Court Opinion

ID: 9854835
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:14:53.691011+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:23:28.193780
License: Public Domain

Finley, J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part) — I have been concerned for sometime that some of the reasoning in our decisions has been both confusing and somewhat inconsistent in indicating that the negligence of a parent is not to be imputed to a minor child; but the negligence of a parent may be evaluated along with the alleged negligence or blameworthiness of a defendant in terms of proximate cause on the part of either or both; i.e., whether the negligence of one or the other was “the proximate cause” of the injury. Thus, in the indicated frame of reference, the majority opinion states:
The jury could hardly be expected to perceive the difference between contributory negligence of the mother and the failure to fulfill the “primary duty of care” required of a parent, as these negligence concepts affect the question of the liability of the defendant in a case like the one at bar. The “primary duty of care” of a parent must be explained with sufficient clarity so that the jury does not misunderstand it as meaning that the mother’s duty is paramount to that of the host and use it as a bar to a finding of liability in the event that they should find that the parent’s failure to fulfill her “primary duty of care” is one of the proximate causes of the injury, but not the sole cause of the injury.
It seems to me it would not only be difficult for the jury to distinguish between (a) parental negligence and (b) parental failure to fulfill a primary duty of care as to a minor offspring, but that any such attempted distinction is unrealistic — in fact, fictional — except for the language of the law and the nomenclature of judicial decision. There is no real distinction between the two things. The confusion is further compounded by decisional language adverted to by *326the majority to the effect that the parent cannot directly benefit financially from the suit, and cannot have any financial interest in any judgment recovered by her son. In such cases a minor has certain interests. Parents also have certain interests. In some respects these interests are separate, but in other respects they overlap or they are dual in nature. Medical, hospitalization, physical therapy, and other costs for physical and mental rehabilitation of the injured child, certainly as a practical matter, occasion a parent considerable interest of an inescapable financial nature.
Absent comment that a parent can in effect have no financial interest in the litigation; and absent comment as to contributory negligence of the mother, or imputation of her negligence as to the claim of the minor child, the reasoning of the majority opinion regarding the legal concept of proximate causation could provide a reasonably effective and operative mechanism for the jury to determine whether it should impose liability against the defendant. Instructions along this line, in my judgment, would constitute — in part at least — a fairly realistic and rational evaluation of the interest of the minor and the parent and the defendant in the instant case. If this is not the law, I think it should be.
I agree with the views of the majority as to appellant’s error assigned regarding instructions Nos. 5 and 7. For the reasons and to the extent indicated, I concur in part and dissent in part.