Court Opinion

ID: 9756124
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 21:08:39.353555+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:14.798318
License: Public Domain

HANDLER, J.,
dissenting.
In this companion case to Mahoney v. Carus Chemical Co. Inc., 102 N.J. 564 (1986), decided today, the plaintiff police officers who were injured by a violent mob of patrons in the parking lot of a tavern filed suit against the tavern owner, the bartender and the owner of the property originally alleging ordinary negligence. Upon dismissal of this initial complaint, plaintiffs moved to amend the pleadings to encompass a cause of action alleging willful and wanton misconduct. Despite evidence revealing numerous prior occasions of unruly behavior on the premises and plaintiffs’ contention that defendants’ failure to employ adequate personnel constituted willful and wanton misconduct, plaintiff’s motion to amend their complaint was denied by the trial court. The Appellate Division affirmed. This Court in affirming the Appellate Division reasoned that the plaintiffs have not alleged an actionable claim grounded in willful and wanton misconduct. Ante at 561.
The majority is locking plaintiffs into their original characterization of the misconduct as “negligence” and will not allow them to attempt to prove that the tortious acts could reasonably be found by a trier of fact to be willful and wanton misconduct. Mahoney v. Carus Chemical Co. Inc., supra, 102 N.J. 564. In this decision, we are implicitly given an example of the line-drawing that must be made between negligence, gross negligence, willful and wanton misconduct and intentional misconduct and, as a corollary between normal or ordinary risks, abnormal or extraordinary risks, and independent causes. We thus have, in this case, this Court — not even a trial court or jury — deciding that alleged tortious conduct cannot be con*564sidered more egregious than ordinary negligence so as to create an “abnormal” risk of injury and thereby constitute an “independent cause” of the hazard that led to the policemen’s injuries.
This, in my opinion, is merely another inequitable result stemming from the application of the fireman’s rule. The inevitable wavering and blurring of the line between willful and wanton misconduct and negligent conduct will perpetrate unfairness and continue to deprive injured police officers and firefighters of the reasonable redress to which they are justly entitled.
For these reasons, and for those set forth in my separate opinions in Berko v. Freda, 93 N.J. 81, 91 (1983) and Mahoney v. Carus Chemical Co. Inc., supra, 102 N.J. 564, I dissent.
For affirmance — Chief Justice WILENTZ, and Justices POLLOCK, CLIFFORD, O’HERN, GARIBALDI and STEIN — 6.
For reversal — Justice HANDLER — 1.