Court Opinion

ID: 9740360
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:33:21.670237+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:17.643046
License: Public Domain

Borradaile, J.
(dissenting in part, concurring in part). I differ with the majority in that in my opinion MCLA 436.34; MSA 18.1005, has no application here because the plaintiffs did not allege that the defendants consumed alcoholic liquor on the public highways.
Again I differ with the majority in that in my opinion violation of a criminal statute should not always constitute negligence per se although it may. While many jurisdictions do consider violation of a criminal statute as negligence per se, 57 Am Jur 2d, Negligence, § 242, p 625, others have renounced the doctrine of negligence per se, undoubtedly on the ground that not all violations of the criminal law are unreasonable, and held that criminality is only evidence of negligence. Morris, *185The Role of Criminal Statutes in Negligence Actions, 49 Colum L Rev 21, 34 (1949).
Morris, supra, p 23 has stated some reasons why civil liabilities should not always follow violation of a criminal statute.
"Administration of the criminal law often tempers responsibility in ways unparalleled in civil courts. Enactment of statutes may be unpublicized and adequate warning of impending drastic change of the law of negligence may not be given. Criminal statutes may be unwisely severe. And, most important, potentially ruinous civü liability is often inappropriate for minor infraction of petty criminal regulations.”
I concur with the majority in reversing and remanding as to those defendants who allegedly violated MCLA 750.141a; MSA 28.336(1), which makes knowingly furnishing alcoholic beverage to a minor without a physician’s prescription a misdemeanor, because I think that under the circumstances of this case such statutory violation is sufficient evidence of negligence to make granting an accelerated judgment inappropriate.