Court Opinion

ID: 9655098
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:00:14.019227+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:14.429552
License: Public Domain

On Motions for Rehearing or to Transfer
STONE, Presiding Judge.
The first section of DuPont’s motion for rehearing or, in the alternative, to transfer rests uneasily on the palpably deceptive and patently fallacious reasoning that, although Ammate X caused the death of the sprayed willows and their dying caused the storing of nitrates, Ammate X did not cause such storing of nitrates. Suffice it to say that the judicially-accepted test as to causal connection is whether the facts show that, absent the negligent act, the injury or damage would not have been sustained [Housden v. E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., Mo., 321 S.W.2d 430, 433(3); Votrain v. Illinois Terminal R. Co., Mo., 268 S.W.2d 838, 843(4); Wood v. St. Louis Public Service Co., 362 Mo. 1103, 1109, 246 S.W.2d 807, 811(4)], and that it usually is sufficient to constitute proximate cause that the negligence charged was the efficient cause which set in motion the chain of circumstances leading to the injury or damage. Floyd v. St. Louis Public Service Co., Mo., 280 S.W.2d 74, 78(8); Thebeau v. Thebeau, Mo., 324 S.W.2d 674, 678(2); Hildreth v. Key, supra, 341 S.W.2d loc. cit. 607(12).
The second section of DuPont’s motion necessarily depends upon the similarly deceptive and equally fallacious reasoning that, even though Ammate X caused the death of the sprayed willows and their dying caused a lethal accumulation of nitrates, DuPont was not negligent in its labeling because Ammate X itself was not toxic or poisonous to cattle. But, by its labeling of Ammate X, DuPont recommended the use of that product for “difficult to control species * * * such as willow,” gave detailed directions for “foliage spray application,” and included the unqualified and unrestricted assurance that “Ammate X * * * when used in accordance with directions, is not hazardous to livestock.” An inescapable incident of such recommended use, which (as pointed out in our opinion but conveniently ignored in DuPont’s motion for rehearing) was an integral element of plaintiff’s theory and submission, was that application of Ammate X left “a salty residue” on the willow leaves making them “particularly attractive to cattle.” Thus, as the jury found, the use of Ammate X, in accordance with directions, not only caused the sprayed willows to die *245and thereby to draw a lethal accumulation of nitrates into their foliage, but also made that foliage “particularly attractive to cattle.”
In affirming the submissibility of plaintiff’s case on the theory that DuPont’s labeling of Ammate X was misleading in its failure to warn, we have not (as DuPont now complains) established any new principle of tort liability. On the contrary, we have but recognized and applied the settled principle, freshly stated with copious citation of supporting authority in Bean v. Ross Manufacturing Co., Mo., 344 S.W.2d 18, 25, that: “The supplier of a chattel is subject to liability for injury in its use by another when the supplier knows or should know that its use is or is likely to be dangerous and when there is no reason to believe that the user will realize this, if, further, he (the supplier) fails to use reasonable care to warn.” See also Midwest Game Co. v. M. F. A. Milling Co., Mo., 320 S.W.2d 547, 551, in which plaintiff stated a cause of action for defendant’s negligence in failing to warn that a packaged fish food was not a “complete” food, although it “was not inherently dangerous” and became dangerous “in the sense that sickness and death of fish would result” only when used as a “complete” food.
DuPont need not be exercised about possible misapplication of the instant decision in knife, ladder and bicycle cases. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” [Matthew 6:34] and unto the case the problems thereof. No two cases are poured in the same factual mold, and each must be ruled on its own facts. “What, if any, precautions are required (of a manufacturer) is a question that will vary with the circumstances and will, as always, depend upon a balancing of the likelihood of harm, and the gravity of harm if it happens, against the burden of the precaution which would be effective to avoid the harm.” 2 Harper & James, Torts, § 28.4, loc. cit. 1542. The law does not impose upon manufacturers any duty to warn of many common dangers, for no one needs notice of what he already knows or reasonably may be expected to know. Jamieson v. Woodward & Lothrop, supra, 247 F.2d loc. cit. 25-30; 2 Harper & James, Torts, § 28.5, p. 1542. But, there has been and still is no suggestion that instant plaintiff either knew, or reasonably might have been expected to know either that application of Ammate X might result in a lethal accumulation of nitrates in the sprayed willow leaves or that such application would leave “a salty residue” on the sprayed leaves which would make them “particularly attractive to cattle.”
These closing comments are prompted by the gratuitous and brash adjuration of DuPont’s counsel that we should not be concerned with the judicial, economic and social climate of our day and that our function is simply “to find the common law of England as it existed in 1607 and the statutory modifications thereof”—an admonition which becomes more than passing strange in the light of the fact that counsel do not undertake “to find the common law of England as it existed in 1607” with respect to the legal problems presented by this twentieth-century chemical weed killer case. Our Supreme Court has defined the common law as “ ‘a system of elementary rules and of general judicial declarations of principles, which are continually expanding with the progress of society, adapting themselves to the gradual changes of trade, commerce, arts, inventions, and the exigencies and usages of the country.’ ” State ex rel. Schlueter Mfg. Co. v. Beck, 337 Mo. 839, 847, 85 S.W.2d 1026, 1029-1030. “(T)he common law is not a static but a dynamic and growing thing. Its rules arise from the application of reason to the changing conditions of society. It inheres in the life of society, not in the decisions interpreting that life * * Barnes Coal Corp. v. Retail Coal Merchants Ass’n, 4 Cir., 128 F.2d 645, 648(5); Roach v. Harper, 143 W.Va. 896, 105 S.E.2d 564, 568. And, “flexibility and capacity for growth and adaptation is the peculiar boast *246and excellence of the common law.” Hurtado v. People of State of California, 110 U.S. 516, 530, 4 S.Ct. 111, 118, 28 L.Ed. 232, 237; Funk v. United States, 290 U.S. 371, 382, 54 S.Ct. 212, 216, 78 L.Ed. 369, 375-376, 93 A.L.R. 1136, 1142; Barnes Coal Corp. case, supra, 128 F.2d loc. cit. 648. Such is the letter and the spirit of our Missouri cases [Yerger v. Smith, 338 Mo. 140, 154, 89 S.W.2d 66, 74(10); Byers v. Lemay Bank & Trust Co., 365 Mo. 341, 345, 282 S.W.2d 512, 515(3); State v. Kollenborn, Mo., 304 S.W.2d 855, 863], as well as those in other jurisdictions. Ney v. Yellow Cab Co., 2 Ill.2d 74, 117 N.E.2d 74, 79(11), 51 A.L.R.2d 624; Miller v. Monsen, 228 Minn. 400, 37 N.W.2d 543, 547(6); Maricopa County Municipal Water Conservation Dist. No. 1 v. Southwest Cotton Co., 39 Ariz. 65, 4 P.2d 369, 375(13). We are no more impressed than is our Supreme Court by arguments relying on “social responsibility” and “fairness and justice” without demonstrated legal fault [Bean v. Ross Manufacturing Co., supra, 344 S.W.2d loc. cit. 25-26] ; but, on the other hand, we immediately reject and emphatically deny DuPont’s notion that our judiciary is so shackled and bound that its function is limited to finding “the common law of England as it existed in 1607 and the statutory modifications thereof.”
DuPont’s motion for a rehearing or, in the alternative, to transfer is overruled.
McDOWELL and RUARK, JJ., concur.,