Court Opinion

ID: 9797429
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:20:28.194576+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:55:04.577417
License: Public Domain

WILKINS, Associate Chief Justice,
concurring and dissenting:
20 I concur in the result reached by my colleagues, but disagree with the necessity of adopting any additional new rule of law to handle the questions presented by the case.
11 21 Although the professional rescuer rule has a fairly long and complex history in the courts of our sister states, this is the first time we have been presented with the question of whether Utah does or should recognize such a rule. The professional rescuer rule "bars those engaged in reseue work as part of their employment from recovering damages for injuries sustained on the job as a result of the negligence of the person rescued." 1
[ 22 The concept of a professional rescuer rule first arose in the 1892 case of Gibson v. Leonard.2 In Gibson, the Illinois Supreme Court held that a firefighter who was injured while fighting a fire on private property could not recover tort damages from the property owner whose ordinary negligence had caused the fire.3 The rule was couched in terms of premises liability.4 The court determined that a firefighter who comes to the seene of a fire is a licensee, and as such, the property owner, even if he negligently started the fire, owed only those duties to the *417firefighter that were owed to any other licensee.5
123 Over the years since, courts have struggled with the logic of the premises liability rationale, both because it singles out fire and police officers,6 and because of the tortured application of the status of licencee.7 Some courts have since abandoned the premises liability rationale because it "unfairly limit{s] the rule's application to the landowner/occupant context, thus denying Hability for negligent acts of these individuals but not for others whose negligent acts injure police officers or firemen elsewhere." 8
€24 Many courts adopted a professional rescuer rule by applying an assumption of risk analysis. However, as states have abandoned the assumption of risk doctrine as part of the evolution of comparative negligence, so too have courts ceased to rely on assumption of risk as a foundation for their professional rescuer rule. For example, the Oregon courts adopted a professional rescuer rule using assumption of risk underpinnings but later abolished it after the Oregon State Legislature eliminated assumption of risk as a defense to tort Hability.9 Our court of appeals correctly noted that, "[als in Oregon .., assumption of risk 'is no longer recognized in Utah as a total bar to recovery.' Thus, adoption of the professional-rescuer doctrine in Utah cannot be supported by a rationale based upon a theory of assumption of risk." 10
125 Ultimately, a third rationale became necessary to support the adoption of a professional rescuer rule. That rationale, relied on by my colleagues and the court of appeals in this case, is public policy. In fact, the majority of modern decisions adopting a professional rescuer rule are supported, at least in part, on a statement of public policy. On the other hand, some courts have rejected the proffered public policy rationale, concluding that "[the more sound public policy ... is to decline to promulgate a rule singling out police officers and firefighters for discriminatory treatment." 11 I agree.
26 Not only have courts differed in their rationales for adopting a rule, those courts that have adopted a professional rescuer rule have fashioned widely different parameters for their rules. A number of courts have allowed the rule as a defense to negligence claims but not for willful and wanton conduct that results in injury.12 Other courts have allowed recovery only for injuries resulting from an act of negligence beyond the initial negligence that required the officer's presence at the scene.13 Still other courts have declined to adopt any special rule.
127 In rejecting a professional rescuer rule, the South Carolina Supreme Court said, "[Tihe tort law of this state adequately addresses negligence claims ... arising out of injuries incurred by firefighters and police officers during the discharge of their *418duties." 14 Again, I agree. Special exceptions, new rules, and policy driven changes really are best left to the legislative branch of government, in my view. Courts, albeit happy to fill the breach, are least skilled at broad policy applications.
4 28 Absent the adoption of an exception or other special rule, traditional tort law governs. One relevant exception that courts in some states have adopted is the "rescue doe-trine." The rescue doctrine, as distinguished from a professional rescuer rule, allows an injured rescuer to recover damages from the person whose negligence created the need for rescue. The professional rescuer rule, on the other hand, "evolved as an exception to the rescue doctrine," making it so a "rescuer who could otherwise recover [under the rescue doctrine] cannot do so if she is performing her duties as a professional." 15 The professional rescuer rule the expansion of tort lability created by the rescue doctrine." 16 We have not adopted the "rescue doctrine." Consequently, it becomes even more awkward to create an exception to the doctrine we have not adopted.
129 I am of the opinion that we should apply instead a traditional negligence analysis to the facts of this case. Under this analysis, Oldroyd's simple act of negligence, in losing control of his car in icy conditions, by itself is not enough to sustain Fordham's claim for damages. Fordham's claim fails because, as a matter of law, Oldroyd did not breach any duty owed to Fordham and Ol-droyd's act was not the proximate cause of Fordham's injuries.
T30 Proximate cause is a legal limit to liability. A negligent act may at times be part of a chain of events eventually leading to an injury, but still be too remote to warrant holding the negligent party liable for the injury. For proximate cause to exist, the relationship between the negligent act and the injury must be foreseeable. We have held that "foreseeability is an element of proximate cause." 17 Similarly, other courts have concluded that "[fJoreseeability is the cornerstone of proximate cause."18 In this case, Fordham asks us to conclude that as Oldroyd navigated his car through the snow, he should have foreseen the risk of injury to an assisting trooper from another driver and that Oldroyd should have acted, in part, with that risk in mind. We have said that "foreseeability is required to meet the test of negligence." 19 Fordham's injuries were not reasonably foreseeable by Oldroyd, in my view. Oldroyd did not have a duty to protect Fordham from those injuries. The legal separation between Oldroyd's driving onto the slick road and the trooper's injury is just too great to sustain a claim under our established law. I do not see a need, policy driven or otherwise, to adopt a new and "special" rule to deal with these facts. I would affirm the decision of the court of appeals on the basis of existing negligence law, and resist the temptation to express any further policy preference.

. 57A Am.Jur.2d Negligence § 782 (2004).

. 143 IIl. 182, 32 N.E. 182 (1892).

. Id. at 189-92, 32 N.E. 182.

. Id.

. Id.

. See, eg., Flowers v. Rock Creek Terrace Ltd. P'ship, 308 Md. 432, 520 A.2d 361, 367 (1987) ("Nothing in traditional premises liability law [justifies] classifying some ... public employees as invitees and others as licensees.").

. See, eg., Pearson v. Can. Contracting Co., 232 Va. 177, 349 S.E.2d 106, 110 (1986) ("Policemen and firemen ... enter premises as of right, under a privilege based on a public purpose. They clearly are not trespassers. Nor can they be classified as licensees or invitees, who enter with consent or invitation of the occupant, as consent and invitation are irrelevant to a policeman's or fireman's privileged entry.").

. Pottebaum v. Hinds, 347 NW.2d 642, 645 (Iowa 1984).

. Christensen v. Murphy, 296 Or. 610, 678 P.2d 1210, 1218 (1984).

. Fordham v. Oldroyd, 2006 UT App 50, 116, 131 P.3d 280 (citations omitted) (quoting Hale v. Beckstead, 2005 UT 24, ¶21, 116 P.3d 263); see Utah Code Ann. § 78-27-38 (2002).

. Minnich v. Med-Waste, Inc., 349 S.C. 567, 564 S.E.2d 98, 103 (2002).

. See, eg., Miller v. Bock, 223 Mich.App. 159, 567 N.W.2d 253, 256 (1997) ("[A] tortfeasor who acts wilfully and wantonly is so culpable that the fireman's rule ought not to preclude the injured officer from suing the egregiously culpable wrongdoer.").

. Minnich, 564 $.E.2d at 101-03 (analyzing the various forms the professional rescuer rule has taken and determining that "those jurisdictions which have adopted the firefighter's rule offer no uniform justification therefor, nor do they agree on a consistent application of the rule").

. Id. at 103.

. Espinoza v. Schulenburg, 212 Ariz. 215, 129 P.3d 937, 939 (2006).

. Id. at 940 (emphasis added).

. Steffensen v. Smith's Mgmt. Corp., 862 P.2d 1342, 1346 (Utah 1993).

. Dillard v. Pittway Corp., 719 So.2d 188, 192 (Ala.1998).

. Steffensen, 862 P.2d at 1346.