Court Opinion

ID: 9459512
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:22:49.477139+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:11.890181
License: Public Domain

MERRILL, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
I dissent from part II of the majority opinion.
I do not see how, under the circumstances, we can overturn the District Court’s finding that failure of the Army Corps of Engineers to require the contractor to install bulldozer canopies constituted negligence. (As the majority opinion notes, footnote 3, California has adopted § 413 of the Restatement of Torts Second.) The nature of the accident-as described in the opinion seems to me to be such that it was obviously foreseeable. If the common practice of contractors in the area was to take the risk that such accidents would occur, that does not to me serve to establish lack of negligence as matter of law. As stated in The T. J. Hooper, 60 F.2d 737, 740 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, sub. nom. Eastern Transp. Co. v. Northern Barge Corp., 287 U.S. 662, 53 S.Ct. 220, 77 L.Ed. 571 (1932), “[T]here are precautions so imperative that even their universal disregard will not excuse their omission.”
I, too, am troubled by the apparent in-' consistency in holding the Corps negligent and the contractor not negligent. However, the District Court clearly felt that canopies should have been employed. This being so, both the Government and the contractor should have been held guilty of negligent conduct. To me the inconsistency is explainable as founded on the erroneous view that the contractor could defer to the judgment of the Corps as to whether adequate safeguards should be employed and thereby relieve himself of all duty in that respect.
I would affirm the judgment against the United States.