Court Opinion

ID: 9442322
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 18:43:56.046181+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:03.750439
License: Public Domain

MURRAH, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
My brethren apparently assume for the purpose of their ultimate conclusion, as did the trial court, that the Government was negligent in failing to remove the explosive shell from the place where the licensees were apt to come upon it while harvesting the hay on the reservation. But they say that such negligence did not extend to these children because the Government could not reasonably anticipate or foresee that the father of the children, also a licensee, would pick up the shell and carry it ninety miles to his home, where his curious and unsuspecting children would be attracted to it. As to them, they say, the Government owed no actionable duty. Otherwise stated, the negligence was not the proximate cause of the harm, because the father’s intervening act of negligence cut off and removed the Government’s original act of negligence. They recognize, however, that to exculpate the Government, the intervening negligent act must not have been within the range of the Government’s apprehension or foreseeability. As to that, they say that the taking of the shell by the farmer from the Government reservation amounted to a trespass, and that the Government could not reasonably foresee that a licensee would remove the shell, carelessly left on the reservation, to his home, where the children would eventually come into contact with it.
At this point we disagree. In the first place, I cannot agree that the father was a trespasser in any sense of the word, or that if he was negligent, such negligence was, in the language of the Kansas court, “an efficient intervening cause”. Admittedly, he was rightfully on the premises. While there he came upon an article *729which was apparently useless and valueless, and to him harmless. This is so, else it would not have been in the place where it was found. Obviously, if it had been of any value to the Government, it would not have been found lying upon the ground, unguarded, and abandoned. There is no evidence that it was taken secretly, surreptitiously or wrongfully. Certainly no one would be prompted to take such an article for its value, or for any purpose other than mere curiosity.
Moreover, the adjudicated cases, and there are many, involving the negligent use or storage of explosives, in which acts of third parties have intervened between the defendant’s wrong and the plaintiff’s injury, indicate an unmistakable tendency to insulate or exculpate the defendant only if the third party is an intentional wrongdoer.1 It is not enough that the innocent though negligent act of a parent intervened. Diehl v. A. P. Green Fire Brick Co., 299 Mo. 641, 253 S.W. 984; Mathis v. Granger Brick & Tile Co., 85 Wash. 634, 149 P. 3; May 1949 Harv. L. R. 1246. Contra: Pittsburg Reduction Co. v. Horton, 87 Ark. 576, 113 S.W. 647, 18 L.R.A., N.S., 905.
To me, this case is no different than the Clark-Powder Company case. There the Kansas court had no difficulty holding that the third person’s act of removing the explosive from where the defendant had negligently left it, to a point where it was found by small children two years later, was not an efficient intervening cause. We need only to equate time to space to draw cogent analogy between the two cases. If law is experience as recorded by adjudicated cases, it teaches us that the result of leaving this explosive shell in an unguarded place, where it is apt to be picked up by the curious and unsuspecting, is not improbable but commonplace. Things that are commonplace are certainly within the range of apprehension. Whether considered within the range of apprehension or as the proximate cause, I would hold that the complaint states a claim on which relief can be granted, and accordingly reverse the case.

. Cases in which intentional wrongdoer insulated defendant. Hale v. Pac. Tele. & Telegraph Co., 42 Cal.App. 55, 183 P. 280; Kennedy v. Independent Quarry & Construction Co., 316 Mo. 782, 291 S.W. 475; Perry v. Rochester Lime Co., 219 N.Y. 60, 113 N.E. 529, L.R.A.1917B, 1058; Murphy v. City of Rotan, Tex.Civ.App.1940, 139 S.W.2d 134.
Cases in which unintentional wrongdoer or non-wrongdoer failed to insulate defendant. Where acts of children are combined with action or non-action by adults: Clark v. E. I. Du Pont de Nemours Powder Co., 94 Kan. 268, 146 P. 320, L.R.A.1915E, 479, Ann.Cas. 1917B, 340; Diehl v. A. P. Green Co., 299 Mo. 641, 253 S.W. 984; Kansas City ex rel. Barlow v. Robinson, 322 Mo. 1075, 17 S.W.2d 977; Kingsland v. Erie County Agr. Soc., 298 N.Y. 409, 84 N.E.2d 38; Lone Star Gas Co. v. Parsons, 159 Okl. 52, 14 P.2d 369; Mathis v. Granger Brick & Tile Co., 85 Wash. 634, 149 P. 3. Where acts are by children only: Luhman v. Hoover, 6 Cir., 100 F.2d 127; Mills v. Central of Ga. Ry. Co., 140 Ga. 181, 78 S.E. 816; Terrell v. J. F. Giddings & Son, 28 Ga.App. 697, 112 S.E. 914, Lee v. Ga. Forest Products Co., 44 Ga.App. 850, 163 S.E. 267; Butrick v. Snyder, 236 Mich. 300, 210 N.W. 311; Vills v. City of Cloquet, 119 Minn. 277, 138 N.W. 33; Smith v. Smith-Peterson Co., 56 Nev. 79, 45 P.2d 785; Vallency v. Rigillo, 91 N.J.Law 307, 102 A. 348; Harriman v. Pitt Co. & St. L. R., 45 Ohio St. 11, 12 N.E. 451; Folsom-Morris Coal Mining Co. v. DeVork, 61 Okl. 75, 160 P. 64, L.R.A.1917A, 1290; City of Tulsa v. McIntosh, 90 Okl. 50, 215 P. 624; Town of Depew, Creek County v. Kilgore, 117 Okl. 263, 246 P. 606; Akin v. Bradley Engineering & Machinery Co., 48 Wash. 97, 92 P. 903, 14 L.R.A.,N.S., 586; Olson v. Gill Home Investment Co., 58 Wash. 151, 108 P. 140.
See also Restatement, Torts, Sections 442-452 and 522.