Court Opinion

ID: 9450429
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:47:23.838529+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:18.927657
License: Public Domain

*406ALDRICH, Chief Judge
(concurring).
I concur in the court’s opinion in substantial measure, but with one caveat. Strictly, I do not think the question need be one of contributory negligence. If a party has a duty to warn, and fails adequately to perform, as could be found here, it may nonetheless be that the other party in fact possessed the knowledge which a proper exercise of the duty would have conveyed. In such event there can be no recovery. New York Central R.R. v. Moynihan, 1 Cir., 1964, 338 F.2d 644. A plaintiff might, in fact, have understood the notice given by the defendant in spite of its inadequacy, or might have received sufficient warning from other sources. However, the bur-den of proof should be upon the defendant to show that the plaintiff did have such knowledge. The very reason that the law imposes a duty to give notice in a particular case is the assumption that, because of the danger not commonly known to users, “a warning is needed.” See Cadogan v. Boston Consolidated Gas Co., 1935, 290 Mass. 496, 500, 195 N.E. 772. That the plaintiff fell outside the common class should be the defendant’s burden, not the plaintiff’s.
While the Massachusetts cases do not appear to have dealt explicitly with the burden of proof in this situation, I do observe that in Thornhill v. Carpenter-Morton Co., 1915, 220 Mass. 593, 108 N.E. 474, in permitting recovery for failure to warn of the dangerous characteristics of a product, the court remarked, at p. 598,108 N.E. at p. 492 that the plaintiff “is not shown to have had” the information which the defendant had failed to disclose. This must have meant not shown by the defendant.
This difference in principle leads to no difference in result. Even if the test for contributory negligence might, in some instances, be more severe than simply whether a user in fact possessed the knowledge which a proper notice from the defendant would have given him, the court here put to the jury a special question inquiring whether each intestate assumed the risk of injury. In its charge it explained that this meant whether in-testates knew “the facts which created the danger * * * and appreciated the risk of personal injury that was involved in such facts.” The jury answered in the negative as to each.
The jury has found that the defendant did not use an adequate form of warning. It has found that the intestates did not in fact receive warning. The defendant has no present complaint.