Court Opinion

ID: 9645149
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:14:10.441218+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:24.109674
License: Public Domain

REED, Chief Justice
(dissenting in part).
I dissent from that part of the opinion which holds that Johnny N. Davis, d/b/a Tip-Top sanitation, was entitled to a verdict and a judgment n. o. v. In my opinion the question of the liability of Davis was a jury issue.
Section 449 of the Restatement of the Law of Torts 2d, page 482, declares:
“If the likelihood that a third person may act in a particular manner is the hazard or one of the hazards which makes the actor negligent, such an act whether innocent, negligent, intentionally tortious, or criminal does not prevent the actor from being liable for harm caused thereby.”
The majority opinion recites that actionable negligence consists of a duty, a violation thereof, and consequent injury. This simplistic definition is sound enough so far as it goes, but in the present case the concept of negligence, in my view, is better defined as conduct involving an unreasonable risk of harm; the test for assessing whether a risk is unreasonable involves determination of the amount of caution demanded of the actor, and this is a resultant of three elements: the likelihood that the conduct will injure others, taken with the seriousness of the injury if it happens, and balanced against the interest which must be sacrificed to avoid the risk. See Harper and James, The Law of Torts, Vol. 2, 929.
Although liability for negligence is not based on engaging in dangerous but lawful activities, their dangerous character may call for greater precautions, while on the other hand their value to society may call for less onerous precautions, ibid. 934.
So far as M & T Chemicals, Inc., is concerned, in order to subject it to liability it would be necessary to find that, although it observed precautions for the disposition of the drums containing the potentially explosive and inflammable material on most occasions and warned those with whom it came in contact concerning the disposition of the drums to the extent of requiring indemnity from them, it would still be subject to liability by reason of the negligence of the dump keeper in failing to protect the drums which came into his possession contrary to the instructions of M & T where a third party off the premises of the dump keeper was injured by the after-occurring negligent conduct of the scavengers from the dump. In my view, this course of events “broke the chain” so far as persons within the foreseeable area of hazard were concerned with respect to M & T’s conduct.
The situation of Davis, however, is quite another matter. Davis had been advised *743and was fully cognizant that he was possessing and storing a dangerous substance. A jury could believe from the evidence in this case that he knew people were pilfering items from his premises and that these items contained dangerous substances that would injure others and would injure them seriously under foreseeable conditions. The evidence was in conflict concerning the knowledge of the scavengers as to the dangerous potential of the substance with which they dealt and the conduct in which they engaged.
When the element of foreseeability by Davis is considered, reasonable men could conclude that the likelihood of harm was sufficiently foreseeable to warrant the imposition of liability although the average person would not have foreseen the particular method by which the injury occurred.
The majority opinion stands for two propositions that to me are seriously questionable. The first is that the scope of duty must be measured after the event by the particular method that occurred to cause the harm. The second is that regardless of the standard of conduct imposed by the possession of things more than ordinarily dangerous, the last responsible actor only should be held liable and his conduct insulate the immediately prior negligent actor from liability. This is not to say that under the circumstances a jury in assessing the element of foreseeability could not have exonerated Davis. I do believe, however, that the evaluation should have been made by the jury and not by means of judicial fiat.
Therefore, I respectfully dissent to so much of the opinion as exonerates Davis as a matter of law.
CLAYTON, J., joins in this dissent.