Court Opinion

ID: 9644646
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:01:23.440666+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:16.334296
License: Public Domain

POPE, Justice
(concurring).
I concur in the holding of the court that Morgan owed no duty to Henry Abalos under the doctrine announced in Buchanan v. Rose, 138 Tex. 390, 159 S.W.2d 109 (1942). Two other significant points are squarely presented by this appeal and they should be decided. Plaintiff Abalos says that the motion for instructed verdict should have been denied under his proof that the defendant had the last clear chance, and he says also that the no-duty doctrine was no basis for instructing a verdict against him. I would abolish both the last clear chance and the no-duty doctrines and return the practice to issues of negligence and contributory negligence, free of these confusing satellite issues.

Last Clear Chance

The doctrine of last clear chance is a part of the law’s thrust and parry arising from the merciful desire to ameliorate the harshness of the absolute defense of contributory negligence. Davies v. Mann, 152 Eng.Rep. 588 (1842). It applies when both parties are negligent, but the defendant’s negligence occurs at a later point in time. Gentry v. Southern Pacific Company, 457 S.W.2d 889 (Tex.1970); Safeway Stores, Inc. v. White, 162 Tex. 473, 348 S.W.2d 162 (1961); R. T. Herrin Petroleum Transport Co. v. Proctor, 161 Tex. 222, 338 S.W.2d 422 (1960); Ford v. Panhandle & Santa Fe Ry. Co., 151 Tex. 538, 252 S.W.2d 561 (1952); Sisti v. Thompson, 149 Tex. 189, 229 S.W.2d 610 (1950); Turner v. Texas Co., 138 Tex. 380, 159 S.W.2d 112 (1942); Wilson v. Southern Traction Co., 111 Tex. 361, 234 S.W. 663 (1921); Pecos & N. T. Ry. Co. v. Rosenbloom, 173 S.W. 215, reh. den., 107 Tex. 291, 177 S.W. 952 (1915); Texas & P. Ry. Co. v. Breadow, 90 Tex. 26, 36 S.W. 410 (1896); Houston & Texas Central R. R. Co. v. Smith, 52 Tex. 178 (1879). I would overrule all of these cases insofar as they recognize the last clear chance doctrine. Some old Texas cases retain the last clear chance *634doctrine in spite of the comparative negligence practice which article 6440, Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann., made applicable to railroads. Pecos & N. T. Ry. Co. v. Rosenbloom, 173 S.W. 215, reh. den., 107 Tex. 291, 177 S.W. 952 (1915), rev’d on other grounds, 240 U.S. 439, 36 S.Ct. 390, 60 L.Ed. 730 (1916); Pecos & N. T. Ry. Co. v. Welshimer, 170 S.W. 263 (Tex.Civ.App.1914, no writ). I would also overrule those cases.
Texas adopted the doctrine of last clear chance in 1879 in Houston & Texas Central R. R. Co. v. Smith, 52 Tex. 178. The court in that early case made the interesting suggestion that a system of comparative negligence would render the last clear chance doctrine unnecessary. The court rejected this suggestion because comparative negligence was not a viable alternative in 1879. This present case was also not tried by comparative negligence. Article 2212a, Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. Of course, under a system of comparative negligence, the reasons for a doctrine of the total defeat or total victory such as last clear chance no longer exist. A number of states have abandoned the last clear chance doctrine by statute or decision, believing that comparative negligence and the last clear chance doctrine are incompatible. Ark.Stat.Ann. §§ 27-1763 to 27-1765 (Supp.1973); Kaatz v. State, 540 P.2d 1037 (Alaska 1975); Burns v. Ottati, 513 P.2d 469 (Colo.App.1973); Conn. Laws 1973, c. 622 Sec. 1(c); Hoffman v. Jones, 280 So.2d 431 (Fla.1973); Loftin v. Nolin, 86 So.2d 161 (Fla.1956); Cushman v. Perkins, 245 A.2d 846 (Me.1968). Wisconsin rejected the doctrine without regard for comparative negligence. Switzer v. Detroit Inv. Co., 188 Wis. 330, 206 N.W. 407 (1925). See P. W. Johnson, The Doctrine of Last Clear Chance — Should It Survive the Adoption of Comparative Negligence in Texas, 6 Tex.Tech.L.Rev. 131 (1974); P. Keeton, Private Law, Torts, 28 Sw.L.J. 1, 15 (1974).
Last clear chance is almost the last viable doctrine in Texas ancillary to the genuine issues of negligence and contributory negligence. We have already held that instructions to the jury should be substituted for the submission of: unavoidable accident and sudden emergency, Yarborough v. Berner, 467 S.W.2d 188 (Tex.1971); excuse, Southern Pacific Co. v. Castro, 493 S.W.2d 491 (Tex.1973); new and independent cause, Dallas Ry. & Terminal Co. v. Bailey, 151 Tex. 359, 250 S.W.2d 379 (1952); and res ipsa loquitur, Mobil Chemical Company v. Bell, 517 S.W.2d 245 (Tex.1975).
We abolished the separate submission of issues inquiring about voluntary assumption of risk in Farley v. M M Cattle Company, 529 S.W.2d 751 (Tex.1975) saying, “the reasonableness of an actor’s conduct in confronting a risk will be determined under principles of contributory negligence.” We abolished the false “open and obvious” special issues in Adam Dante Corporation v. Sharpe, 483 S.W.2d 452 (Tex.1972) and explained the correct use of that phrase in Massman-Johnson v. Gundolf, 484 S.W.2d 555 (Tex.1972). Instead of an independent defense to an action, the phrase “open and obvious” is merely descriptive of that state of the evidence which establishes a fact as a matter of law. When a condition is both “open and obvious,” there is conclusive proof that one knew and fully appreciated a specific danger. It was in that sense that this court recently wrote in Coffee v. Woolworth Company, 536 S.W.2d 539 (Tex.1976). The phrase, however, has such a long history of confusion that it would be better to drop it from the practice. The state of the evidence should be discussed in terms of “no evidence,” “all the evidence” or “the proof conclusively shows.” The sum of all those decisions is that cases should be tried on issues of negligence and contributory negligence and should not be entangled with collateral issues. See Mobil Chemical Company v. Bell, 517 S.W.2d 245 (Tex.1975).
Last clear chance, as an independent doctrine, has no stronger claim for survival than the other collateral issues. It is unjust for last clear chance to completely excuse a plaintiff’s negligence when assumption of risk does not defeat his cause of action. To paraphrase Farley: henceforth in the trial of all actions based on negligence, . last clear chance will no longer be treated *635as an issue. Rather, the reasonableness of an actor’s conduct will be determined under principles of negligence.

No-Duty

Plaintiff Abalos insists that the court of civil appeals failed to hold that the no-duty doctrine has also been replaced by the reasonable man test of primary and contributory negligence. He says that by implication the no-duty doctrine was abolished by our decision in Farley which held voluntary assumption of risk was no longer a viable separate defense in a negligence case. Abalos reasons that no-duty and voluntary assumption of risk address the same issue, the defendant’s duty. We have so held in a number of prior decisions, Adam Dante Corporation v. Sharpe, 483 S.W.2d 452 (Tex.1972); Scott v. Liebman, 404 S.W.2d 288 (Tex.1966); Ellis v. Moore, 401 S.W.2d 789 (Tex.1966). In McKee v. Patterson, 153 Tex. 517, 271 S.W.2d 391 (1954), while recognizing this duplication and overlap, this court expressed the view that well-settled principles of substantive law justified the practice of distinguishing no-duty and voluntary assumption of risk:
It would greatly simplify our procedural problems if we could follow the course suggested by the San Antonio Court of Civil Appeals in Camp v. J. H. Kirkpatrick Co., 250 S.W.2d 413, writ refused, n. r. e., and let this class of cases fall into the pattern of the usual negligence case, deciding the question of negligence and breach of duty on the part of the owner by looking only to his conduct and the question of voluntary exposure to risk on the part of the invitee by looking alone to his conduct, but to do so would be to ignore the well-settled law of this state, as expressed in the cases above cited, that there is no duty on the owner of premises to take precautions to protect his invitee from dangers on the premises of which the invitee is or should be fully aware and which he voluntarily encounters. To determine the existence and the extent of the owner’s duty we must therefore look not only to the conduct of the owner but to the conduct of the invitee as well. It may well be that when we examine the conduct of the invitee for the purpose of deciding whether there has been a breach of duty by the owner we necessarily decide, as an incident thereto, the defensive issue of voluntary exposure to risk, with the result that a decision of the first question follows a decision of the second automatically. . . . But this resulting intermingling of the two problems would not justify our rewriting the substantive law of the state to impose a duty where it is so firmly established none exists. Even if voluntary exposure to risk be not pleaded as a defense the duty question would still be present. On the other hand, the problem being presented by the facts so as to raise the question of “no duty”, there would seem to be little or no place in the case for the defense of voluntary exposure to risk except, perhaps, to highlight the problem.
The elements which overlap between the so-called no-duty doctrine, voluntary assumption of risk, contributory negligence, and the nebulous open and obvious idea were sorted out in Halepeska v. Callihan Interests, Inc., 371 S.W.2d 368 (Tex.1963). At that time, as was the case ten years earlier when McKee was before this court, there was still some thought that the confusion could be eradicated. No-duty was explained in Halepeska:
The “no duty” doctrine is this: the occupier of land or premises is required to keep his land or premises in a reasonably safe condition for his invitees. This includes a duty of the occupier to inspect and to discover dangerous conditions. Smith v. Henger, 148 Tex. 456, 226 S.W.2d 425, 20 A.L.R.2d 853 (1950); Genell, Inc. v. Flynn, [163] Tex. 632, 358 S.W.2d 543 (1962). His duty is to protect his invitees from dangers of which he, the occupier, knows, or (because of his duty to inspect) of which he should know in the exercise of ordinary care. If there are dangers which are not open and obvious, he is under a duty to take such precautions as a reasonably prudent person would take to protect his invitees *636therefrom or to warn them thereof. But if there are open and obvious dangers of which the invitees know, or of which they are charged with knowledge, then the occupier owes them “no duty” to warn or to protect the invitees. This is so, the cases say, because there is “no duty” to warn a person of things he already knows, or of dangerous conditions or activities which are so open and obvious that as a matter of law he will be charged with knowledge and appreciation thereof.

So in a suit by an invitee against the occupier, the invitee must not only prove that he was injured as a proximate result of encountering a condition on the premises involving an unreasonable risk of harm, but he must also prove, as part of the plaintiffs case, that the occupier owed him a duty to take reasonable precautions to warn him or protect him from such danger, i. e., the plaintiff must negative “no duty.” This is the “no duty” referred to in the cases. Academically, it may be a rather clumsy concept, but it is still the law. Houston National Bank v. Adair, 146 Tex. 387, 207 S.W.2d 374 (1948). [Emphasis added.]
The duplicating and overlapping concepts were again examined in Adam Dante Corporation v. Sharpe, 483 S.W.2d 452 (Tex.1972). We included two extensive footnotes in that opinion. The first footnote shows that the practice then existing required a plaintiff to prove a defendant’s breach of duty by an objective standard and that he had also to disprove his own knowledge and appreciation measured by a subjective test. Those are the no-duty issues. The defense was voluntary assumption of risk which is a slight variation of the no-duty test with a shifted burden of proof. This defense was measured by a subjective test. The defendant could go further and defend on contributory negligence, an objective test.
The issues in Adam Dante’s second footnote did not require the plaintiff to disprove his own knowledge and appreciation of the danger. In that slip and fall case, we suggested that the submission which omitted the no-duty issues was more appropriate than the prior submission which contained the no-duty issues. We again set forth the submission in Adam Dante’s footnote two, which omits the no-duty issues, as the correct way for a plaintiff to try an occupier-invitee case.1 If no-duty was not abolished in Adam Dante, I would expressly do so now.
The good reasons to observe stare decisis when McKee and Halepeska were decided no longer exist. Already this court has eliminated the side issues which snarl the simpler trials which employ principles of negligence and contributory negligence. More importantly, the legislature by the adoption of the comparative negligence statute has expressed an intent to eliminate collateral issues. We have now already done by our decision in Farley v. M M Cattle Company, 529 S.W.2d 751 (Tex.1975), what this court felt it could not do in McKee v. Patterson, 153 Tex. 517, 271 S.W.2d 391 (1954). Voluntary assumption of risk has been eliminated in favor of the return of occupier-invitee cases to trials by negligence and contributory negligence.
The plaintiff has the burden to prove that the defendant had a duty which he breached. We so held by our approval of Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 343 (1965). We quoted that section and approve it as the duty rule in a slip and fall case between an invitee and an occupier.
A possessor of land is subject to liability for physical harm caused to his invitees by a condition on the land if, but only if, he
*637(a) knows or by the exercise of reasonable care would discover the condition, and should realize that it involves an unreasonable risk of harm to such invitees, and
(b) should expect that they will not discover or realize the danger, or will fail to protect themselves against it, and
(c) fails to exercise reasonable care to protect them against the danger.
The occupier is under the further duty to exercise reasonable care in inspecting the premises to discover any latent defects and to make safe any defects or to give an adequate warning.
The difference between the no-duty rule and the above Restatement rule is that the Restatement rule of section 343 does not require the plaintiff to go further and negate his own knowledge and appreciation of the danger. This problem of requiring the plaintiff to negate his own knowledge and appreciation of the danger arises from an overstatement of the defendant’s duty. An illustration of this overstatement is found in Halepeska:
But if there are open and obvious dangers of which the invitees know, or of which they are charged with knowledge, then the occupier owes them “no duty” to warn or to protect the invitees. This is so, the cases say, because there is “no-duty” to warn a person of things he already knows, or of dangerous conditions or activities which are so open and obvious that as a matter of law he will be charged with knowledge and appreciation thereof.
A similar overstatement of the duty rule is Section 343A of Restatement (Second) of Torts (1965). We did adopt the duty rule of section 343 in Adam Dante Corporation v. Sharpe. We did not adopt section 343A,2 and we do not adopt it now. This overstatement of the defendant’s duty so that it looks back upon what the plaintiff knows or does was criticized in Camp v. J. H. Kirkpatrick Co., 250 S.W.2d 413 (Tex.Civ.App.1952, writ ref’d n. r. e.).
We summarized in Camp the many earlier cases which had been tried by the simpler negligence and contributory negligence issues. We reviewed the same cases in Rosas v. Buddies Food Store, 518 S.W.2d 534 (Tex.1975), as justification for abolishing voluntary assumption of risk. We again discuss some of them as reasons for the return to the reasonable man test in deciding occupier-invitee cases. These cases show that there is no better reason to retain no-duty than there was to retain voluntary assumption of risk.
Blanks v. Southland Hotel, 149 Tex. 139, 229 S.W.2d 357 (1950) illustrates the successful and fair trial of premises actions upon principles of negligence and contributory negligence. Plaintiff Blanks sued to recover for injuries he sustained when he fell on a dimly lighted stairway from his apartment. Defendant Hotel, charged with several acts of negligence, relied upon the defense of contributory negligence. The jury refused to find that the plaintiff was contributorily negligent in (1) failing to keep a proper lookout, (2) failing to hold onto the handrail, (3) failing to watch where he was stepping, or (4) failing to request assistance down the stairway. The supreme court ruled that the question was whether or not the evidence established contributory negligence as a matter of law but held that it did not under the record made. The case was tried on principles, of simple negligence and contributory negligence without the snarling effects of no-duty, open and obvious, or voluntary assumption of risk.
Gulf, C. & S. F. R. Co. v. Gascamp, 69 Tex. 545, 7 S.W. 227 (1888) is another example of the trial of a case upon negligence *638principles even though the plaintiff knowingly encountered a specific danger. Plaintiff Gascamp approached a bridge that defendant had the duty to maintain. The bridge was out of repair and dangerous, and the plaintiff testified that he knew about the defective character of the bridge. The horse on which plaintiff was riding, dislodged a rotten plank and became frightened. This court held that the question of knowledge of the defective condition related to the issue of contributory negligence and whether that was established as a matter of law. The case is cited in McAfee v. Travis Gas Corporation, 137 Tex. 314, 153 S.W.2d 442, 447 (1941) for the principle that there are some circumstances in which one may as an ordinary prudent person take the risk of a known specific danger: “even where a person has knowledge, actual or imputed . . ..” The court went on to hold, however, that the trial court may find in an appropriate case as a matter of law that a person of ordinary care would not have incurred the risk. Other holdings that premises cases may be tried on principles of negligence and contributory negligence are: Brown v. Frontier Theatres, Inc., 369 S.W.2d 299 (Tex.1963); Lang v. Henderson, 147 Tex. 353, 215 S.W.2d 585 (1948); Walgreen-Texas Co. v. Shivers, 137 Tex. 493, 154 S.W.2d 625 (1941); Texas & N. O. R. Co. v. Wood, 166 S.W.2d 141 (Tex.Civ.App. 1942, no writ); H. E. Butt Grocery Co. v. Johnson, 226 S.W.2d 501 (Tex.Civ.App.1949, writ ref’d n. r. e.); Temple Electric Light Co. v. Halliburton, 136 S.W. 584 (Tex.Civ.App.), aff’d, 104 Tex. 493, 140 S.W. 426 (1911); Henwood v. Gilliam, 207 S.W.2d 904 (Tex.Civ.App.1947, writ ref’d); Texas & N. O. R. Co. v. Blake, 175 S.W.2d 683 (Tex.Civ.App.1943, writ ref’d); Northcutt v. Magnolia Petroleum Co., 90 S.W.2d 632 (Tex.Civ.App.1936, writ ref’d). An instructed verdict by reason of contributory negligence as a matter of law is a suitable alternative and is a simpler order than one based on principles of no-duty. See United Gas Corporation v. Crawford, 141 Tex. 332, 172 S.W.2d 297 (1943).
I, therefore, would hold that no-duty like open and obvious and voluntary assumption of risk should not be submitted as special issues. Nor should those doctrines be the subject of instructions to jurors. Scholars and theorists, after a lifetime of study, are unable to agree or communicate the nuances of the« distinctions. It is unfair then to expect jurors to comprehend these distinctions when they, once in a lifetime, hear an instruction read which orally states the meanings of these obscure doctrines. We should not prolong the endless debates about the distinctions between subjective and objective tests of knowledge and appreciation, the changing burdens of proof on the several duplicated matters, the proof of the negative of one’s own knowledge and appreciation, and the exceptions to and limitations upon these doctrines.
Efforts to clarify and explain by instructions such rules as last clear chance, voluntary assumption of risk, open and obvious, and no-duty and, at the same time, to permit their use with stated limitations or exceptions have not proved successful. Concluding that confusion lingers as long as voluntary assumption of risk survives, New Jersey abandoned its simultaneous efforts to both clarify and make limited use of the doctrine. It wrote in McGrath v. American Cyanamid Co., 41 N.J. 272, 196 A.2d 238 (1963):
Experience, however, indicates the term “assumption of risk” is so apt to create mist that it is better banished from the scene. We hope we have heard the last of it. Henceforth let us stay with “negligence” and “contributory negligence.”
An instruction concerning last clear chance is also unnecessary. Trial advocacy and oral argument can invite the jurors’ attention to a plaintiff’s or a defendant’s failure to act as a reasonable person, and such notions as last clear chance and the assumption of a known risk, or full knowledge and appreciation of a danger can. be subsumed under the simpler doctrines of negligence and contributory negligence. Kaatz v. State, 540 P.2d 1037 (Alaska 1975).
For reasons expressed at the outset, I concur in the result.

.Adam Dante Corporation v. Sharpe, 483 S.W.2d 458 n. 2 (Tex.1972).

Plaintiff’s Issues

1. Defendant created or maintained a dangerous condition (stating it) on its premises. (Objective Test)
2. Defendant knew (or should have known) of the condition. (Objective Test)
3. Negligence in some particular act or omission (failure to inspect, failure to correct, failure to warn, etc.).
4. Proximate cause.

. § 343 A. Known or Obvious Dangers
(1) A possessor of land is not liable to his invitees for physical harm caused to them by any activity or condition on the land whose danger is known or obvious to them, unless the possessor should anticipate the harm despite such knowledge or obviousness.
(2) In determining whether the possessor should anticipate harm from a known or obvious danger, the fact that the invitee is entitled to make use of public land, or of the facilities of a public utility, is a factor of importance indicating that the harm should be anticipated.