Court Opinion

ID: 9659466
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 21:47:03.265006+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:08.560493
License: Public Domain

YETKA, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. In looking at the special verdict as a whole, I am convinced that the jury misunderstood the instruction on causation. The jury found that both plaintiff and defendant were negligent, but that neither party’s negligence was a cause of the injury. Under the instruction on *277causation given in this case, these findings cannot be reconciled.
If plaintiff was negligent, it was because he failed to wear eye protection while using RC-35 or because he pointed the bottle of RC-35 at his face while using it. In either case, a finding that his negligence was not a substantial factor in causing the injury was perverse and manifestly contrary to the evidence. The majority suggests that the findings of negligence, but no causation, are consistent if the jury decided that the nozzle popped out of the bottle and treated that occurrence as an “intervening cause.” However, the jury was not instructed on intervening cause so it is impossible to rationalize the special verdict on these grounds. Furthermore, such an occurrence could not be an “intervening event” as a matter of law. Defendant demonstrated that RC-35 will only come out of the bottle in small drops; it is physically impossible for the product to spray out of the nozzle. Thus, if plaintiff was negligent in pointing the bottle at his person or failing to use eye protection, he was negligent precisely because of the possibility that the nozzle might pop out of the bottle. Such an occurrence was clearly within the scope of the risk created by plaintiffs negligence and cannot be considered an intervening event. See W. Pros-ser, Handbook of the Law of Torts § 44 at 281 (4th Ed.1971).
If the plaintiff was negligent, the jury clearly erred when it found that his negligence was not a cause of the accident. The majority is willing to ignore this error as long as there is support for the finding that defendant’s negligence was not a cause. I think that when the verdict indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the law of causation, all of the jury’s findings on causation should be disregarded.
In Nihart v. Kruger, 291 Minn. 273, 190 N.W.2d 776 (1971), we said, “In reviewing the findings [in a special verdict], we need only examine the record to decide whether the verdicts are consistent on any theory. Only where it is clear that findings cannot be reconciled may the trial court set them aside.” Id. at 276, 190 N.W.2d at 778. In this case, the majority cannot reconcile inconsistent findings so it simply ignores those findings that do not fit with its theory of the case. This approach makes our statement in Nihart meaningless. I would remand the ease for a new trial on the issue of liability only.