Court Opinion

ID: 9796250
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:52:46.40566+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:49:23.023801
License: Public Domain

FIDEL, Judge,
dissenting.
¶28 Both APS and Mr. Gunnell were negligent; indeed, both were negligent per se.
¶29 When APS undertook to blue-stake the site of a pending excavation, it negligently failed to locate and mark an active power line and to notify the excavator that it had that power line on site. (APS lost track not only of the placement, but of the existence and non-conforming properties of its power line; thus, APS insisted for a time after the explosion that no APS power line could conceivably have been encased in steel.) By failing to locate and mark its own active facility, APS violated A.R.S. § 40-360.22(B) and (I).
¶ 30 As for Mr. Gunnell, when his initial efforts to determine the owner of the unusual steel-encased facility revealed only that it was not an active water line, he assumed it to be abandoned and commenced his excavation without re-contacting the Blue Stake Center to verify whether the facility was truly abandoned or active in fact. In so doing, Mr. Gunnell violated A.R.S. §§ 40-360.22(1) and 40-360.23(B).
¶ 31 We must infer for the purpose of summary judgment that both parties’ negligence contributed directly to the- explosion-that had either met the requirements of the statute, the explosion would not likely have occurred. The acts of both thus fall within the Underground Facilities Act. The liability of APS is addressed by A.R.S. § 40-360.28(C), which provides, “If the owner or operator fails to locate or incorrectly locates .the underground facility, pursuant to this article, the owner or operator becomes liable for resulting damages, costs and expenses to the injured party.” The liability of Mr. Gunnell is addressed by A.R.S. § 40 — 360.28(B), which provides, “If a violation of this article results in physical contact with an underground facility, the violator is liable to the owner of the facility for all damages to the facilities and costs, expenses and damages to third parties incurred by the owner of the facility as a result of the contact.”
¶32 The plain text of both subsections encompasses the circumstances of this case. Neither subsection purports to trump the other; nor does either purport to be superseded or rendered inapplicable when the other applies. The task of the court should therefore be to harmonize the two provisions *389and give reasonable scope to each. See, e.g., State ex rel. Larson v. Farley, 106 Ariz. 119, 122, 471 P.2d 731, 734 (1970) (“If reasonably practical, a statute should be explained in conjunction with other statutes to the end that they may be harmonious and consistent.”).
II33 The majority acknowledges this responsibility and professes to meet it; but instead of harmonizing the two subsections, the majority subordinates one to the other. That is, in cases of active negligence by both the facility owner and the excavator, the majority interprets subsection B as negating subsection C.
¶34 I disagree with this approach. We should not adopt an interpretation that negates either subsection when a “reasonably practical” alternative interpretation that renders the two subsections “harmonious and consistent” is available to the court. See id. Specifically, when both the facility owner and the excavator have caused an accident — the owner by failure to locate and identify the facility, the excavator by failure to verify its identity and status — the statute should be interpreted to make both tortfeasors responsible for the resulting damage, with their relative responsibility to be determined by the fact-finder in proportion to them relative degrees of fault.
¶ 35 A fault-based proportionate allocation of responsibility in such circumstances makes sense of the Underground Facilities Act in the following three respects:
¶ 36 First, as I have indicated, a fault-based proportional allocation harmonizes the liability provisions of the Underground Facilities Act with each other. Negating neither, such an interpretation provides reasonable scope and deterrent force to each.
¶37 Second, a fault-based proportional allocation more fairly accommodates an Act that undertakes to make “violators” responsible for the consequences of their violations. Specifically, subsection A.R.S. § 40-360.28(B) allocates responsibility to a “violator” when “a violation of this article results in physical contact with an underground facility.” Here, the excavator, Mr. Gunnell, did not commit the only violation of the article. The owner, APS, violated the article as well, by its failure to locate and identify the line.3 See A.R.S. § 40-360.28(0). As the majority interprets § 40-360.28, an owner violator escapes any responsibility and a non-owner violator is wholly responsible when the violations of each contribute to the harm. It is fairer and more sensible in my view to read the statute as making a non-owner violator wholly liable to the owner only where the owner is not a violator itself.
¶ 38 Third, the interpretation that I propose achieves a broader harmony among related statutes, for it construes the specific liability provisions of the Underground Facilities Act in a manner consistent with the general liability provisions of our comparative fault and contribution statutes, A.R.S. §§ 12-2505 to 2506 (Supp.2000). See id. (statutes that “relate to the same subject” should be “construed as one system governed by one spirit and policy,” and “as though they constitute[ ] one law”).
¶ 39 In our comparative fault and contribution statutes, the Arizona legislature undertook to increase the fairness of our tort system by making all contributing tortfeasors bear responsibility for accidental injuries in proportion to their relative degrees of fault. See Hutcherson v. City of Phoenix, 192 Ariz. 51, 54, ¶¶ 15-16, 961 P.2d 449, 452 (1998). The underlying public policy of these statutes is to make each person “responsible for paying his or her percentage of fault and no more.” Dietz v. General Elec. Co., 169 Ariz. 505, 510, 821 P.2d 166,171 (1991). This public policy of proportionate-fault-based liability is so expansive that it extends even to the comparative allocation of liability among intentional, wilful, and negligent tortfeasors. See Hutcherson, 192 at 54-55, ¶¶ 17-20, 961 P.2d at 452-53; Williams v. Thude, 188 Ariz. 257, 259, 934 P.2d 1349, 1351 (1997). There *390is no good reason to attribute an inconsistent policy to the Underground Facilities Act when a consistent interpretation is readily at hand.
¶ 40 The majority’s interpretation not only clashes with the strong public policy reflected in our comparative negligence and several liability statutes; it also clashes with two manifestations of that policy in our common law of torts:
¶ 41 First, the majority effectively attributes to A.R.S. § 40-360.28(B) a preemptive legislative determination that an excavator’s negligent failure to verify the identity and nature of a facility constitutes an intervening, superseding cause-one that entirely relieves the facility owner of responsibility for its own negligent failure to blue-stake the facility with reasonable care. Yet according to our law of torts, an intervening cause is not a superseding cause unless it is both unforeseeable and, upon hindsight, extraordinary. See, e.g., Ontiveros v. Borak, 136 Ariz., 500, 506, 667 P.2d 200, 206 (1983) (“[T]he original actor is relieved from liability for the final result when, and only when, an intervening act of another was unforeseeable by a reasonable person in the position of the original actor and when, looking backward, after the event, the intervening act appears extraordinary .”). It is neither unforeseeable nor, in hindsight, extraordinary, when a utility company masks an underground power line in an uncharacteristic casing and neglects to locate and blue-stake the line before an excavation, that the excavator may misconstrue the line and strike it. Thus, the majority, by its interpretation, unnecessarily renders the Underground Facilities Act inconsistent with Arizona’s law of intervening, superseding cause.
¶ 42 Second, the majority similarly attributes to A.R.S. § 40-360.28(B) a preemptive legislative determination that an excavator’s negligent failure to verify the identity and nature of a facility constitutes a last clear chance — an intervening chance to avert harm — -that entirely relieves the facility owner of responsibility for its own negligent failure to blue-stake the facility with care. But the Arizona courts have abandoned the doctrine of last clear chance after the adoption of comparative negligence, deeming that doctrine inconsistent with a public policy that distributes responsibility to all tortfeasors in proportion to their relative degrees of fault. See Dykeman v. Engelbrecht, 166 Ariz. 398, 400-01, 803 P.2d 119, 121-22 (App.1990). Thus, the majority, by its interpretation, unnecessarily renders the Underground Facilities Act inconsistent with Arizona’s law of last clear chance.
¶43 I do not mean to suggest that the legislature could not explicitly adopt the scheme the majority attributes to it, if the legislature wished to do so. But the legislature did not profess to do so, and I do not believe we should use our interpretive powers to attribute to a silent statute an intent so inconsistent with Arizona’s fundamental law of torts. See Hayes v. Continental Ins. Co., 178 Ariz. 264, 274, 872 P.2d 668, 678 (1994) (“If the legislature intends to deny, abrogate, or preempt [the common-law], it must clearly say so.”).
¶ 44 For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s conclusion that, in circumstances such as these, the Underground Facilities Act relieves a facilities owner of responsibility for the consequences of its blue-staking negligence. Under that statute, as under the statutes and the case law that shape our general law of torts, the owner and the excavator should each bear liability in proportion to their relative degrees of fault.

. Similarly, A.R.S. § 40-360.26(A) does not apply only to excavators, but rather to "any person” who damages an underground facility “as a result of failing to obtain information as to its location, failing to take measures for protection of the facilities or failing to excavate in a careful and prudent manner.” (Emphasis added.) APS, no less than Gunnell, committed damaging acts within the ambit of this statute.