Siegler v. Kuhlman, 502 P.2d 1181

Supreme Court of Washington

1972

Chapter

14

Title

Common Law Strict Liability

Page

589

Topic

Abnormally Dangerous Activities

Quick Notes

Gasoline Trailer hits fence, detaches in street, and eventually explodes.

Book Name

Torts Cases, Problems, And Exercises.  Weaver, Third Edition.  ISBN:  978-1-4224-7220-0.

Issue

o         Whether the jury instruction of res ipsa liquitur should have been given? Yes

Procedure

Trial

o         Jury found for the Df - because the Df had met and overcome the charges of negligence.

Appellant

o         Affirmed

Supreme

o         Reversed and remanded

Facts

Reason

Rules

o         Pl - Siegler

o         Df - Kuhlman

What happened?

o         Basically, Aaron Kuhlman was driving the gas truck and hit a highway chain link fence.

o         The gas trainer became detached and landed upside down on Capital Lake Drive without any lights.

Car Ignites

o         Later Carol Houses car mysteriously ignited the gas and died in an explosion.

Died In Flames

o         Seventeen-year-old Carol J. House died in the flames of a gasoline explosion when her car encountered a pool of thousands of gallons of spilled gasoline. She was driving home from her after-school job in the early evening of November 22, 1967, along Capitol Lake Drive in Olympia; it was dark but dry; her car's headlamps were burning.

Trial Courts Error

o         The court refused to give an instruction on res ipsa loquitur (the thing speaks for itself).

Reasoning

o         This should be strict liability.

o         Transporting Gas is an inherently dangerous activity.

o         If an explosion occurs the evidence will be destroyed.

o         The rule of strict liability rests not only upon the ultimate idea of rectifying a wrong and putting the burden where it should belong as a matter of abstract justice, that is, upon the one of the two innocent parties whose acts instigated or made the harm possible, but it also rests on problems of proof.

RS 519.  General Principle

    (1) One who carries on an abnormally dangerous activity is subject to liability for harm to the person, land or chattels of another resulting from the activity, although he has exercised the utmost care to prevent such harm.

    (2) Such strict liability is limited to the kind of harm, the risk of which makes the activity abnormally dangerous.

RS 520.  Abnormally Dangerous Activities

    In determining whether an activity is abnormally dangerous, the following factors are to be considered:

(a) Whether the activity involves a high degree of risk of some harm to the person, land or chattels of others;

    (b) Whether the gravity of the harm which may result from it is likely to be great;

    (c) Whether the risk cannot be eliminated by the exercise of reasonable care;

• Then regular negligence would apply

    (d) Whether the activity is not a matter of common usage;

• Things that go outside normal activity.

    (e) Whether the activity is inappropriate to the place where it is carried on; and

• Try to find a place that is more appropriate.

    (f) The value of the activity to the community.

• The activity of buying gasoline benefits mankind.

Strict Liability

** Gives us the incentive to relocate.

** Gives us the incentive to reduce the activity.

Rules

RS 519.  General Principle

    (1) One who carries on an abnormally dangerous activity is subject to liability for harm to the person, land or chattels of another resulting from the activity, although he has exercised the utmost care to prevent such harm.

    (2) Such strict liability is limited to the kind of harm, the risk of which makes the activity abnormally dangerous.

RS 520.  Abnormally Dangerous Activities

    In determining whether an activity is abnormally dangerous, the following factors are to be considered:

(a) Whether the activity involves a high degree of risk of some harm to the person, land or chattels of others;

    (b) Whether the gravity of the harm which may result from it is likely to be great;

    (c) Whether the risk cannot be eliminated by the exercise of reasonable care;

• Then regular negligence would apply

    (d) Whether the activity is not a matter of common usage;

• Things that go outside normal activity.

    (e) Whether the activity is inappropriate to the place where it is carried on; and

• Try to find a place that is more appropriate.

    (f) The value of the activity to the community.

• The activity of buying gasoline benefits mankind.

Class Notes

o        Negligence per se is the legal doctrine whereby an act is considered negligent because it violates a statute (or regulation). In order to prove negligence per se, the plaintiff must show that (1) the defendant violated the statute, (2) the statute is a safety statute, (3) the act caused the kind of harm the statute was designed to prevent, and (4) the plaintiff was within the zone of risk.

o        Res ipsa loquitur is a legal term from the Latin meaning literally, "the thing itself speaks" but is more often translated "the thing speaks for itself". It signifies that further details are unnecessary; the proof of the case is self-evident.

o        Help prove breach of duty.

o        You have to prove theat the injury does not occur in the absence of negligence.

What is the problem with res ipsa?

o         You are missing an exclusive control element.

o         It is still a mystery of what actually happened.

o         The fire burnt everything up and you could not prove exclusive control or how the fire happened.