasonable to find that plaintiff was free from negligence.
Applying this same test to defendant’s conduct I think we must hold as a matter of law that he was free from negligence. If the owner placed a stepladder, a bucket of paint or a permanent fixture where he placed this chair I think that probably would present a jury question on whether he was guilty of negligence. For such objects are not commonly found in such places, and a person doing such an uncommon act should be expected to foresee that a hazard was thereby created. But chairs are necessarily mobile objects which are often moved without much consideration of whether a hazard is thereby created. Usually an accident involving a chair causes only momentary discomfort or slight inconvenience, not real injury. So I think it is clear the defendant’s act of moving the chair is the same as any one might do under these conditions, and that it would be unreasonable to find that he should have foreseen that a hazard was thereby created.
*296This theory avoids the difficulty suggested by Mr. Justice HENRIOD to the prevailing opinion. For a person might well anticipate that placing a permanent fixture or some other unusual object in the room would create a hazard but think nothing of moving a chair from one place to another in the room.