Court Opinion

ID: 9674576
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:30:48.993637+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:28.243189
License: Public Domain

LAWSON, Justice
(dissenting).
I entertain the view that the trial court erred in overruling those grounds of appellant’s demurrer directed to Counts One, Two and Three as finally amended which took the point that the count shows on its face that the negligence, if any, of the appellant was not the proximate cause of the injury to Joseph Guy; that his injury resulted from an independent, intervening, efficient cause, not reasonably foreseeable by appellant, the act of the Petrantis automobile running into the appellant’s electric light pole.
Generally, the question of proximate cause is for the jury. But when the facts are such that reasonable men must draw the same conclusion, the question of proximate cause is one of law for the courts. City of Birmingham v. Latham, 230 Ala. 601, 162 So. 675; Morgan Hill Paving Co. v. Fonville, 218 Ala. 566, 119 So. 610; Morgan v. City of Tuscaloosa, 268 Ala. 493, 108 So.2d 342. In the case last cited we said, in effect, that where a count shows on its face that the negligence charged against a defendant was not the proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injury, it is the duty of the court to sustain apt demurrer to the count.
In several decisions dealing with negligence as the proximate cause, when some agency has intervened and has been the immediate cause of the injury, we have said that the party guilty of negligence in the first instance is not responsible, unless at the time of the original negligence the act of the agency could not have been reasonably foreseen. If the act of the intervening agency could have been reasonably foreseen the causal chain is not broken. But if the injury results from an independent, intervening, efficient cause, not reasonably to be anticipated, to wit, the act of a third person, the negligence shown, if any, is not the proximate cause of the injury. Clendenon v. Yarbrough, 233 Ala. 269, 171 So. 277; Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Maddox, 236 Ala. 594, 183 So. 849, 118 A.L.R. 1318; Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Courson, 234 Ala. 273, 174 So. 474, and cases cited; Mahone v. Birmingham Electric Co., 261 Ala. 132, 73 So.2d 378; Liberty National Life Ins. Co. v. Weldon, 267 Ala. 171, 100 So.2d 696, 61 A.L.R.2d 1346.
It would be useless to attempt to review our many cases where the question of proximate cause is involved. There are differences in almost every case and often the decision reached has turned on a slight difference of allegation or fact.
We have been cited to no Alabama case and my research has disclosed no Alabama case similar to the case at bar.
Each of the counts presently under consideration, when construed most strongly against appellees, shows that the electric light pole which the Petrantis car hit was not situated in the travelled portion of the street or in such close proximity thereto as to constitute an obstruction dangerous to anyone properly using the street.
*597It may be stated as a general proposition that a company lawfully maintaining poles in or near a public highway is not liable for the damage to person or property resulting from a road vehicle striking such pole, unless it is erected on the travelled portion of the highway or in such close proximity thereto as to constitute an obstruction dangerous to anyone properly using the highway and the location of the pole is the proximate cause of the collision. Annotation, 82 A.L.R. 395; 18 Am.Jur., § 92, p. 484.
This rule is well illustrated by the case of Indiana Service Corp. v. Johnston, 109 Ind.App. 204, 34 N.E.2d 157 (1941) pertinent portions of which are as follows:
“An essential element of proximate cause is the requirement that the result must be such as might reasonably have been anticipated in the ordinary experience of men. In applying this rule to a case like the instant one, wherein the alleged negligence merely created a condition by which the injury was made possible and the subsequent independent act of an intervening agency caused the injury, logic requires not only that the type of injury should have been reasonably anticipated but that the intervention of the independent agency should have been anticipated.
“Our inquiry in the instant case may well be directed then to the question as to whether appellant should have anticipated that the driver of an automobile would negligently drive his car off the traveled portion of the highway over the curb and into one of its poles with sufficient force to affect a connecting pole 150 feet away. The inquiry is self-answering. In this day when the streets and highways are being constantly used by automobiles, tractors and trucks of great weight and power, it would be unreasonable indeed to hold that companies maintaining poles adjoining the streets and highways must maintain their poles not only in such condition as to be safe in regard to ordinary hazards, but also in such condition as to resist the weight and force of any cars, tractors or- trucks which might be negligently driven off the highway and into them. They are neither bound by duty to so maintain their property, nor are such acts on the part of the drivers of vehicles reasonably to be anticipated.” (34 N.E.2d 158)
In Woody v. South Carolina Power Co., 202 S.C. 73, 24 S.E.2d 121, the Supreme Court of South Carolina reached a similar result. In that case the court held:
“It seems to us that the wrongful act of the truck driver and its results could not reasonably have been foreseen in the circumstance. No one lawfully using the highway could possibly have come in contact with the pole. The defendant could not reasonably have anticipated the fact that the driver of a truck would wrongfully drive it over the edge of the highway, across the ditch, and strike the pole with such force as to knock a wire loose from it.
“We think that the only reasonable inference which may be drawn from the evidence is that the intervening act of the truck driver was a new and independent force which broke the causal connection between the defendant’s act and the plaintiff’s unfortunate injury; that it was the sole proximate cause, and that the negligence of the defendant, if it existed, was a remote and not a proximate cause of it; it merely brought about a condition and was not a concurrent proximate cause of the injuries.” (24 S.E.2d 126)
In Vines v. Southwestern Miss. Electric Power Ass’n, 241 Miss. 120, 129 So.2d 396, the Supreme Court of Mississippi in a case somewhat similar to the case at bar said in part:
“ * * * There is nothing in this case indicating that the public in making proper use of the road, would reasonably come into contact with the power wires. Of *598course, when they are knocked down, they become dangerous, but danger is not synonymous with negligence; and where the danger results solely from the careless act of another in causing the power -lines to be knocked down, as was the case here, we do not think the degree of care required makes it a jury case.” (129 So. 2d 399.)
In Alford v. Washington et al., 238 N.C. 694, 78 S.E.2d 915, the allegations of the complaint, as set out in the report of the case, are strikingly similar to averments of Count One in this case. The suit was brought by Alford on behalf of Charles S. Alford, Jr., his intestate, against the City of Kinston and one Washington. The trial court sustained the demurrer interposed by the City of Kinston and dismissed the action as to it. From that ruling, Alford, the plaintiff, appealed. The trial court overruled Washington’s demurrer. He excepted to that ruling and appealed, but his appeal is not material here. One of the grounds of demurrer interposed by the City of Kinston reads: “That the sole and proximate cause of death of plaintiff’s intestate was the negligence of defendant Washington.” The Supreme Court of North Carolina upheld the action of the trial court sustaining the demurrer of the City of Kinston, saying:
“And while it is alleged that the city of Kinston should have foreseen that motor vehicles would collide at the intersection in question, and come into contact with the light poles of the city’s lighting system, — this is a conclusion that does not follow the law. ‘One is not under a duty of anticipating negligence on the part of others, but in the absence of anything which gives or should give notice to the contrary a person is entitled to assume, and to act on the assumption, that others will exercise ordinary care for their own safety’. 65 C.J.S., Negligence, § 15. See Shirley v. Ayers, 201 N.C. 51, 158 S.E. 840; Murray v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 218 N.C. 392, 11 S.E. 2d 326; Hobbs v. Queen City Coach Co., 225 N.C. 323, 34 S.E.2d 211.” (78 S.E.2d 919.)
Another case to the same effect as those from which I have quoted above is Roadman v. Bellone et al., 379 Pa. 483, 108 A.2d 754.
The case of Gibson v. Garcia et al., 96 Cal.App.2d 681, 216 P.2d 119, cited by appellees, is not in accord with the cases to which I have heretofore referred, but in my opinion the statements of law in the Garcia case, supra, regarding independent intervening causes are not in accord with the rulings of the majority of our cases on this subject, nor in fact with the great majority of cases from other jurisdictions dealing with this or a similar fact situation.
This case has been pending in this court much too long. I wish to make it clear that the delay has been the fault of the writer of this dissent.
I would reverse the judgments of the trial court for the reason stated in the opening paragraph of this dissenting opinion.
GOODWYN, J., concurs in this dissent.