Court Opinion

ID: 9734200
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:27:55.165441+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:46.688107
License: Public Domain

ASHBURN, J.,* Dissenting.
I am unable to concur in the majority opinion.
This is a third party action for damages for wrongful *176death of Leroy Eugene Ewart who was asphyxiated while working inside a water pipeline that was being installed for the City of Long Beach under contract between the city and Maceo Corporation, which was Mr. Ewart’s employer. The asphyxiation was probably due to the presence of gas which had escaped from a broken pipeline of defendant Gas Company.
Ewart’s heirs sued Southern California Gas Company and Emsco Concrete Cutting Company of Los Angeles alleging negligence on the part of both. Emsco was a subcontractor under Maceo. For obvious reasons Maceo Corporation was not joined as a defendant; the accident occurred while Ewart was acting within the course and scope of his employment and hence the sole remedy of the heirs against Maceo was a proceeding for an award under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. Scott v. Industrial Acc. Com., 46 Cal.2d 76, 93 [293 P.2d 18]; Lab. Code, §§ 3601, 3852.) A jury found in favor of both defendants and plaintiffs appeal.
Their counsel present two points in this court: (1) that there was sufficient evidence to support a verdict against each defendant had one been rendered (not that the evidence is insufficient to sustain the verdict), and (2) that there was prejudicial error in the giving of certain instructions requested by defendant Gas Company upon the subject of intervening or superseding causes. If the latter contention be not sustainable there is no occasion to consider the former.
Concerning the matter of superseding causes Stewart v. Cox, 55 Cal.2d 857, 863, 864 [13 Cal.Rptr. 521, 362 P.2d 345], says: “The rules set forth in sections 442-453 of the Restatement of Torts for determining whether an intervening act of a third person constitutes a superseding cause which prevents antecedent negligence of the defendant from being a proximate cause of the harm complained of have been accepted in California. (See, for example, McEvoy v. American Pool Corp., 32 Cal.2d 295, 298-299 [195 P.2d 783] ; Mosley v. Arden Farms Co., 26 Cal.2d 213, 219 ]157 P.2d 372, 158 A.L.R. 872].) Under these rules the fact that an intervening act of a third person is done in a negligent manner does not make it a superseding cause if a reasonable man knowing the situation existing when the act of the third person is done would not regard it as highly extraordinary that the third person so acted or the act is a normal response to a situation created by the defendant’s conduct and the manner in which the intervening act is done is not extraordinarily negligent. (See Rest., Torts, § 447; Stasulat v. Pacific Gas & Elec. Co., 8 *177Cal.2d 631, 637 [67 P.2d 678].) The fact that a third person does not perform his duty to protect the plaintiff from harm, either because he makes no effort or through his negligence does not succeed, is not a superseding cause. (Rest., Torts, § 452.) ’ ’ The current of authority in this jurisdiction has been uniformly to the same effect although the phrasing usually has been similar to that of BAJI instruction 104-C.2, hereinafter discussed. (Mosley v. Arden Farms Co., 26 Cal.2d 213, 218-219 [157 P.2d 372, 158 A.L.R. 872]; Warner v. Santa Catalina Island Co., 44 Cal.2d 310, 319 [282 P.2d 12]; Davis v. Erickson, 53 Cal.2d 860, 863 [3 Cal.Rptr. 567, 350 P.2d 535]; Sabella v. Wisler, 59 Cal.2d 21, 28 [27 Cal.Rptr. 689, 377 P.2d 889]; Werkman v. Howard Zink Corp., 97 Cal.App.2d 418, 424-427 [218 P.2d 43]; Parker v. City & County of San Francisco, 158 Cal.App.2d 597, 605 [323 P.2d 108]; Thornton v. Luce, 209 Cal.App.2d 542, 548 [26 Cal.Rptr. 393]; Yecny v. Eclipse Fuel Engineering Co., 210 Cal.App.2d 192,198 [26 Cal.Rptr. 402].)
Merrill v. Los Angeles Gas & Elec. Co., 158 Cal. 499, 506 [111 P. 534, 139 Am.St.Rep. 134, 31 L.R.A. N.S. 559] : “. . . the English as well as the American rule of decision is uniform to the effect that where an explosion of gas causing damage to a person results from the joint negligence of the gas company in discovering and repairing a leak in its pipes and of another in bringing a light in contact with the gas, whereby it explodes, a person damaged may recover from either or both at his election. Each is and both are the proximate cause of the injury.”
In my opinion the challenged instructions were not prejudicially erroneous.
I do not pause to spell out negligence on the part of the Gas Company for the majority opinion asserts and I assume that the evidence warranted such a finding.
In furtherance of its claim that negligence of Maceo was an intervening or superseding cause of the accident defendant Gas Company requested1 and the court gave a series of instructions upon the subject. Appellants complain principally of the giving of BAJI 104-C.2 which is set forth in the margin.2 This instruction has been severely criticized in *178Werkman v. Howard Zink Corp., supra, 97 Cal.App.2d 418, 423-427 and in dissenting opinion in Vasquez v. Alameda, 49 Cal.2d 674, 683 [321 P.2d 1]. In Werkman it is said that it is “not a correct statement of the law” (p. 425) and in the Vasquez dissent at page 684: “This instruction is riddled with error. It begins innocently enough to speak of the foreseeability of conduct that may combine with antecedent negligence to produce injury. It then lurches violently into what the actors actually did, thus stating the erroneous rule that the identical consequences must have been foreseeable as a probability. (Werkman v. Howard Zink Corp., 97 Cal.App.2d 418, 425 [218 P.2d 43].) . . . The rule extends to foreseeable risks arising out of possible intervening conduct of third persons. Thus, in the present case, if Greenley was negligent in blocking the highway, it would be because a reasonably prudent man would foresee the risk of injury from the intervening conduct of other motorists. The occurrence of injury from intervening conduct that should have been foreseen, whether as a probability or as a possibility, would not insulate Greenley from liability. (McEvoy v. American Pool Corp., 32 Cal.2d 295, 299 [195 P.2d 783]; see Restatement, Torts, § 499.) ”
As applied to the instant case, however, I perceive no prejudicial error in this instruction. It is difficult to follow and inclined to confuse a trained legal mind, but it is to be considered here in the light of the actually existing posture of the trial. Requested by defendant Gas Company, which alone was urging an intervening negligence of Maceo, it would be understood by the jurors, if at all, as applying to the Gas Company and Maceo respectively. If the words ‘1 Gas Company” be substituted for “first actor” and “Maceo” *179for “second actor" one begins to see real light as to what the court was telling the jury.
The second paragraph says: “If the [Gas Company] foresaw, or by exercising ordinary care would have seen, that . . . [Maceo] probably would conduct [itself] as . . . [Maceo] actually did, and also that the combination of the [Gas Company’s] conduct and . . . [Maceo's] conduct probably would proximately cause injury to a third person, and if the combined conduct did so result, then each actor’s conduct was a concurring proximate cause of that injury—although, of course, neither would be liable unless his conduct was negligent." At this point in our reading we have not yet reached intervening negligence. If it be (as we must assume) that this does require the “first actor," the Gas Company, to “foresee, or by the exercise of ordinary care . . . [to] have foreseen, the identical consequence that happened" (Werkman v. Howard Zink Corp., supra, 97 Cal.App.2d 418, 425, it merely follows that a greater burden of foresight has been placed upon the Gas Company than the law prescribes, and that could not work any prejudice to appellants. It should be remembered that foreseeability is an essential element of negligence. “It is an elementary principle that negligence is gauged by the ability to anticipate danger. '[R] easonable foresight of harm is essential to the concept of negligence, and supplies the criterion for determining whether it exists in a particular case, and reasonable foreseeability of harm is the fundamental basis of the law of negligence. . . . On the other hand, one is not bound to foresee every possible injury which might occur, or every possible eventuality, but only those which were reasonably foreseeable; and one is not required to anticipate against dangers which it is not his duty to avoid.' (65 C.J.S. § 5c(2)(a), pp. 354-359.). . . . ‘The risk reasonably to be perceived defines the duty to be obeyed, and risk imports relation; it is risk to another or to others within the range of apprehension.’ ’’ (Tucker v. Lombardo, 47 Cal.2d 457, 464, 465 [303 P.2d 1041].) (See also Campbell v. Magana, 184 Cal.App.2d 751, 762 [8 Cal.Rptr. 32]; Mertes v. Atchison, T. & S.F. Ry. Co., 206 Cal.App.2d 64, 70 [23 Cal.Rptr. 320]; 35 Cal.Jur.2d, § 38, p. 528.)
The last paragraph of the instruction, so far as I can see, does not suffer from the same defect as the second. The “combination of results such as I have mentioned" refers to the phrase in paragraph 2 “would proximately cause injury to a third person"; this is sufficiently general to avoid the *180label of foreseeing “the identical consequence that happened.”
Instruction 104-C (Revised),3 given at Emsco’s request, serves to clarify 104-C.2 just discussed and to place the matter clearly upon a sound basis. I am unable to agree with appellants’ contention that these two instructions “virtually directed the jury to return a defense verdict. ’ ’
Appellants further claim error in giving a series of instructions predicated upon failure of Maceo to observe safety precautions required of it by law. They are set forth at pages 3-7 of Appendix to Opening Brief and state the substance of safety orders promulgated in title 8 of the Administrative Code, such as an employer’s duty to inaugurate and maintain an accident prevention program, including inspections of working places and equipment, noting violations of safe practices and safety orders; forbidding any worker being required to work in an unsafe place unless for the purpose of making it safe and then only after proper precautions being taken to protect him while doing such work; controlling flammable vapors so as to avoid hazard to workers; forbidding the employer to permit upon or in any place of work any source of ignition of flammable gases or vapors where the concentration thereof may reasonably be expected to exceed 20 per cent of the lower explosive limit in the working atmosphere ; requiring frequent tests to see that that limit is not exceeded; providing: “9d) Smoking shall be forbidden in any location where flammable vapors in concentrations greater than 20 per cent of the lower explosive limit may reasonably be expected. ’ ’
Following these informative instructions BAJI 149, slightly modified, was given stating the violation of such safety orders to be negligence in the same manner and to the same extent as violation of a statute or ordinance.
These instructions were requested by the Gas Company in furtherance of its claim that Maceo had violated these regulations and that that constitutes negligence of a superseding nature if Gas Company should be found negligent. That *181question is one of fact (Mosley v. Arden Farms Co., supra, 26 Cal.2d 213, 219; Warner v. Santa Catalina Island Co., supra, 44 Cal.2d 310, 319). It is not asserted that there was no substantial evidence to support respondent’s position on that issue, and hence it was entitled to an instruction upon it. (Davis v. Erickson, supra, 53 Cal.2d 860, 863.)
Finally, appellants urge that it was erroneous for the court to give BAJI 138.2 in slightly modified form, to the effect that one who is himself exercising ordinary care may assume that other persons will do likewise. Of course this is a familiar and proper instruction and I do not see that it has any improper bearing upon the question of whether Maeco’s alleged negligence was a superseding cause of Mr. Ewart’s death.
Appellants’ argument that the evidence is sufficient to support a finding that Emsco was negligent and its negligence a proximate cause of death cannot be sustained. That contention is merely an indirect claim that the evidence is insufficient to support the verdict exonerating said defendant of negligence. ‘ ‘ Such contention requires defendants to demonstrate that there is no substantial evidence to support the challenged findings.” (Nichols v. Mitchell, 32 Cal.2d 598, 600 [197 P.2d 550].) This entails the further burden of setting forth in appellants’ brief “all material evidence upon the point, not merely his own proofs ... ; if this is not done the point is deemed waived. ...” (Davis v. Lucas, 180 Cal.App.2d 407, 409 [4 Cal.Rptr. 479].) Appellants have not borne this burden with respect to respondent Emsco.
The judgment should be affirmed.
The petitions for a rehearing were denied October 14, 1965. Ashburn, J.,* was of the opinion that the petition should be granted. Respondents ’ petitions for a hearing by the Supreme Court were denied November 16, 1965.

Retired Justice of the District Court of Appeal sitting under assignment by the Chairman of the Judicial Council.

The original superior court file is before us pursuant to rule 12a of California Buies of Court.

“ As you have been instructed, one of the uestions we must decide in finding whether or not one person is liable for injury to another, is whether or not the conduct in question was a proximate cause of the injury in question. This inquiry may involve the conduct of two or more *178persons acting independently and at different times. To explain the problem presented by such a situation, I shall refer to the person whose conduct came first in point of time as the first actor and to the other person as the second actor. IT''If the first actor foresaw, or by exercising ordinary care would have seen, that a second actor probably would conduct himself as the second actor actually did, and also that the combination of the first actor’s conduct and the second actor’s conduct probably would proximately cause injury to a third person, and if the combined conduct did so result, then each actor’s conduct was a concurring proximate cause of that injury—although, of course, neither would be liable unless his conduct was negligent. IT''But if the first actor’s conduct alone did not cause the injury, and if a combination of results such as I have mentioned was not foreseen by him as a probability, and was not so foreseeable in the exercise of ordinary care, then the first actor may not be held liable for any injury of which the second actor’s conduct was a proximate cause or which now may appear to have resulted from the combined conduct of both.”

¶" Where a defendant is negligent but the immediate cause of injury to the plaintiff is the conduct of a third person, said defendant is not liable for such injury unless such intervening conduct is something which he foresaw or in the exercise of reasonable care should have foreseen would, cooperating with a condition created by defendant’s own negligence, probably result in injury to another. The reason for this is that if defendant foresaw or in the exercise of ordinary care should have foreseen said result, his negligence continued and operated as a proximate concurring cause of the injury. ’ ’

Retired Justice of the District Court of Appeal sitting under assignment by the Chairman of the Judicial Council,