Court Opinion

ID: 9677315
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:49:02.845671+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:55.249187
License: Public Domain

Peterson, Justice
(dissenting in part).
I respectfully dissent as to defendants Taylor and concur in the result as to defendant Albany Golf Course for reasons which I only briefly suggest.
*452The main thesis in imposing liability upon the Taylors appears to be that a prima facie case, otherwise absent, was established by the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur. The trial court by directing verdicts for the defendants at the conclusion of plaintiff’s case obviously held the doctrine inapplicable, for that was plaintiff’s case. The inference which the doctrine permits presupposes that the evidence of the true cause of the event is available to the defendant and not to the plaintiff, Heffter v. Northern States Power Co. 173 Minn. 215, 217 N. W. 102, which is not the case here; further, other causes of the event and for which defendant is not responsible (including the conduct of third persons) must be reasonably ruled out by the evidence, Restatement, Torts (2d) § 328D, which most particularly is not this case.
It is unquestioned that the emergency brake was not set at the time the automobile rolled down the hill and that it would not have occurred had the brake been set. The uncontroverted testimony of Mrs. Taylor was that she had probably set the brake, as was her habit. The undisputed fact that the Taylor car remained stationary for more than 3 hours is of massive significance in suggesting, the truth of her testimony. The fact that the brake handle was bent up over the cowl does not reasonably suggest to me that she unwittingly had attempted, but failed, to set the brake in that extraordinary manner; rather, it is a far more reasonable inference that the brake was released by someone unfamiliar with the car and who, as the car began to move, clumsily and desperately attempted to reset it. The testimony is uncontroverted, moreover, that the door on the driver’s side was open and the window down when the car came to rest at the bottom of the hill, whereas she testified that the window was probably up and the door was certainly shut when she parked the car 3 hours earlier. The testimony of an independent witness established that there were several children playing in the immediate area of the car, significantly including one child observed to be running or tumbling ahead of the car as it came down the hill.
The case of defendant Albany Golf Course does perhaps present a question for determination by a jury on one issue. The majority holds that the golf course could have simply and inexpensively erected bar*453riers to prevent cars, from whatever cause, rolling down the hill into patrons of the golf course. This would undoubtedly be true if any of the street level property available for such installation is the private property of the defendant golf course. Otherwise, the defendant’s only alternative would be to install a barrier on the steeply sloping private property of the golf course and of such construction as to stop a car already in motion, an alternative which a jury might find not to be simple or reasonable. This issue of reasonable alternatives was of crucial importance in Mack v. McGrath, 276 Minn. 419, 150 N. W. (2d) 681, cited in the majority opinion.