Wright v. United States
Decision Date | 27 June 1979 |
Docket Number | No. CV 77-6-M.,CV 77-6-M. |
Citation | 472 F. Supp. 1153 |
Court | U.S. District Court — District of Montana |
Parties | Keith WRIGHT, Plaintiff, v. The UNITED STATES of America and the United States Department of Agriculture, the United States Forest Service, Defendants and Third-Party Plaintiffs, v. UTILITY TOOL & EQUIPMENT COMPANY, INC., Maxon Industries, Inc., and Stone Hydraulic Company, Third-Party Defendants. |
Robert W. Minto, Jr., Worden, Thane & Haines, Missoula, Mont., for plaintiff.
Robert O'Leary, U. S. Atty., Butte, Mont., for defendants and third-party plaintiffs.
Mulroney, Delaney, Dalby & Mudd, Missoula, Mont., for Utility Tool & Equip.
Corette, Smith & Dean, Butte, Mont., for Maxon Industries, Inc.
Garlington, Lohn & Robinson, Missoula, Mont., for Stone Hydraulic Co.
Plaintiff leased a warehouse to the defendant United States. The warehouse burned, and plaintiff sued the United States for damages under the Federal Tort Claims Act (28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)). The case was submitted to the court for decision on an agreed statement of facts containing the following:
On the basis of the agreed facts, which I am bound to enforce,1 I find that the United States was negligent and that that negligence was the proximate cause of the damage.
The doctrine of res ipsa loquitur is applicable in Federal Tort Claim cases,2 and is to be given the effect which the Montana law gives it.3 Under Montana law a rebuttable presumption of negligence arises "when an instrumentality which causes injury, without any fault of the injured person, is under the exclusive control of the defendant at the time of the injury, and the injury is such as in the ordinary course of things does not occur if the one having such control uses proper care . . .."4 This presumption has the weight of evidence.5
While the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur is not usually applicable in cases of fires of unknown origin,6 in this case the warehouse, the truck, and the sleeping bags were all in the exclusive possession of the United States; no fault of any kind is chargeable to the plaintiff, and in the ordinary course of events unattended trucks do not spontaneously combust and cause fires.7 The conduct of the truck driver in backing into or running over sleeping bags and somehow tripping the lift mechanism on the tailgate assembly of the truck, and in leaving the scene without discovering that he had done so, does not in my opinion dispel the presumption of negligence which the law of Montana compels me to draw.8
There is a further factor in this case which should be discussed. The United States, proceeding upon the theory set out in the agreed facts in a third-party complaint, charged the manufacturers with negligence in the design and manufacture of the tailgate assembly. By stipulation, the issues as to the third-party complaint were tried to a jury. The plaintiff did not attend that trial. At the trial the Government called experts who testified as to its theory, and the manufacturers called in experts who testified to the contrary. On this conflicting evidence the issues were submitted to a jury by special verdict, Question No. 1 of which was: "Was the fire in Warehouse No. 2 caused by an over-heated, self-contained hydraulic power unit on the Tuk-a-way tailgate assembly?" The answer to this question was "no." The finding of the jury is, of course, contrary to the stipulated fact which is incorporated in my findings here. We have the paradox of the same court, albeit different fact-finders, reaching diametrically opposite conclusions.
Here there were, as it turned out, separate submissions with different evidence in each, and what happened could well have happened had there been no joinder.9
It is disquieting to our senses of fitness and logic that a judge should find that a fire was caused by an overheated motor and that a jury should find that it was not. It does not help much that the evidence before the judge was different from that before the jury because it is the one system which produces the contradictory...
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...causing the fire may have been outside of the control of Steadman's Hardware. As noted by the court in Wright v. United States (D.Mont.1979), 472 F.Supp. 1153, 1156: "[T]he doctrine of res ipsa loquitur is not usually applicable in cases of fires of unknown origin...." This is such a Did th......
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...verdicts would have been possible and the principles of collateral estoppel would not have been applicable. See Wright v. United States, 472 F.Supp. 1153, 1156 n. 9 (D.Mont.1979) (upholding jury verdict for third party defendant despite factual inconsistency with judge's verdict in first pa......