Court Opinion

ID: 9632124
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:03:53.362592+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:29:43.438674
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE HASWELL
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur in that part of the majority opinion disallowing punitive damages for the reasons therein stated; I dissent from that part of the majority opinion disallowing compensatory damages.
In this case a 9 year old child was killed by the cave-in of an excavation created and maintained in a dangerous condition by a building contractor who did absolutely nothing to protect anyone. The majority opinion completely absolves the contractor from any liability for the child’s death as a matter of law, reversing a jury verdict in the process. In my view, this is unjust.
*481As I read the majority opinion, it holds that the so-called “attractive nuisance” doctrine of liability is inapplicable here because: (1) an artificial condition of land duplicating a natural condition is involved, and (2) there is a total absence of evidence that the contractor created a condition foreseeably dangerous to children.
The majority opinion cites numerous cases from other jurisdictions holding that the attractive nuisance doctrine is inapplicable as a matter of law to cave-ins of excavations, sand piles or clay banks; at least an equal number of cases from other jurisdictions hold to the contrary on the basis that this is a jury question. Peters v. City of Tampa, 115 Fla. 666, 155 So. 854; Holmberg v. City of Chicago, 244 Ill.App.505; Cicero State Bank v. Dolese and Shepard Co., 298 Ill.App. 290, 18 N.E.2d 574; Fink v. Missouri Furnace Company, 10 Mo.App. 61, 82 Mo. 276; Arrington v. Town of Pinetops, 197 N.C. 433, 149 S.E. 549; City of Shawnee v. Cheek, 41 Okl. 227, 137 P. 724; Baxter v. Park, 44 S.D. 360, 184 N.W. 198, and 205 N.W. 75. None of the cases cited in the majority opinion, nor here, are controlling precedent in the instant case. In my view, this Court should refrain from establishing any such purely arbitrary categorical exclusion. To exclude cases involving excavation cave-ins as a matter of law not only is illogical, but patently unjust as well.
The majority opinion also seems to hold that there is a total absence of evidence that the contractor created a condition dangerous to children or that the danger of a cave-in was foreseeable. This is pure fantasy — straight from dreamland. The evidence shows, without contradiction, that the contractor’s agent had dug a deep trench with vertical walls on a lot abutting a public street in a residential subdivision, that water pipe had been laid therein, that the trench had been only partially backfilled and had been left open and unguarded for several days prior to the accident, that the north wall of the trench had caved in, and that a 9 year old child *482living nearby was killed in tbe cave-in. Tbe foreseeability of danger to children from such a cave-in was likewise a jury question. The presence of children on the property and the contractor’s knowledge thereof was established as a jury issue by the testimony of Mrs. King, William Plummer, Reuben Tietz, and the photographs of Stanley Healy; the foreseeability of danger to such children from a cave-in was established as a jury issue by the testimony of Mr. Curran, defendant Buck, Mr. Byington, Melvin Fassio, William Plummer, Mrs. King and Reuben Tietz. The jury resolved these issues against the contractor by its verdict and this Court ought not to disturb such verdict based on substantial conflicting evidence.
In my view Court’s Instruction No. 11 is a correct statement of the law on the “attractive nuisance” doctrine. (Compare with MJIG- No. 120.03 and Sec. 339, Restatement of Torts 2d.) The trial court was required to instruct the jury on this doctrine because there was substantial conflicting evidence on the existence or nonexistence of the conditions on which its applicability is premised. On appeal this Court should not brush under the table this factual determination by the jury.
For the foregoing reasons I would affirm the verdict of the jury awarding $10,661 compensatory damages.