Court Opinion

ID: 9581584
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:16:29.210027+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:05.956766
License: Public Domain

Bussey, Justice.
This is an action to recover actual and punitive damages, both personal and property, arising out of a multiple automobile collision, which, according to plaintiff’s complaint, occurred in the following manner. On the morning of Feb*550ruary 4, 1967, the defendant bank negligently, willfully and wantonly set off a false burglar alarm. Defendant Lewis, a police officer in the City of Spartanburg, was dispatched to answer the alarm, and at the intersection of Dean and East Main Streets collided with a vehicle driven by one Burnett, causing the Lewis vehicle to collide with a vehicle driven by one McAllister, knocking the McAllister vehicle into a stationary vehicle owned and occupied by the plaintiff.
The complaint alleged that Lewis was negligent, willful and wanton in driving at a dangerous rate of speed; failing to keep a proper lookout; running a red light; failing to use his brakes properly; and failing to give sufficient warning of his intention to cross against a red light. The bank demurred to the complaint on the ground that its act in setting off the false alarm was not the proximate cause of the plaintiff’s damage, and that such was caused solely by the intervening and superseding acts of the defendants, Lewis and Burnett, or one of them, which the bank could not reasonably have foreseen or anticipated. Such demurrer was sustained by the lower court and the plaintiff appeals.
The order of the lower court sustaining the demurrer is based primarily on the proposition that the alleged conduct of Lewis, the police officer, was not such that could have been reasonably foreseen or anticipated by the bank, and, hence, that the bank’s conduct could not be the proximate cause of plaintiff’s injuries. The order of the lower court characterized the alleged conduct of Lewis as “conscious, deliberate and unlawful acts * * The complaint does charge that Lewis was negligent, willful and wanton, but does not charge him with any deliberate or intentional wrongful act. To what extent such misconstruction of the complaint affected the decision of the lower court does not readily appear. Much, but not all, of the argument of counsel on appeal is devoted to the question of whether or not the conduct of Lewis was reasonably foreseeable by the bank.
Counsel for both parties cite numerous cases dealing generally with the law of proximate cause; superseding cause; *551the reasonable foreseeability of intervening acts as affecting whether the conduct of the original wrongdoer was a proximate cause, etc., none of which are clearly determinative of the real issue involved in the case. No case has been cited or come to our attention through independent research, from this or any other jurisdiction, which is factually or legally in point with the instant case. We are thus faced with an important case of completely novel impression. There are, of course, guiding principles of law which are helpful in the solution.
The ultimate question raised by the pleadings and which will have to be decided, now or later, is, to what extent, if any, and under what circumstances may a party, who wrongfully sets off a false emergency alarm, be held liable for injury or damage caused to a third person by acts of one responding to the false alarm. We do not think that this most important question should have been decided by the lower court, or should be decided by this court, only on the pleadings, and on the relatively narrow issue of whether the conduct of the party responding to the emergency, as alleged and characterized in the complaint, was reasonably foreseeable by the party wrongfully setting off the false alarm. Precisely what the conduct of the responding party was and whether such conduct should have been reasonably foreseen by the bank are questions that we think can only be properly decided in the light of the evidence adduced upon the trial.
On the issue of foreseeability, we point out that the bank was charged with the knowledge of Code Sections 46-291 et seq., governing the operation of authorized emergency vehicles. We are not presently concerned with the precise construction or application of any of these statutes, it being sufficient to say that such statutes recognize the need for haste by the operator of an emergency vehicle and permit him to disregard certain traffic laws, but, at the same time, spell out the duties of the operator when he does proceed in disregard of the specific traffic regulations. Compliance with *552these several statutory provisions calls for the exercise of considerable judgment by the operator of an emergency vehicle in the interest of haste on the one hand and public safety on the other.
In the fairly recent case of Springfield v. Williams Plumbing Supply Co., 249 S. C. 130, 153 S. E. (2d) 184 we quoted and applied the following rule from 71 C. J. S. 548 Pleading § 265,
“It has been held that if a demurrer to a pleading raises merely a doubtful question or the case is such that justice may be promoted by trial on the merits, the court should exercise a fair, judicial discretion to that end, although it may be that in technical points the grounds of demurrer are sustainable under strict law.”
• The foregoing rule is one which we think should be applied in this important case of completely novel impression. Here, as in the Springfield case, justice, not only to the litigants, but the general public, requires that the case be tried on the merits and the evidence fully developed before we are called upon to decide the extent to which, if any, and under what circumstances, one should be held liable for wrongfully turning in a false alarm and setting in motion an emergency vehicle which causes damage to an innocent member of the traveling public.
It appears to us that the opinion of Justice Littlejohn undertakes, on demurrer, to formulate a novel principle of law, which was not raised or considered below, which has not been urged here, and which may never be applicable in the course of this litigation or, indeed, during the tenure of the court as now constituted. Whatever merit the rule may have, its formulation now would be without warrant in law; at least, it would be manifestly premature.
For the reasons hereinabove set forth, we decide only that the demurrer should not have been sustained and that the plaintiff is entitled to a trial on the merits.
*553Reversed.
Lewis and Brailsford, JJ., concur.
Moss, C. J., and Littlejohn, J., concur in result.