Court Opinion

ID: 9595220
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:37:10.960155+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:31:58.912812
License: Public Domain

RUDOLPH, J.
(concurring). On the issue of whether defendant’s negligence was a legal cause of the death of the child, I believe the governing rule is stated in the 1948 Supplement to the Restatement of Torts; § 435, as follows:
“(1) If the actor’s conduct is a substantial factor in bringing about harm to another, the fact that the actor neither foresaw nor should have foreseen the extent of the harm or the manner in which it occurred does not prevent him from being liable.
“(2) The actor’s conduct is not a legal cause of harm to another where after the event and looking back from the harm to the actor’s negligent conduct, it appears to the court highly extraordinary that it should have brought about the harm.”
That defendant’s conduct was a substantial factor in bringing about harm to the child, is established. Considering the acts of the defendant and the manner in which he approached the perilous condition confronting him on the highway, it does not appear to me highly extraordinary that his conduct should have resulted in striking the child.
The title of Ch. 160, Laws of 1941, is “An Act to Abrogate the Rule of Contributory Negligence as Now Existing in this State and Substituting Therefore (sic) the Rule of Comparative Negligence, * * It is my view that the act makes such real changes in the law of contributory negligence that the word “abrogate” is in no sense misleading. It seems to me that the act provides an entirely new rule, *635and that the law of contributory negligence “as Now Existing in this State” is replaced. True, unless certain conditions exist the old conception and effect of contributory negligence are applied, but it seems to me that this is simply an appendage to a new rule.