Court Opinion

ID: 9794192
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:01:01.617573+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:12:42.717679
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Chief Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur in Parts II, III and IV of the Court’s opinion today. Further, I concur with the conclusion reached in Part 1(C) which holds that Instruction No. 9 improperly imposed duties upon Potlatch which were extracted from OSHA regulations that could only apply to the plaintiff’s immediate employer, Western Industrial Fiberglass (Western). However, I disagree *900with Parts 1(A) and (B) which conclude that “OSHA regulations may be used as evidence of negligence per se in suits by an employee of a contractor against the owner of the work site” who is not the employer of the injured employee.
Previously, in the case of Sanchez v. Galey, 112 Idaho 609, 733 P.2d 1234 (1987), this Court held that violation of an OSHA regulation can provide the basis for a negligence per se instruction where the claimant is an employee of the defendant. However, in order to justify a negligence per se instruction under Idaho law, the defendant must violate a “positive statutory prohibition.” This requirement was mandated by the seminal cáse of Brixey v. Craig, 49 Idaho 319, 288 P. 152 (1930), and has neither been overruled nor relaxed, though subsequent cases have imposed additional criteria. See Kinney v. Smith, 95 Idaho 328, 508 P.2d 1234 (1973). Here, however, Potlatch violated no positive statutory prohibition because those OSHA regulations cited in the majority opinion and OSHA’s general regulations are directed toward the “employer” and “employee” exclusively, and not to third parties.
I further disagree with the majority’s conclusion that plaintiff (Walton) is “a member of the class that OSHA regulations were intended to protect.” I believe the better reasoned federal cases, in examining the OSHA statutes, have concluded that OSHA was intended only to apply between employers and employees, and not an employer’s relationship with third parties. The Court’s conclusion today unjustifiably expands our prior holding in Sanchez which held that negligence per se was an appropriate doctrine in a suit by an employee against an employer, not by some third party.
Whether OSHA regulates only the obligations of the employer to provide safe working conditions for his employee, or also states a standard of care due third persons (as the majority suggests), is, concededly, a matter of vigorous dispute. The majority relies on Brennan v. Underhill Construction Corp., 513 F.2d 1032 (2d Cir.1975), and Beatty Equipment Leasing v. Secretary of Labor, etc., 577 F.2d 534 (9th Cir.1978), to support its position. Both of those cases recognize that the Secretary of Labor can prove an OSHA violation by showing that a hazard has been committed and that “the area of the hazard was accessible to the employees of the cited employer or those of other employers engaged in a common undertaking.” See Brennan, 513 F.2d at 1038. Notably, both of the cases relied on by the majority deal with the authority of the Secretary of Labor under OSHA, and neither case deals with the rights of injured third parties, nor do they specifically deal with the issue of negligence per se. Those cases do not hold that, merely because an employer can be cited by the Secretary of Labor for violating an OSHA regulation, even in the absence of harm or hazard to his employees, that such authority in the Secretary of Labor is tantamount to a holding that the same violation can be the basis of an instruction on negligence per se by some third party.
The better view is taken by those courts which hold that OSHA regulations are designed to protect only an employer’s own employees. Melerine v. Avondale Shipyards, Inc., 659 F.2d 706 (5th Cir.1981); Anning-Johnson Co. v. OSHRC, 516 F.2d 1081 (7th Cir.1975); Horn v. C.L. Osborn Construction Co., 591 F.2d 318 (5th Cir.1979). This view finds ample support in the Act’s purpose, language and legislative history. The key operative provisions of the Act impose upon each employer two duties. The first is found in the “general duty clause” which requires that “each employer shall furnish to each of his employees ” a place of employment free from recognized hazards. 29 U.S.C. § 654(a)(1) (1970) (emphasis added). The second requires that “each employer shall comply with the health and safety standards under this chapter.” 29 U.S.C. § 654(a)(2) (1970) (emphasis added). Moreover, § 4(b)(4) of the Act states that “nothing in this chapter shall be construed to supersede or in any manner affect any workman’s compensation law or to enlarge or diminish or affect in any other manner the common law or statutory rights, duties or liabilities of em*901ployers and employees.” (Emphasis added.) Without question, Potlatch’s common law tort liability is affected and enlarged (in contravention of § 4’s clear mandate) by furnishing a third party non-employee with a weapon (negligence per se) that was hitherto no part of his common law arsenal.
Furthermore, the effect of a negligence per se instruction is to deprive a litigant of his right to a jury trial on the question of the reasonableness of his conduct which is the subject of the negligence per se instruction. Thus, two essential elements of a prima facie negligence case — duty and breach — are “taken away from the jury.” See Prosser & Keeton on Torts, p. 230 (5th ed.). By such a negligence per se instruction the jury, in effect, is directed not to consider the reasonableness of the person’s acts, the court having concluded that by violating a “positive statutory prohibition” the person’s conduct is unreasonable, and therefore negligent, as a matter of law. Given the strong public policy in favor of jury trials, as rooted in Art. 1, § 7, of the Idaho Constitution, negligence per se instructions should only be approved where a party has clearly violated a positive statutory prohibition. Given the equivocal nature of whether or not OSHA has any authority, much less intended its regulations to apply to third parties who might come in contact with the employer, rather than the employer’s own employees, the strong policy in this state favoring jury trials on issues of fact should not be usurped by an overbroad application of the doctrine of negligence per se. Walton and others in his position are adequately safeguarded by the laws of negligence and landowner liability, and these doctrines in turn protect the employer by subjecting him to liability only when a jury finds his conduct to be unreasonable. However, by an over-expansive application of the doctrine of negligence per se to non-employees, Potlatch’s right to trial by jury on the reasonableness of its conduct has been denied, I believe in violation of Art. 1, § 7, of the Idaho Constitution. Steed v. Young, 115 Idaho 247, 766 P.2d 717 (1989). The Court’s expansive reading really turns the OSHA law into an environmental protection act at the expense of the right to a jury trial.
Accordingly, I dissent from Parts 1(A) and (B) of the Court’s opinion which approves of the giving of a negligence per se instruction in this case.