Osborne v McMasters Relevant Facts: Pl Osborne administrator of the PL estate, sought a negligence claim against Df. Df’s clerk sold, without a label, poison to the Pl, who ingested the poison unknowingly. Legal Issue(s): Whether a the civil standard of care is determined by statute? Court’s Holding: Yes Procedure: Judgment for PL, Df appeals. Affirmed. Law or Rule(s): Where a statute or ordinance imposes upon any person a specific duty for the protection of others, if he neglects to perform that duty he is liable to those for whose protection or benefit it was imposed for any injury, when caused proximately. Court Rationale: It is immaterial whether the duty is one imposed by the rule of common law requiring the exercise of ordinary care, or is imposed by statute designed for the protection of others. The failure to perform the duty constitutes negligence. Violation of the statute constitutes conclusive evidence of negligence per se. The statute established a fixed standard. Plaintiff’s Argument: Df violated the statute, negligence per se. Defendant’s Argument: Df exercised ordinary care of a reasonable person similarly situated. Stachniewicz v Mar-Cam Corp
Relevant Facts: Pl (Stach) a patron of a drinking establishment was injured in a fight therein. A group of Native Americans sitting in an adjacent booth became disruptive when Pl guests refused to allow a friend’s wife to dance with them. The bartender warned PL not to start any trouble with them. The Native American’s pushed down a member of the Pl’s party and the fight began. Pl was found lying just outside. He suffered amnesia and could remember nothing. The n.a. had been drinking in the bar for 2.5 hours before the fight. Legal Issue(s): Whether violations of statute constitute negligence as a matter of law. Court’s Holding: Yes Procedure: Jury returned a verdict for Df. PL appealed. Reversed and remanded for trial.
Law or Rule(s): A violation of a statute constitutes negligence as a matter of law when the violation results in an injury to a member of a class of persons intended to be protected, and when the harm is the kind which the statute was enacted to prevent. Court Rationale: The Act concerns matters having a direct relation to the creation of physical disturbances in bars which would create a likelihood of injury to customers. The act seeks to prevent abusive conduct and drunken clientele which results in serious injuries to customers. The bar owner’s breach of duty to protect his patrons from harm resulting from a drunken brawl is negligence. Pl was within a class intended to be protected, and the harm caused was the kind the statute intended to prevent. Plaintiff’s Argument: The Pl was injured in a bar, by customers who were drunk. Defendant’s Argument: The standard of care is the reasonable care that a bartender similarly situated would exercise. The Pl was injured outside the bar.
Martin v Herzog Relevant Facts: PL and husband were driving their buggy shortly after sundown when they were struck by a car going the same direction. The husband was killed. The car was rounding a curve when it came upon the buggy which was unlit. Legal Issue(s): Whether the omission of lights on the buggy was the causal connection between the negligence and the injury? Court’s Holding: Yes Procedure: Jury found for Df. App Div. Reversed and ordered a new trial. Affirmed with costs to Df. Law or Rule(s): To omit, willfully or heedlessly, the safeguards prescribed by law is to fall short of the standard of diligence to which those who live in organized society are under a duty to conform. Court Rationale: Jurors were allowed to treat the omission of lights as either innocent or as culpable. Jurors have no dispensing power by which they may relax the duty that one traveler on the HWY owes another under the statute. The omission of lights was a wrong, and being wholly unexcused was also a negligent wrong. The absence of lights was a contributing cause of disaster. Evidence of a collision occurring more than an hour after sundown between a car and an unseen buggy, proceeding without lights, is a causal connection between the collision and lack of lights. Plaintiff’s Argument: Df failed to exercise reasonable care when approaching a curve in the road shortly after nightfall in the country.
Defendant’s Argument: The Pl failed to exercise a duty of reasonable care when driving at night with an unlit buggy upon the roadway where cars are traveling. When a statute applies the facts, an unexcused violation is neg per se, left to the ct to decide not the jury.
Zeni v. Anderson
Facts: The plaintiff was walking in a roadway facing away from traffic on a snowy day when the sidewalk was impassible. The defendant hit her. The plaintiff sued, but the defendant claimed that the plaintiff’s conduct constituted contributory negligence because it was a violation of statute to fail to use the sidewalk or to walk in the street facing towards traffic. The jury found for the plaintiff but the verdict was reversed on appeal. The plaintiff appealed in turn. Issue: Was the jury right in finding the plaintiff negligent? Rule: Out of three possible rules, this court chooses the following: Violation of an applicable statute only makes a prima facie case for negligence that may be rebutted if it can be shown that the violation is excusable. Analysis: The court finds that the statute that is relevant to the current case gives the jury a clear guideline for determining whether the plaintiff was negligent and whether such negligence contributed to the plaintiff’s injury. The court concludes that the jury was correctly and adequately instructed. Conclusion: The court reverses the decision of the appellate court and affirms the jury verdict.