Court Opinion

ID: 9696945
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:02:02.421519+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:27.888644
License: Public Domain

Fairchild, J.
(dissenting). The complaint alleges and the demurrer admits that Mrs. Robinson did not have hot pads available for Susan’s use; that she left the large burners of her electric stove turned on high heat; that the pots were not large enough to cover the burners; and that she failed to warn or instruct Susan concerning the use of the stove. The complaint characterizes her omissions as failures to exercise the ordinary care which employer-parents are required to exercise toward a baby-sitter who is directed to serve food left on the stove in the process of preparation. This court is ruling, in substance, that as a matter of law: (1) The presence somewhere in the kitchen of a terry-cloth towel of unknown size fulfilled the Robinsons’ duty to supply a means of handling the hot utensils, and (2) that every sixteen-year-old girl willing to work as a baby-sitter is sufficiently familiar with an electric stove to need no warning or instruction concerning the hazard from the portions of the burners not covered by the pots.
I am unable to agree. With respect to proposition (1), just mentioned, I believe that a jury should be permitted, after hearing the evidence, to determine whether Mrs. Robinson fulfilled her duty to Susan as to the equipment provided. With respect to the duty of warning and instruction, Susan’s maturity and experience, as they were known, or reasonably appeared, to Mrs. Robinson would be significant in deciding how much warning or instruction should reasonably be expected under the circumstances. It might, for *295example, become evident at. the trial that Susan had frequently been employed by the Robinsons to “sit” and prepare meals, and was thoroughly familiar with their home. At a different extreme, Susan may have had no experience, and Mrs. Robinson no reason to think she had. The facts would come out at trial, and furnish the jury with a sound basis for allocating the responsibility for Susan’s injuries between her and her employers.
I would reverse the judgment and permit the service of an answer and a trial.