Court Opinion

ID: 9587815
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:26:40.938676+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:33.363717
License: Public Domain

Felton, Chief Judge,
dissenting.  The majority opinion bases its holding that the defendant grandfather, McKinney, is not liable because, although negligent, his negligence had no causal connection with the injuries because of the intervention of a third person who was driving at the time the injuries were incurred.
“If [one’s negligence] is not the immediate or direct cause but requires the intervention or direct cause to bring about the result, it is regarded as a 'concurring proximate cause’ imposing liability upon those responsible for it only when the intervention of the immediate cause and the resulting injury could or should have been foreseen in the light of the circumstances.” Dixon v. Kentucky Utilities Co., 295 Ky. 32, 35 (174 SW2d 19, 155 ALR 150). “Once it is determined that the defendant’s duty requires him to anticipate the intervening misconduct, and guard against it, it follows that it cannot supersede his liability.” Prosser on Torts (2d Ed.) Ch. 9, § 49, p. 270.
Let us examine the facts in the present case to determine whether the intervention of the driver’s negligence could or should have been foreseen in the light of the circumstances. The grandfather’s negligence consisted of the violation of Code Ann. § 92A-9915, which makes it a misdemeanor for any person to “knowingly permit a motor vehicle owned by him or under his control to be operated by any person upon the public roads or highways in this State, or upon the public streets of any incorpo*508rated village, town or city in this State by a person who is not licensed under Chapter 92A-4.” Thus, the possession of the vehicle by the grandson was in violation of the law and, he having no legal right to possession or operation of the vehicle, had no right to grant the right of operating it to another. The defendant driver was therefore operating the vehicle without the owner’s knowledge or consent, the effect of which being that for purposes of liability, the vehicle was still constructively in the possession of the grandfather. “In cases involving unlawful acts, intervening causes are especially likely not to be held to preclude liability of the wrongdoer. This rule prevails even though the defendant did not intend the particular injury which followed.” 52 Am. Jur. 383, Torts, § 33; 45 LRA 87. The proximate cause is the one that starts the other causes in motion. Larson v. Calder’s Park Co., 54 Utah 325 (180 P 599, 4 ALR 731). “One who negligently creates a dangerous condition cannot escape liability for the natural and probable consequences thereof, although the act of a third person may have contributed to the final result.” 38 Am. Jur. 716, Negligence, § 63; Murray v. Frick, 277 Pa. 190 (121 A 47, 29 ALR 74).
“Considerations of public policy may be given due weight in fixing the limits of legal liability, and practical considerations must at times determine the bounds of correlative rights and duties as well as the point beyond which the courts will decline to trace causal connection.” Comstock v. Wilson, 257 NY 231 (177 NE 431, 76 ALR 676). The licensing provisions of our statute, in Chapter 92A-4, include as a requirement for obtaining an operator’s license that the applicant be a minimum of 16 years of age. By this requirement, the General Assembly has expressed the public policy that persons under 16 years of age, by reason of their tender years and relative immaturity, are not considered competent to operate motor vehicles by themselves upon the public roads of this State. This requirement is not only a protection for that class of persons excluded thereby from operating vehicles, but also, and perhaps more importantly, it expresses a public policy for the protection of other persons: lawfully using the public roads, whether motorists, passengers, or pedestrians. It was in accordance with this same public policy *509that the General Assembly made knowingly permitting unlicensed drivers to use one’s motor vehicle a misdemeanor. The grandfather, who knowingly and illegally permitted his motor vehicle to be operated by his minor and unlicensed grandson, should be charged with the knowledge that a boy of 15 might not exercise the proper judgment to be expected of a more mature person. Surely it can not be said that it was unforeseeable that the licensed minor might turn over the control of the vehicle to another driver when threatened with being apprehended for the illegal operation of the vehicle, i. e., without an operator’s license. Indeed, this might be considered the normal and probable behavior to be expected, so that the intervening cause, being foreseeable, would not act to preclude the grandfather’s liability. “The rule is that when an injury occurs through the concurrent negligence of two persons, and it would not have happened in the absence of the negligence of either person, the negligence of each of the wrongdoers will be deemed a proximate cause of the injury, although they may have acted independently of one another; and both are answerable, jointly or severally, to the same extent as though the injury were caused by his negligence alone, without reference to which -one was guilty of the last act of negligence.” 38 Am. Jur. 716, 717, Negligence, § 64. “Almost invariably these cases present no issue of causation in fact, since the defendant has created a situation acted upon by another force to bring about the result; and to deal with them in terms of ‘proximate cause’ is only to avoid the real issue. The question is one of negligence and the extent of the obligation: whether the defendant’s responsibility .extends to such interventions, which are foreign to the risk he has created. It might be stated as a problem of duty to protect the plaintiff against such an intervening cause.” Prosser on Torts (2d Ed.), § 49, p. 276. That the intervening cause does not necessarily preclude the wrongdoer’s liability is also indicated by Code § 105-2009, which provides that damages which are the legal and natural result of the act done, though contingent to some extent, are not too remote to be recovered. Without the grandfather’s negligence per se in illegally giving his grandson control of the vehicle, the negligence of the driver could never have been introduced as a concurrent cause, and both as a *510matter of public policy and the foreseeability of the intervening cause the grandfather’s negligence should be held to be actionable as a proximate cause. Where one sets in motion a chain of illegal events the law will not consider the negligence of one of the illegal actors as an intervening and superseding cause. Not until the illegal chain is broken can the negligence of the driver be deemed a superseding cause. Otherwise the result would be that participants in illegal acts may take advantage of their own illegal acts by substituting parties. It must be remembered that the grandson was legally incapable of obtaining a driver’s license and conclusively presumed to be incapable of driving or selecting a driver. In the circumstances of this case the fact that it is not alleged that the driver substituted for the grandson was incompetent does not alter the conclusion reached because the whole chain of events was tainted with illegality and public policy requires that all parties be held to strict liability for the consequences of the negligence which caused the injuries.