Court Opinion

ID: 9664663
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:24:53.377278+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:08.394634
License: Public Domain

NOBLE, Justice,
Concurring in part and Dissenting in part.
I concur with Justice Venter’s opinion as to the law on apportionment. On the question of whether the entire liability for the Scotts’ damages should rest on the sole remaining tortfeasor, Morgan, if Moore Pontiac was never rightfully a party, then it can have no liability, and whatever damages the jury found must be assessed against the only party who does. If Morgan caused all of the damages, he cannot avoid a portion of them just because an improper apportionment instruction was given. I also agree with the majority opinion on the other issues in this case.
However, I cannot say that Moore Pontiac has no duty of any kind in this case. While I may not have agreed with the jury’s findings, whether Moore Pontiac had undertaken a duty by establishing a policy for their benefit and for the benefit of customers and persons on the highway that increased the risk of harm to Scott when it did not follow its own policy was in fact a question for the jury. As car salesmen, Moore Pontiac is in a superior position to know the risks attendant to allowing potential customers to test drive its vehicles, and it has a great interest in determining which areas of the highway are safe for the test drive. In fact, Moore Pontiac publicly claimed this duty by posting its policy requiring a salesman to ac*646company a test driver prominently, by having an approved test drive route, and by requiring test drivers to show their driver’s license.
At first thought, one might say that the absence of a salesman did not cause the wreck — Morgan’s poor driving did. But Moore Pontiac was well aware that a salesman accompanying a test driver would have steered the driver to the approved route, could have cautioned the driver about inappropriate speed, or even could have required the driver to return to the lot if the driver’s skill was questionable. Instead, according to his own testimony, Morgan ended up on an unapproved and curvy road, where he took a curve too fast and lost control of the vehicle. The salesman’s absence thus could have been argued to increase the risk because the safeguards he would bring were not in place.
There was a dispute in the evidence whether any salesman accompanied Morgan on either of his two test drives: The salesman claimed he went on the first test drive, and Morgan claimed he did not. The jury was free to believe either man’s testimony. Moore Pontiac’s policy was either violated once or twice that day.
Additionally, part of the reason Moore Pontiac created its test drive policy and thus assumed a duty was that its own insurance company required such a policy as a condition of insuring Moore Pontiac. Obviously, the insurance came from a superior position of knowledge as to the incidence of risk during test drives and had a clear opinion about what would decrease that risk. Moore Pontiac, in the business of selling cars, benefits directly from allowing potential customers to test drive their vehicles. They have insured against the risks attendant to such a practice. Such a business should not be allowed, as a matter of public policy, to benefit from an activity without taking reasonable measures to prevent risk to others while they are receiving that benefit. If Moore Pontiac had followed its policy, the insurance company would have no basis to deny a claim related to the policy. While the presence or absence of insurance is not a factor in determining damages, as a matter of law it can be considered to determine the nature of the duty Moore Pontiac assumed and the reason for assuming the duty.
Assumption of a duty is meaningless if there is no one to whom the duty is owed. The general public is clearly the beneficiary of such a duty whether each member of the public is aware of the duty or not. For example, each member of the public may not be aware of a company’s duty not to release hazardous waste where they may come in contact with it, but the company still has the duty and the public is the beneficiary. In the same way, Moore Pontiac had the duty not to allow an unsafe test driver loose on the public without reasonable efforts to be safe.
What is most troubling to me in this case is that there are questions of fact for the jury to determine that are ignored if Moore Pontiac is given a directed verdict, tempting though that might be if we were the finders of fact. That is not what an appellate court should do. There is simply too much evidence in the record to say that as a matter of law Moore Pontiac had no duty to Scott. If there is any evidence which the jury might believe to support its findings of fact, then we must give deference to its decision. Here, the jury determined the facts to be against Moore Pontiac. Moore Pontiac was properly submitted to the jury as a party in this case because it undertook a duty for the benefit of itself, its customers, and the public. The jury having made its decision after weighing the evidence, I would affirm its verdict against Moore Pontiac and *647Morgan, and its apportionment of fault between them.