Spahn v. Town of Port Royal
Decision Date | 09 March 1998 |
Docket Number | No. 24772.,24772. |
Parties | John David SPAHN, Petitioner, v. TOWN OF PORT ROYAL, Respondent. |
Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
Daniel R. Denton, Beaufort, for petitioner.
Charles E. Carpenter, Jr. and Nina Reid Mack, both of Richardson, Plowden, Carpenter & Robinson, P.A., Columbia; and Robert W. Achurch, III, of Howell, Gibson & Hughes, Beaufort, for respondent.
We granted certiorari to review the Court of Appeal's opinion Spahn v. Town of Port Royal, 326 S.C. 632, 486 S.E.2d 507 (1997). We affirm as modified.
This is a comparative negligence case arising out of an accident in which the petitioner, John David Spahn, was injured when an automobile driven by John H. Griffith, a police officer for the Town of Port Royal, struck a jonboat Spahn was attempting to remove from the middle of the road.1 Spahn and his brother were attempting to retrieve the boat, which had fallen off the roof of Spahn's brother's automobile and landed partially in the road. At trial, Spahn requested the jury be instructed on the law of "last clear chance." 2 The trial judge denied Spahn's request. The jury returned a verdict for the defense.
The Court of Appeals affirmed holding, inter alia, that the doctrine of last clear chance had been subsumed by adoption of comparative negligence. The Court of Appeals also held that the factors previously considered in determining last clear chance are inherent in comparative fault and remain as factors to be considered by the jury in apportioning the parties' fault. We granted certiorari and directed the parties to brief the issue of whether the doctrine of last clear chance has been subsumed by adoption of comparative negligence.
There is a split of authority as to the continued viability of the last clear chance doctrine after adoption of a comparative negligence scheme.3 As noted by the Court of Appeals, a majority of jurisdictions4 hold the doctrine is subsumed by comparative negligence. Jurisdictions adopting this view generally recognize last clear chance as an exception to contributory negligence which provides a mechanism to avoid the harshness of a contributory negligence defense.5See Prosser and Keeton, Prosser and Keeton on Torts, § 66 at pp. 462-463 (5th Ed.1984) (hereafter Prosser and Keeton); see also Prosser, Comparative Negligence, 51 Mich.L.Rev. 465, 472 (1953) ( ). Under this view, last clear chance is viewed as a crude form of "comparative negligence" such that in cases in which the defendant has the last clear chance to avoid an injury, the plaintiff's negligence is treated comparatively. See Hubbard and Felix, Comparative Negligence in South Carolina: Implementing Nelson v. Concrete Supply Co., 43 S.C.L.R. 273, 284 (1992) (hereafter Hubbard and Felix). Upon adoption of comparative negligence, jurisdictions adhering to this view generally hold the doctrine of last clear chance no longer survives as an independent "all or nothing" doctrine; rather, the elements of last clear chance remain as factors for the jury's consideration in weighing the parties' negligence. See Woods and Deere, Comparative Fault, § 8.2 at pp. 172 (3rd Ed.1996) (hereafter Woods and Deere) (doctrine of last clear chance has crumbled under legislative acts and judicial decisions adopting comparative negligence); Prosser and Keeton at § 67, n. 82-83 ( ).
South Carolina has not followed the majority view of the doctrine of last clear chance. On the contrary, we have historically treated the doctrine not as an "exception," but as separate and distinct from contributory negligence. See e.g., Smith v. Blackwell, 250 S.C. 170, 156 S.E.2d 867 (1967)
. We have done so on the theory that the plaintiff's negligence has become remote such that the defendant's negligence is the sole proximate cause of an injury. See generally Hubbard and Felix, 43 S.C.L.R. at 284. Under this view, antecedent negligence which has become remote in the chain of causation is not contributory. Smith v. Blackwell, 250 S.C. 170, 156 S.E.2d 867 (1967) ( ). See also Seay v. Southern Railway-Carolina Division, 205 S.C. 162, 31 S.E.2d 133 (1944); Brown v. George, 278 S.C. 183, 294 S.E.2d 35 (1982) ( ); Cooper v. Driggers, 276 S.C. 299, 277 S.E.2d 893 (1981) ( ); Jones v. Atlanta-Charlotte Air Line Ry. Co., 218 S.C. 537, 63 S.E.2d 476 (1951) ( ); Jones v. Cannerella, 297 S.C. 212, 375 S.E.2d 352 (Ct.App.1988) ( ); Johnston v. Ward, 288 S.C. 603, 344 S.E.2d 166 (Ct.App.1986) ( ).
A minority of jurisdictions which treat the doctrine of last clear chance as a matter of proximate cause hold, upon adoption of comparative negligence, that last clear chance remains a separate doctrine.6 However, virtually every commentator our research reveals criticizes the rationalization that last clear chance is a doctrine of proximate cause, finding that treating it as a matter of proximate cause is inconsistent with adoption of comparative negligence. See Prosser and Keeton, § 66 at pp. 462-463 ( ); Woods and Deere, Comparative Fault, § 8.2 at 173, citing Maclntyre, The Rationale of Last Clear Chance, 53 Harv.L.Rev. 1225 at 1251-1252 (1940) ( ); Grehen, Notes: Comparative Negligence, 81 Columbia L.Rev. 1668, 1678-80 (1981) ( ); Mutter, Moving to Contributory Negligence in an Era of Tort Reform, 57 Tenn.L.Rev. 199, 275 (1990) ( ); Calabresi and Cooper, New Directions in Tort Law, 30 Val.U.L.Rev. 859 (1996) ( ). It has also been stated that:
This rationale [of proximate cause] is merely verbal and "cannot stand the most superficial analysis if it purports to apply to plaintiff the test of legal cause generally used today in the inquiry as to a defendant's liability." If plaintiff's negligent wrongdoing causes injury to a third party, he may be liable to the third party even though the principal defendant had in relation to plaintiff "the last clear chance."
Schwarz, at § 7.1, p. 130. See also Bettenga, Instructing the Jury on Comparative Fault Issues, 14 Wm. Mitchell L.Rev. 807, 828 (1988) ( ).
The above authorities are persuasive that the rationalization for last clear chance as a matter of proximate cause is simply unnecessary where the jury may compare the parties' negligence. Accordingly, we decline to do so. We agree with the Court of Appeals that the better view is to hold that last clear chance has been subsumed by adoption of comparative negligence such that it remains a factor for the jury's consideration in comparing the parties' fault, but that it does not totally relieve a plaintiff of his or her negligence. To hold otherwise is inconsistent with the purpose and policy behind adoption of comparative negligence. Accord Li v. Yellow Cab Co., supra
( ); see also Laws v. Webb, supra ( ). We therefore affirm the Court of Appeals' opinion.7
The question remains, however, whether the elements of the doctrine are to be charged to the jury in weighing the parties' fault in a comparative negligence case. We find such an...
To continue reading
Request your trial-
Crosby v. Glasscock Trucking Co., Inc.
...333 S.C. 71, 508 S.E.2d 565 (1998) (abolishing the doctrine of assumption of risk as an absolute defense); Spahn v. Town of Port Royal, 330 S.C. 168, 499 S.E.2d 205 (1998) (abolishing the common law doctrine of last clear chance). Similarly, in the instant case, it is antithetical to our fa......
-
Estate of Haley ex rel. Haley v. Brown, 4140.
...that the plaintiff's negligence exceeded fifty percent, it becomes a matter of law for the trial court. See Spahn v. Town of Port Royal, 330 S.C. 168, 173, 499 S.E.2d 205, 208 (1998) (stating the doctrine of last clear chance has been subsumed by the adoption of comparative negligence and i......
-
Davenport v. Cotton Hope Plantation
...risk is inconsistent with South Carolina's comparative negligence system is buttressed by our recent opinion in Spahn v. Town of Port Royal, 330 S.C. 168, 499 S.E.2d 205 (1998). In Spahn, we observed that South Carolina had historically treated the doctrine of last clear chance as separate ......
-
Clark v. Cantrell
...8, 1997) and Spahn v. Town of Port Royal, 326 S.C. 632, 638-41, 486 S.E.2d 507, 510-12 (Ct.App.1997), aff'd as modified, 330 S.C. 168, 499 S.E.2d 205, 208 (1998) (holding assumption of risk and last clear chance are merely factors for the jury to consider in apportioning negligence). We dec......