Court Opinion

ID: 9850546
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:59:06.366108+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:38.982826
License: Public Domain

Deen, Judge,
dissenting. The doctrine of intervening proximate cause arises, and is usually applied, where the original passive or static negligence, harmless in itself, merely furnished a condition on which a later act of negligence acts to effect the harm, or where the intervening act would have itself caused the injury whether or not the original act of negligence existed. Thus, in Stiles v. Atlanta & W. P. R., 65 Ga. 370, it was held that the “independent, illegal act of a third person intervening and producing injury and without which it would not have happened,” excused the other defendant, even thoúgh negligent. In this category falls Taylor v. Atlanta Gas Light Co., 93 Ga. App. 766 (92 SE2d 709). Only where the second act operates on a passive or static condition not itself injurious does the question arise of whether the negligent author of the static condition should have foreseen that another would activate the situation and cause harm, and thus arises the doctrine of anticipation or foreseeability discussed in the majority opinion.
Here the negligence of the manufacturer created the dangerous condition, and the dangerous condition, without any activation by any other agency, injured the plaintiff. The negligence of the dealer did not initiate the harm but merely failed to neutralize the harmful agency. This case, therefore, falls under the rule enunciated by Judge Jenkins in Georgia Power Co. v. Kinard, 47 Ga. App. 483, 486 (170 SE 688), as follows: “The mere negligence of a third person in failing to guard against the defect or specific act or omission of the defendant which caused the injury will not constitute an intervening efficient act which will relieve the defendant from liability.”
This accords with the Restatement, Torts 2d, § 452 (1) which states: “Except as stated in subsection 2, the failure of a third person to act to prevent harm to another threatened by the actor’s negligent conduct is not a superseding cause of such harm. . . If the third person is under a duty to the other to take such action, his failure to do so will subject him to *881liability for his own negligence, which is concurrent with that of the actor, for the resulting harm which he has failed to prevent; but his failure to perform his duty does not relieve the original actor of liability for the results of his own negligence.”
The illustration from Restatement, cited by the majority opinion has no resemblance to this case except for the fact that a manufacturer is sued in both instances. As shown by the Restatement, Torts 2d, Appendix, it is a summary of Ford Motor Co. v. Wagoner, 183 Tenn. 392 (192 SW2d 840, 164 ALR 364). The annotation at page 371 of 164 ALR points out that the failure of the first purchaser of the automobile to have the hood fixed when the manufacturer informed him of the danger and offered to repair it relieved the manufacturer of any further duty toward future vendees from the informed purchaser because it “has done everything that reasonably could be expected to remove that danger or defect while the article is in the hands of the purchaser, the conscious act of that purchaser in refusing the offer for removal of the danger or defect would, as regards the vendor’s liability for injury thereafter to a subsequent purchaser or other third person, constitute an independent, efficient, intervening cause which was not foreseeable by the vendor.” P. 382.
The annotation then discusses the liability of a third party who has merely failed to inspect or discover the danger (such as the dealer here), and states (p. 384): “It has been generally held that the negligent failure of a manufacturer’s or supplier’s vendee to inspect for or to discover the existence of a hidden defect in the article sold will not operate to relieve the former of liability to a remote purchaser or other third person having occasion to come in contact therewith.” Among the many cases cited are two from Georgia: Maytag Co. v. Arbogast, 42 Ga. App. 666 (157 SE 350), and Maddox Coffee Co. v. Collins, 46 Ga. App. 220 (167 SE 306). The following is quoted at length from Maytag: “Where the manufacturer of an article, such as a piece of machinery, which is built and assembled at the factory . . . knows of and conceals a latent defect in its construction which would render the machine dangerous to *882persons not in privity of contract with the manufacturer, but who’ used the machine for the purpose intended, the mere negligence of the dealer, who purchased the machine from the manufacturer and sold it to a person injured by it, in failing to discover its defective condition, is not, as a matter of law, such an intervening act as would break whatever causal connection there might be between the manufacturer’s negligence in putting out the machine with knowledge of its defective condition and an injury to a person, not in privity of contract with the manufacturer, received while operating the machine.”
The Ford Motor Company case has received an interpretation by other courts since the cases discussed in the ALR annotation, supra. In Guffie v. Erie Strayer Co., 350 F2d 378, at page 382, it was discussed at length and held not to apply to a situation where TVA was negligent in the manner in which it delivered and stored concrete for a dam, and the other defendant was negligent in allowing the concrete to fall on a roof erected by it and in not cleaning off the roof, so that it collapsed and killed an employee. The same distinction was made in Heichel v. Lima-Hamilton Corp., 98 FSupp. 232, 240. The court first quoted hornbook authority that: “If the force which caused the injury is put in operation or motion by what is the negligence of the defendant, and that force or motion is still in progress or operation and has not lost its identity and continuity as such when the injury occurs, then the negligence which puts the injurious forcé in operation is the proximate cause.” Following this the Ford Motor Co. case is distinguished “because there was not a continuity in the defendant’s negligence, but a break in the chain of causation.” See to the same effect Fredericks v. American Export Lines, 227 F2d 450.
The injurious force put in motion by General Motors was still in operation at the time of the plaintiff’s injury. Under both Georgia and foreign authorities, and the well reasoned annotation in ALR, these circumstances are sufficient to charge the manufacturer with negligence proximately causing the injury, and the failure of a third person to take the proper steps to discover and correct the original negligence are a concurrent, not an intervening cause. In my opinion, it follows that both *883are liable. This view is strengthened rather than weakened by the distinguishing language in some of the cited cases. In Maytag, supra, Judge Stephens’ qualification that “the rule might perhaps be otherwise if the dealer had knowledge of the defective condition of the machine” is based on a 1911 case, Olds Motor Works v. Shaffer, 145 Ky. 616 (140 SW 1047), wherein the owner of a merry Oldsmobile, after discovering that the rumble seat would fall off the frame, took some visitors for a ride unaware and spilled them out. The court said the owner was solely liable. “The reason for this is that the action against the maker proceeds on the theory, and is founded on the fact, that in selling the article he practiced fraud and deceit in concealing the defects that made its use unsafe and dangerous; and, of course, when it is admitted or proven that he has not practiced any concealment, and that the purchaser was well informed as to the defect, the bottom drops out of the case against the maker.” Id. p. 625. Prior to the landmark decision in MacPherson v. Buick Motor Company, 217 N. Y. 382, 385 (111 NE 1050) allegations of fraud were considered essential to avoid the privity-of-contract pitfall, and MacPherson was memorable by reason of its initial statement: “The charge is one, not of fraud, but of negligence.” Fraud was thereby eliminated as a necessary element of the cause of action. See also Anno., 78 ALR 2d, p. 460 et seq. Again, in Hatcher v. General Electric Co., 112 Ga. App. 585, 596 (145 SE2d 647), it is stated: “The cases cited on the subject of insulation of manufacturers are cases where another party had actual knowledge of the defective manufacture and undertook to make repair thereof and failed to do so. Mere constructive knowledge is not sufficient to provide insulation of the manufacturer.” Here the dealer neither had actual knowledge that the wheel was about to come off nor did he make any attempt to repair it. Hatcher demands a contrary conclusion from that here reached.
“If the negligent act of a person is according to human experience calculated to induce or invite disaster through the negligence of another, he cannot rely upon the doctrine of an intervening cause to insulate him from liability.” Smith v. Harrison, 92 Ga. App. 576, 582 (89 SE2d 273). “Where a jury *884question is otherwise presented as to whether.the concurrent negligence of two defendants caused the plaintiff’s injuries, the issue will not be resolved as a matter of law in favor of one defendant because the other defendant failed to exercise due care to avoid the consequences of such defendant’s negligence.” Atlantic C. L. R. Co. v. Coxwell, 93 Ga. App. 159 (2) (91 SE2d 135).
Taking the allegations of the petition as true, the manufacturer negligently released a defective automobile into the stream of commerce, and an innocent third party plaintiff was injured as the direct and proximate result of this negligence,, which was a breach of its duty toward the plaintiff. Concurrently therewith the Daniels Chevrolet Company breached its own duty toward persons who might ride in the car by failing to discover the cause of the vibration in the rear wheel when the vehicle was brought to it for that purpose. Each had a separate duty toward the plaintiff, each breached that duty, and in my opinion it should be left to a jury to decide whether the negligence of either, neither, or both was the proximate cause of the injuries received without putting on the plaintiff the additional burden of alleging and proving that the manufacturer whose negligence created an active dangerous instrumentality was also negligent in failing to anticipate that the negligence which it did not itself know about would not be discovered by another.
I am authorized to state that Frankum, P. J., and Pannell, J., concur in this dissent.