Court Opinion

ID: 9774544
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:23:23.734696+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:09.664470
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION
GRIFFIN, Justice.
I can agree on the doctrine of strict liability with my brethren in this case, but I cannot agree that contributory negligence should not be a defense to a suit by a party upon the “warranty” or tort doctrine.
In this case the jury has found that Ray Munsinger was guilty of negligence in directing his brother to pour the liquid purchased by Ray Munsinger’s father as kerosene upon a smoldering stick which he had taken from an incinerator and placed in a toy truck. The jury also found that such negligence was a proximate cause of his injuries sustained as a result of the explosion.
*787The trial judge defined “negligence” as the failure to use ordinary care. “Ordinary care” was defined, “ * * * as applied to the minor plaintiff, Ray Munsinger, means such care as an ordinarily prudent child of the age, intelligence, experience, and capacity of the said Ray Munsinger would have exercised under the same or similar circumstance.” (Emphasis mine.)
The effect of the jury findings on the issues of negligence and proximate cause is that Ray Munsinger did not exercise the care of a child of his age in his actions and conduct in handling and dealing with the liquid in the can. This being true, I just cannot agree that Ray should be excused from his own negligence and permitted to recover. I do not understand that a manufacturer, distributor, or retailer of any product can be charged with foreseeing any one in his right mind would fail to use ordinary care in his actions and conduct toward, or with, such product. Surely, a manufacturer, distributor, or retailer is not to be mulcted in damages for the one and only reason that he put the product in circulation.
The ordinarily prudent child [person] is a well recognized test for measuring conduct of others in practically all cases, therefore, I cannot agree it should not be the test in a strict liability case.
The rule announced by the majority opinion is the minority rule in the United States. The quotation from Dean Prosser set out in the majority shows this to be true. Read the following language from such quotation:
“There has been ostensible, and quite superficial, disagreement over whether contributory negligence is available as a defense where the action is one for breach of warranty. A few decisions have said flatly that it is not. The greater number have said quite as flatly that it is.” (Emphasis mine.)
Then Dean Prosser sets out what he considers good reason for reconciling the conflict in favor of the “few decisions.” I do not agree and prefer the rule followed by the “greater number.”