Court Opinion

ID: 9740683
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:40:17.609383+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:19.722080
License: Public Domain

AMUNDSON, Justice
(dissenting).
I cannot concur with the majority’s position that a violation of SDCL 60-12-3 imposes strict or absolute liability on a farmer/neighbor who employs a child of a neighbor as is the case in this appeal. This statute has been in effect since 1913 (1913 S.D.Sess.L. ch. 240, §§ 2 and 8), and was adopted for the purpose of regulating the employment of women, girls, and children, by fixing the hours and conditions under which they would labor. The statute further provided for a penalty for the violation of same. This penalty has always been in the nature of a Class 2 misdemeanor and not that of strict liability, as this holding would establish.
A violation of this statute in the civil forum should only constitute negligence per se. Lovell v. Oahe Elec. Co-op, 382 N.W.2d 396 (S.D.1986); Engel v. Stock, 88 S.D. 579, 225 N.W.2d 872 (1975). The defendant/neighbor should have been allowed to submit evidence on his claim of contributory negligence for the trial court to consider in a determination on whether or not to submit an instruction on such a defense to the jury. This court has acknowledged that South Dakota is a friendly and neighborly state. Brusseau v. McBride, 245 N.W.2d 488 (S.D.1976). This holding will allow such friendly and neighborly conduct on the part of this defendant to blossom into strict liability. I daresay that this was never the intention of the legislature.
In the present case, the defense proposed the contributory negligence instruction set forth in the South Dakota Pattern Jury Instructions (SDPJI 11-01). When considering whether a minor has been negligent, that determination is made by taking into account the degree of care of a minor, not a reasonably prudent adult, of like age, intelligence, experience, and capacity in a similar circumstance. Alley v. Siepman, 87 S.D. 670, 214 N.W.2d 7 (1974); Finch v. Christensen, 84 S.D. 420, 172 N.W.2d 571 (1969). Even though defendant proposed the wrong standard in this case, I would hold that the trial court erred in refusing to allow the defendant the opportunity to offer proof that Tyler failed to comply with the standard of care of a like minor in the operation of this farm tractor.
The legislature exempted parents from the provisions of SDCL 60-12-3. By doing so, a parent can employ, either voluntarily or involuntarily, their child in any dangerous occupation notwithstanding how detrimental such occupation or assigned task is to the life, health or morals of the minor. It seems totally illogical to hold that consent of exempt parents allowing their minor child to work for a neighbor, and oper*796ate the same type of farm tractor that the minor operated for the parents, would not be an appropriate fact for a jury to consider in this particular case. Whether the jury would find such a consent to be contributory negligence to the extent that it would preclude recovery, is a fact question that the jury should have been allowed to consider.