Court Opinion

ID: 9552422
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:10:22.38667+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:26:23.635720
License: Public Domain

Horowitz, J.
(dissenting)—I concur in the opinion of Utter, J., but also wish to associate myself with the comments of Dolliver, J., concerning the majority's rejection of the seat belt defense.
All car drivers and passengers know or are aware of the possibility that car accidents may occur and that in the exercise of reasonable care for personal safety, steps should be taken before an accident becomes imminent to avoid harmful effects that are avoidable or capable of being lessened. In fashioning a common-law rule involving due care *140as the majority seeks to do, it is difficult to find adequate justification for so fashioning the rule that considerations of driver and passenger safety are ignored or subordinated to considerations of lesser priority.
When a car is equipped with seat belts pursuant to legislative mandate (RCW 46.37.510), it is obvious that they are placed in the vehicle so that they may be used and thus accomplish the purpose of their placement. To hold that they need not be used is both to disregard necessarily implied legislative intent they be used and to run afoul of the common-law principle governing recovery of damages that there should be no recovery of damages for harm avoidable by the exercise of due care. W. Prosser, Handbook of the Law of Torts § 64, at 433 (3d ed. 1964).
Reconsideration denied November 30, 1977.