Hall v. Booth

• Decision Date: 19 November 1982
• Citation: 423 So.2d 184
• Parties: Charles Bruce HALL, as Administrator of the Estate of Charles Bruce Hall, Jr., deceased v. David BOOTH, et al. 81-477.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 184

423 So.2d 184

Charles Bruce HALL, as Administrator of the Estate of Charles Bruce Hall, Jr., deceased v. David BOOTH, et al.

81-477.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

Nov. 19, 1982.

Michael D. Smith of Hall, Clark & Smith, Eutaw, for appellant.

John A. Owens, of Phelps, Owens, Jenkins, Gibson & Fowler, Tuscaloosa, for appellee David Marvin Smart and for appellee Leonard H. Cunningham.

Olin W. Zeanah and R. Larry Bradford, of Zeanah, Donald & Hust, Tuscaloosa, for appellees Carl Taylor, Horace Claude Poole, James A. Price, Sr., and James A. Price, Jr. MADDOX, Justice.

The sole issue involved in this appeal is the liability of an unincorporated hunting club for the death of a young thirteen-year-old boy who was accidentally shot during a deer hunt. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of all defendants who were members of the unincorporated hunting club; except, the case was not dismissed against the party who actually shot and killed the young boy.

Appellant does not assert that any of the dismissed defendants actually shot the decedent, but he seeks to extend liability to members of the hunting club based on an alleged duty to conduct the hunt safely. The critical issue before the Court is if such a duty exists, and is breached, can that constitute proximate cause in a shooting death? The trial court, based on the facts presented on the motion for summary judgment, refused to extend liability to those defendants who did not actually shoot the decedent. We affirm.

Construing the basic facts in favor of the appellant, they are as follows: Appellant, Charles Bruce Hall, Sr., his son Chuck, and Charles Tubbs left Tuscaloosa on December 29, 1979, and went to the Union Hunting Club in Greene County to participate in a deer hunt. Once at the hunting site, Hall paid a guest fee to the hunting club's president James A. Price, Sr., Price, his son, James A. Price, Jr., Carl Taylor and Horace Claude Poole, Jr., were all members of the Union Hunting Club and were named as defendants in this action. The same counsel represented these appellees. Another attorney represented two other club members, Leonard Cunningham and David Marvin Smart.

The evidence showed that two hunts were conducted that day. On both hunts some of the men were designated as drivers and the other men were standers. The drivers' job was to start from a specific location and walk through the woods, hopefully driving any deer toward the standers. The standers were placed at specific spots along one of the roads located in the woods. The first hunt ended without any incident.

The evidence shows that during the second hunt Hall, Chuck and Tubbs took stands on Pecan Tree Road. Hall asserted that one Claude Poole instructed them on where they should stand. The parties do not agree on whether Leonard Cunningham then sent other men, including David Booth, down Pecan Tree Road. The appellant claims Cunningham sent the men down Pecan Tree Road with instructions to act as drivers and further, that Cunningham told them that no one else was on Pecan Tree Road. Cunningham claimed that he never told anyone where hunters were located during the second hunt.

David Booth took a position on Pecan Tree Road and awaited the signal to begin the drive. As the signal was given to begin the drive, Booth heard a noise. He turned and saw movement. Booth fired twice at what he thought was a deer. The shots struck Chuck Hall and caused his death. It was clear from the evidence that only Booth fired the fatal shots.

While the evidence may indicate that possibly some of the appellees, particularly Cunningham and Poole, could have been negligent in the manner they conducted the second hunt, this evidence, even if proven to the reasonable satisfaction of a jury or factfinder, could not extend liability to them under the facts of this case, because the element of proximate causation is missing. This Court has ruled that however negligent a party may have been in some particular, he is accountable only to those injured as a proximate result of such negligence. Where some independent agency intervenes and is the immediate cause of the injury, the party guilty of prior negligence is not liable. See Smith v. Alabama Water Service, 225 Ala. 510, 512, 513, 143 So. 893 (1932). While the actions of the appellee may have been a cause in Chuck Hall's tragic death, the appellant must show that appellee's negligence constituted " 'the proximate, that is, the direct and immediate, efficient cause of the injury.' " Mobile City Lines, Inc. v. Proctor, 272 Ala. 217, 224, 130 So.2d 388 (1961) (quoting Western Railway of Alabama v. Mutch, 97 Ala. 194, 196, 11 So. 894, 895 (1892)).

This Court has not addressed the issue raised on appeal before in a similar factual setting, but opinions from other jurisdictions are persuasive and have promulgated rules of law applicable in cases involving similar hunting accidents. When a hunter fires without first identifying his target and shoots another person, that irresponsible act is the proximate cause of injury regardless of some negligence on the part of the victim. Fowler v. Monteleone, 153 So. 490, (La.Ct.App.1934). In Fowler v. Monteleone, the Court opined:

"The plaintiff's alleged contributory negligence in leaving his stand before the hunt was over and wandering in the barricaded area was passive and not a contributing cause of the shooting."

Id. 494. The Court noted, however, that under the circumstances of that case, the plaintiff/victim...