Court Opinion

ID: 9682735
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:15:34.885287+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:40.969276
License: Public Domain

W. O. MURRAY
(dissenting in partj.
I concur in the result arrived1' at by the majority, but I do not agree that in' submitting to the jury the question of contributory negligence of an eight-year-old child the adult test should be applied. The majority have held that in sitbmitting the question of negligence of a child of tender years to the jury, the measure to be used is that degree of care ordinarily exercised by a child of the same age, intelligence, experience and capacity, under the same or similar circumstances, but that in submitting the issue of proximate cause you apply . to an eight-year-old child the adult test. It occurs to me that if the child test should be applied as to negligence, a like test .should be applied in submitting the proximate- cause issue. I see no reason for applying the child test in one instance and the adult. test in the other. I think the *368Supreme Court settled this matter in Dallas Ry. & Terminal Co. v. Rogers, 147 Tex. 617, 218 S.W.2d 456, 458, when it said:
“ * * * that ‘proper lookout’ and ‘ordinary care’ as used in the special issues applying to the child mean such lookout as would have been kept, and such care as would have been exercised, by ah ordinarily prudent pier-son of like age, intelligence, experience and capacity under the same or similar circumstances. The objections were overruled and the requests for special definitions and instructions were rejected. The effect of the trial court’s charge and its refusal to give the instructions and definitions requested by respondents was that the court instructed the jury with reference to the issues of contributory negligence to measure the conduct of the minor respondent by the same standard as that applied to the conduct of an adult. This, as shown by the authorities cited in the opinion of the Court of Civil Appeals, does not conform to the well settled applicable principle, which is that a child of tender years is not bound to exercise for its own safety the care required of an adult, the standard by which to measure the child's conduct being that degree of care ordinarily exercised by children of the same age, intelligence, experience and capacity under the same or similar circumstances.”
The majority seem to rely upon the following cases as their reason for concluding that in determining whether the negligence of an immature child was a proximate cause of its injuries, the child should be required to have the foreseeability of an adult: Dallas Ry. & Terminal Co. v. Black, 152 Tex. 343, 257 S.W.2d 416; Southland Greyhound Lines v. Cotton, 126 Tex. 596, 91 S.W.2d 326; Kirkpatrick v. Neal, Tex.Civ.App., 153 S.W.2d 519; Hill v. Texas, New Mexico & Oklahoma Coaches, 153 Tex. 581, 272 S.W.2d 91.
The question of the proper definition of proximate cause as applied to a child of tender years was not involved in any one of these cases. It is true that incidentally both .the plaintiff and defendant were minors in the Kirkpatrick case, but the question raised about the proper definition of proximate cause in no way related to the fact that the defendant was a minor, but rather to the fact that the plaintiff Was a guest in his automobile. The question presented was whether “proximate cause” should be defined differently where the guest statute is involved than in an ordinary personal injury suit..
In my opinion, we were right in our first opinion herein, where we hold that it was error to apply the adult test to this eight-year-old child in the definition of “proximate cause”, under the facts in this case.