Boyer v. Johnson

• Decision Date: 19 June 1978
• Docket Number: No. 61095,61095
• Citation: 360 So.2d 1164
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: 23 Wage & Hour Cas. (BNA) 967, 84 Lab.Cas. P 55,130 J. C. BOYER, Plaintiff-Appellant-Relator, v. Joe E. JOHNSON, Defendant-Appellee-Respondent.

Page 1164

360 So.2d 1164

23 Wage & Hour Cas. (BNA) 967, 84 Lab.Cas. P 55,130

J. C. BOYER, Plaintiff-Appellant-Relator, v. Joe E. JOHNSON, Defendant-Appellee-Respondent.

No. 61095.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

June 19, 1978.

Rehearing Denied July 26, 1978.

Bobby L. Culpepper, Baker, Culpepper & Brunson, Jonesboro, for plaintiff-appellant-relator.

Willie H. Barfoot, West Monroe, for defendant-appellee-respondent.

TATE, Justice.

The primary issue concerns the liability of an employer for injury sustained by a minor who was employed in violation of child labor laws prohibiting the employment of children as drivers of commercial motor vehicles or for work in connection with power-driven machinery.

Affirming the district court, the intermediate court dismissed this suit by the parent of a 15-year-old boy for his wrongful death when he lost control of a commercial motor vehicle, which he had been employed to drive. 350 So.2d 961 (La.App. 2d Cir. 1977). We granted certiorari, 353 So.2d 1038 (La.1977), to review the court of appeal's conclusion that the employment of the boy in violation of the statutory prohibition was neither the cause-in-fact nor actionable fault so as to impose liability upon the employer.

The Facts

The plaintiff Boyer sues for damages suffered on account of his son's death. The boy, Johnny C. Boyer, Jr., age 15, was employed to drive a Volkswagen panel truck to various cities in Louisiana and Mississippi.

The defendant Johnson employed ¹ young Boyer after ascertaining that he had a driver's license. He rode with the boy in the delivery truck for two days to supervise him and observe his ability to drive. In the remaining three days of employment, young Boyer drove the Volkswagen truck to deliver fireworks along Johnson's sales route, with Johnson preceding him in another delivery vehicle.

On December 2, 1968, the fifth day of his employment, Johnny was driving the van, loaded with fireworks, to make deliveries in several places between Monroe and Jonesboro. He apparently lost control of the vehicle, which skidded along the left shoulder and into a ditch, then struck a tree, killing him. The defendant Johnson at that time had been driving the other vehicle a mile or two ahead and was waiting for Johnny at a store, and the boy was apparently trying to catch up with him.

Basis of Liability

The bases for delictual liability alleged by the plaintiff father are the defendant Johnson's fault in hiring his son in violation of several child labor laws:

La. R.S. 23:161(10), prohibiting the employment of a minor under eighteen years of age as driver of a motor vehicle used for commercial purposes; La. R.S. 23:163, prohibiting the employment of a minor under sixteen to work in connection with power-driven machinery; La. R.S. 23:161(4), prohibiting the employment of a minor under eighteen to transport explosives; and La. R.S. 23:166, 211.1, prohibiting the employment of a minor between the ages of fourteen and sixteen during school hours without a work certificate evidencing participation in an approved vocational program.

The plaintiff, who is granted a right of action for his son's wrongful death by Civil Code article 2315, may recover if he can prove that defendant had a duty to observe a certain standard of care toward the boy; that defendant breached his duty by falling below that standard; that the defendant's breach of duty was a cause-in-fact of the boy's death; and that the harm which actually occurred the fatal highway accident was the sort of harm that the defendant's legal duty was designed to prevent. Dixie Drive It Yourself System New Orleans, Inc. v. American Beverage Co., 242 La. 471, 137 So.2d 298 (1962); Laird v. Travelers Insurance Company, 263 La. 199, 267 So.2d 714 (1972).

Statutory Intent to Protect Against Risk and Harm Encountered

In enacting the child labor statutes, the legislature imposed on employers certain duties, in order to protect children from their own youth and inexperience and from other risks of employment.

It is not disputed that Johnson had a legal duty not to hire Johnny C. Boyer, Jr., to deliver fireworks in a commercial vehicle. Nor is there any doubt that defendant's violations of the law, or at least some of them, were causes-in- fact of the fatal accident: Johnny happened to be on the road on this particular day because he had been employed to drive this particular truck to carry fireworks to Jonesboro. That he might have died in some other way, even in some other traffic accident or carrying some other cargo, is irrelevant to the determination of causation of his death as it in fact occurred. Of the four statutory duties violated by the defendant, only the requirement that Johnny not be hired during school hours without a work permit may not have been a necessary antecedent to the accident.

A mere finding of causation in fact, however, does not establish defendant's liability. Plaintiff can prevail only if the risk of the harm that actually occurred fell within the scope of the duty breached. See Dixie and Laird, cited above.

The court of appeal held correctly that the violations of the fireworks and work permit statutes do not create civil liability for Johnny's death. The court treated both issues in terms of causation, stating that the work-permit violations "are too remote from the proper sphere of causation," and that transportation of fireworks "has no direct or indirect relation to the cause of the accident." 350 So.2d at 963. It would have been enough, however, to conclude that neither statute was intended to guard against the risk of this traffic accident: The work permit provisions are to protect the academic and vocational needs of school-age children, and the fireworks transportation law is to protect them from explosions. This resolution of the duty/risk analysis renders moot the resolution of nice questions of causation. See Laird v. Travelers Indemnity Co., cited above, 267 So.2d at 720.

The court of appeal erred, however, in concluding that defendant's hiring of Johnny to drive the panel truck, in violation of the laws against employing minors to drive commercial vehicles and to operate power-driven machinery, did not impose civil liability for Johnny's resulting death. The court seemed to acknowledge that "if the deceased had not been driving the van, he would not have been killed" (350 So.2d at 964), but stated that "causation must be more direct and not so remote." Id.

Despite the adoption by this court of the duty/risk approach to resolution of negligence questions in the 1962 case of Dixie Drive It Yourself System v. American Beverage Company, cited above, one distinguished commentator has noted that intermediate courts "continue to employ causation language to refer to issues other than cause-in-fact, occasionally to the complete detriment of clarity of analysis and correctness of outcome." Robertson, Reason Versus Rule in Louisiana Tort Law: Dialogues on Hill v. Lundin & Associates, Inc., 34 La.L.Rev. 1, 17-19 (1973).

It is the substance, of course, and not the form in which an analysis is cast, which produces a sound result. It does no harm, for instance, to say that an act is the "legal cause" of a harm if the act falls below a standard of conduct designed to prevent the harm. Yet in this case the excursus into "direct," "indirect," and "remote" causation may have diverted the court of appeal from the fundamental inquiry: Did defendant break laws designed to prevent this type of risk and harm?

In finding "that the defendant was void of any actionable substandard conduct," the court of appeal pointed out that the trial court found Johnny himself negligent in causing the accident; that Johnny had a driver's license; and that Johnson rode with Johnny for the first two days to observe and supervise his driving.

These observations cannot erase the fact that defendant's substandard conduct was a cause-in-fact of the accident. They do, however, have their place in the analysis of whether the risk was within the ambit of defendant's duty: If it could be shown that the standard of care was imposed on defendant only to protect non-negligent children, or those without driver's licenses, or who drove unobserved and unsupervised, then defendant would prevail. The statutes violated by defendant, however, contained no such express or implied limitations.

What was the purpose of the laws prohibiting Johnson from hiring Johnny to drive a commercial vehicle, or any power-driven machinery? To protect Johnny from accidents which might befall him while operating such machinery, as is most clearly held in the early jurisprudence interpreting and applying these enactments.

Justice Provosty, writing for this court on rehearing in Alexander v. Standard Oil Co. of Louisiana, 140 La. 54, 72 So. 806 (1916), well before the advent of the duty/risk analysis, seemed to anticipate such an approach when he held an employer who violated a child labor statute liable for injuries sustained by his young employee, without a showing of any further negligence on the employer's part: "The violation of the child labor law, was, however, negligence on the part of the defendant (employer) . . . . This law is positive in its prohibition of the employment of children; it is absolute in its terms; allows of no exceptions or excuses. . . . The duty imposed by said statute upon the defendant not to employ a child in a dangerous occupation is thus imposed for the protection of the child . . . ." Id. at 67, 69, 72 So. at 811.

The court of appeal in this case noted the Alexander decision, but relied instead on Jones v. Insurance Company of North America, 303 So.2d 902 (La.App. 1st Cir. 1974), in which a minor was injured while operating a tractor. His employer had hired him in violation of La.R.S. 23:163, the power-driven machinery statute involved in this case.

The Jones court relied solely on Flores v. Steeg Printing & Publishing Co., 142 La. 1068, 78 So....