Court Opinion

ID: 9583398
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:38:11.634733+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:59.918083
License: Public Domain

AMUNDSON, Justice
(concurring specially).
This case could have caused considerable uncertainty on the issue of intervening cause based on the conduct of defendant, “Forgetful Herb Wegman.” There is no question that this individual was involved in the recall of the White-Rodgers thermostatic control and did replace sixteen of *115these controls under the program, including his own and his son’s. Notwithstanding this involvement in the recall program, Wegman installed a used White-Rodgers control on the Holmes heater in order to make $25.00. This was after this salvaged control had been carried in the back of his truck for two to three years. There is no question in my mind nor in the jury's mind that Herb was negligent. On the other hand, was his negligence sufficient to absolve White-Rodgers from any liability for putting this defective control in the stream of commerce?
The trial court instructed the jury in Instruction No. 9 as follows:
When the expression “intervening cause” is used, it means the natural and continuous sequence of causal connection between the negligent conduct and the injury as interrupted by a new and independent cause, which itself produces the injury. An intervening cause operates to relieve the original wrongdoer of liability. The intervening cause must be a superseding cause. It must so entirely supersede the operation of the defendant’s negligence that it alone, without his negligence contributing thereto, produces the injury.
The record reflects that no objection was made to this instruction. Appellant White-Rodgers also does not argue that this was an erroneous statement of the law.
White-Rodgers does argue that it could not foresee this type of conduct on the part of Wegman. That could be a good issue had it been raised below. As stated by Prosser & Keeton, The Law of Torts § 44, pp 311-12 (5th ed. 1984):
[Ojnce the defendant’s negligence is established because injury of some kind was to be anticipated, intervening causes which could not reasonably be foreseen, and which are no normal part of the risk created, may bring about results of an entirely different kind.
It is here at least that the line is drawn to terminate the defendant’s responsibility. The courts have exhibited a more or less instinctive feeling that it would be unfair to hold the defendant liable. The virtually unanimous agreement that liability must be limited to cover only those causes which lie within the scope of the foreseeable risk ... is based upon a recognition of the fact that the independent causes which may intervene to change the situation created by the defendant are infinite, and that as a practical matter responsibility simply cannot be carried to such lengths. (Emphasis added.)
Further, this court recently adopted the foreseeability requirement in Musch v. H-D Coop., Inc., 487 N.W.2d 623, 626 (S.D.1992), which was obviously decided long after this case was tried. It still remains that White-Rodgers did not propose any instruction on the foreseeability of Weg-man’s conduct as a factor which could end its liability in this case.
The Nebraska Supreme Court in Brown v. Nebraska Pub. Power Dist., 209 Neb. 61, 306 N.W.2d 167 (1981), in overruling a summary judgment involving a claimed intervening cause defense, stated:
“Generally, the effect of an intervening negligent act is tested by determining whether it was such as might reasonably have been foreseen as a consequence of the claimed negligence of the original actor_ The law does not require precision in foreseeing the exact hazard or consequence which happens. It is sufficient if what occurs is one of the kind of consequences which might reasonably be foreseen. The question whether negligence is, in view of the intervening negligence of a third person, such a continuing and substantial factor in producing an accident as to be a proximate cause of the injury, is a question of fact, rather than a question of law.” (Emphasis added.)
Id. 306 N.W.2d at 171 (quoting Libbey-Owens Ford Glass Co. v. L & M Paper Co., 189 Neb. 792, 205 N.W.2d 523, 529 (1973)).
This fact question was decided adversely to White-Rodgers by the jury. Although I feel the instructions on this issue could have had more meat, “foreseeability,” on the bone, the appellant failed to provide the meat to the trial court on the foreseeability *116issue. Therefore, I reluctantly concur in the majority writing in this case. To hold otherwise would require this court to get into the jury box, which appellate courts should refrain from doing.
I am authorized to state that Chief Justice MILLER joins in this special concurrence.