George A. Hormel & Co. v. Maez

• Decision Date: 14 May 1979
• Citation: 155 Cal.Rptr. 337,92 Cal.App.3d 963
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: , 15 A.L.R.4th 1141 GEORGE A. HORMEL & CO., Plaintiff and Respondent, v. James Allen DAHL et al., Defendants. Appeal of William MAEZ, Defendant and Appellant. * Civ. 55238.

Page 337

155 Cal.Rptr. 337

92 Cal.App.3d 963, 15 A.L.R.4th 1141

GEORGE A. HORMEL & CO., Plaintiff and Respondent, v. James Allen DAHL et al., Defendants Appeal of William MAEZ, Defendant and Appellant. ^*

Civ. 55238.

Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 4, California.

May 14, 1979.

San Fernando Valley Neighborhood Legal Services, Inc., Warren Adler, and Jose A. Garza, Pacoima, for defendant and appellant.

Chettle & Valentine and A. B. Chettle, Jr., Manhattan, for plaintiff and respondent.

No appearance for defendant Dahl.

ALARCON, Associate Justice.

Defendant William Maez has appealed from a judgment entered against him and in favor of plaintiff George A. Hormel & Co. following a court trial. Judgment was entered for plaintiff in the sum of $1,910.85 plus costs against defendant William Maez only.

Summary of the Facts

On July 22, 1975, appellant was operating a motor vehicle on a public street in La Mirada, California. He was traveling at approximately 60-65 miles per hour when he lost control of the vehicle and struck a power pole. As a result of the collision, the power pole was broken and power lines were downed. Defendant was arrested some short time after the accident and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, leaving the scene of an accident, and operating a motor vehicle without a valid driver's license.

A witness, Albert Thomas, testified that he saw defendant's vehicle strike the power pole and that the lights in the area immediately went out. The witness testified that the power pole was broken off three to four feet above the ground, wires from it were sparking, and the transformer was broken.

An employee of plaintiff testified that at the time of defendant's accident, a power surge burned out the motor on an ammonia compressor in plaintiff's factory, destroying the motor. The motor was ultimately replaced at a cost of approximately $920. He further testified that all power was shut off in the plant for approximately two hours resulting in damages of approximately $1,050 for wages paid to idled employees.

The court awarded plaintiff judgment for the amount of damages incurred by reason of the damaged motor and the wages paid.

Contention on Appeal

Appellant contends that the judgment in favor of plaintiff is error; that there can be no award based on negligence in this action because defendant owed no duty of due care to this plaintiff.

Actionable negligence consists of three elements: (1) a defendant's legal duty to use due care; (2) a breach of that duty; and (3) the breach as the proximate or legal cause of plaintiff's resulting injury. (United States Liab. Ins. Co. v. Haidinger-Hayes, Inc. (1970) 1 Cal.3d 586, 594, 83 Cal.Rptr. 418, 463 P.2d 770.) The general duty owed by a driver of a motor vehicle is explained in Comment e to the Restatement of Torts 2d, section 281, page 6, as follows: "(T)he duty to exercise reasonable care in driving an automobile down the highway is established for the protection of the persons or property of others against all of the unreasonable possibilities of harm which may be expected to result from collisions with other vehicles, or with pedestrians, or from the driver's own automobile leaving the highway, or from narrowly averted collisions or other accidents. When harm of a kind normally to be expected as a consequence of the negligent driving results from the realization of any one of these hazards, it is within the scope of the defendant's duty of protection." Appellant contends, however, that the injury sustained by plaintiff herein is not "harm of the kind normally to be expected as a consequence of negligent driving," and argues that thus defendant owed no duty to this particular plaintiff. In Dillon v. Legg (1968) 68 Cal.2d 728, 69 Cal.Rptr. 72, 441 P.2d 912, the Supreme Court explained at page 734, 69 Cal.Rptr. at page 76, 441 P.2d at page 916: "The assertion that liability must nevertheless be denied because defendant bears no 'duty' to plaintiff 'begs the essential question whether the plaintiff's interests are entitled to legal protection against the defendant's conduct. . . . It (duty) is a shorthand statement of a conclusion, rather than an aid to analysis in itself. . . . But it should be recognized that "duty" is not sacrosanct in itself, but only an expression of the sum total of those considerations of policy which lead the law to say that the particular plaintiff is entitled to protection.' (Prosser, Law of Torts, Supra, at pp. 332-333.)"

An analysis of whether a duty is owed by a defendant to a particular plaintiff must begin with a recognition of the policy embodied in Civil Code section 1714 which states in part: "(a) Every one is responsible, not only for the result of his wilful acts, but also for an injury occasioned to another by his want of ordinary care or skill in the management of his property or person, . . ." In Rowland v. Christian (1968) 69 Cal.2d 108, 70 Cal.Rptr. 97, 443 P.2d 561, the Supreme Court explained at pages 112-113, 70 Cal.Rptr. at page 100, 443 P.2d at page 564, that the principle established in Civil Code section 1714 should not be departed from except in rare situations. "Although it is true that some exceptions have been made to the general principle that a person is liable for injuries caused by his failure to exercise reasonable care in the circumstances, it is clear that in the absence of statutory provision declaring an exception to the fundamental principle enunciated by section 1714 of the Civil Code, no such exception should be made unless clearly supported by public policy. (Citations.) (P) A departure from this fundamental principle involves the balancing of a number of considerations; the major ones are the foreseeability of harm to the plaintiff, the degree of certainty that the plaintiff suffered injury, the closeness of the connection between the defendant's conduct and the injury suffered, the moral blame attached to the defendant's conduct, the policy of preventing future harm, the extent of the burden to the defendant and consequences to the community of imposing a duty to exercise care with resulting liability for breach, and the availability, cost, and prevalence of insurance for the risk involved. (Citations.)"

Appellant argues that in this case the harm suffered was not reasonably foreseeable. Certainly the most important consideration in determining whether a duty exists is whether the harm suffered was foreseeable to the defendant. "The most important of these considerations in establishing duty is foreseeability. As a general principle, a 'defendant owes a duty of care to all persons who are foreseeably endangered by his conduct, with respect to all risks which made the conduct unreasonably dangerous.' (Rodriguez v. Bethlehem Steel Corp. (1974) 12 Cal.3d 382, 399, 115 Cal.Rptr. 765, 776, 525 P.2d 669, 680 . . .; Dillon v. Legg, supra, 68 Cal.2d 728, 739, 69 Cal.Rptr. 72, 441 P.2d 912; Weirum v. RKO General, Inc. (1975) 15 Cal.3d 40, 123 Cal.Rptr. 468, 539 P.2d 36 . . . .)" (Tarasoff v. Regents of University of California (1976) 17 Cal.3d 425, 434-435, 131 Cal.Rptr. 14, 22, 551 P.2d 334, 342.)

In determining whether the injury suffered by the plaintiff here, economic loss as a result of a deprivation of power, was reasonably foreseeable, the test is not whether the defendant would have contemplated such injury at the time of his negligent conduct. In Comment g to the Restatement of Torts 2d, section 281, page 7, the authors explain: "In determining whether such events are within the risk, the courts have been compelled of necessity to resort to hindsight rather than foresight." Likewise, in Dillon v. Legg, supra, 68 Cal.2d at page 741, 69 Cal.Rptr. at page 81, 441 P.2d at page 921, the Supreme Court observed: "Such reasonable foreseeability does not turn on whether the particular defendant as an individual would have in actuality foreseen the exact accident and loss; it contemplates that courts, on a case-to-case basis, analyzing all the circumstances, will decide what the ordinary man under such circumstances should reasonably have foreseen. The courts thus mark out the areas of liability, excluding the remote and unexpected."

Certainly, the injury suffered by the plaintiff herein flowed directly from and was a direct and proximate result of the negligence of the defendant. Using...