Hills v. McGillvrey

402 P.2d 722, 240 Or. 476, 1965 Ore. LEXIS 524
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedJune 3, 1965
StatusPublished
Cited by42 cases

This text of 402 P.2d 722 (Hills v. McGillvrey) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hills v. McGillvrey, 402 P.2d 722, 240 Or. 476, 1965 Ore. LEXIS 524 (Or. 1965).

Opinions

GOODWIN, J.

This is an action for damages for the wrongful death of a motorist who was killed in an automobile collision. There is an appeal and a cross appeal.

The fatal accident involved three motor vehicles. Sheridan Hills was driving in an easterly direction on State Highway 58. He stopped within an intersection to make a left turn onto State Highway 222. Mrs. McGillvrey, also driving east on Highway 58, had been travelling behind the Hills vehicle and [479]*479had attempted to overtake the Hills vehicle. Mrs. MeGillvrey had turned out to pass and then turned back into the eastbound lane. The brakes of the MeGillvrey automobile failed, and the MeGillvrey vehicle struck the rear of the Hills vehicle, causing the Hills vehicle to cross over into the westbound lane where it was almost instantly struck by a westbound truck driven by the defendant King. At the time of the accident, the defendant King was in the employ of the defendant Union Carbide Corporation.

Mr. Hills was killed in the collision. His administratrix brought this action against the owners and operators of the other vehicles, and against the suppliers of a replacement wheel-bearing as well as against the mechanic who installed it.

There was evidence from which the jury could have found that the cause of the MeGillvrey brake failure was the installation of an undersized wheel bearing which was sold by Leslie Carrothers, an employe of a partnership known as Orchard Auto Parts. Orville Burlington was the mechanic who installed the wheel bearing on the day of the accident.

The jury found the defendants Orchard, and their employe, Carrothers, to have been negligent in supplying Burlington a wheel bearing for a 1955-56 Chevrolet automobile after he had asked for a bearing for a 1957 Chevrolet automobile. (Burlington admitted that he was negligent in installing the wrong part, and a verdict was directed against him.) The jury exonerated King, the McGillvreys, and Union Carbide Co. from liability. The defendants Orchard and Carrothers, hereinafter referred to as Orchard Auto Parts, appeal from the judgment against them. The plaintiff cross-appeals from the judgment in favor of the defendants MeGillvrey, King, and Union Carbide.

[480]*480There was evidence from which the jury conld have found that the conduct of Burlington, combined with the conduct of Orchard Auto Parts, was a substantial factor in the cause of the accident. There was technical and nontechnical evidence about the cause of the brake failure. The evidence revealed that the installation of the wrong-sized bearing upon the rear axle of the McGillvrey automobile caused heat; the heat caused the brake fluid to vaporize; the vaporizing of the fluid caused a total loss of braking capacity; and the failure of the brakes caused the fatal collision.

The wheel bearing Burlington received was superficially similar in appearance, size, and weight to the one he had ordered. The differences, while discernible, would not readily appear to a person who was not specifically comparing the parts. The jury could have found that if Orchard Auto Parts had supplied the proper part the accident would not have happened. The question is whether its conduct makes Orchard Auto Parts liable to the plaintiff.

The trial judge submitted the issues of negligence and causation to the jury in the traditional terms of proximate cause. The jury was told, in effect, that it could find that Orchard Auto Parts was negligent and that its negligence was the proximate cause of the accident if the jury believed that the supplying of the wrong part to a mechanic created a foreseeable risk of harm to others.

The court also instructed the jury that the intervening negligence of Burlington could be treated as the sole proximate cause, relieving Orchard Auto Parts of liability, if the jury believed that the mechanic’s admitted negligence in installing the wrong part was “extraordinarily negligent,” or negligence so far outside the scope of the foreseeable risk created by the [481]*481negligence of Orchard Anto Parts as to make that negligence, if any, inconsequential, or a “remote” cause of the harm. In this respect, the trial court followed the analysis of the problem of the intervening conduct of another found in Dewey v. A. F. Klaveness & Co., 233 Or 515, 542-543, 379 P2d 560 (1963) (Concurring opinion of Mr. Justice O’Connell).

The sufficiency of the complaint was challenged, timely motions were made to withdraw from the jury’s consideration the question of the liability of Orchard Auto Parts, and the instructions were duly excepted to. Error has been assigned to each of the rulings that were adverse to Orchard Auto Parts. The thrust of this appeal is that the negligence, if any, of Orchard Auto Parts was not a substantial factor in causing the harm. In the alternative, Orchard Auto Parts argues that its conduct breached no duty owed this plaintiff.

Orchard Auto Parts relies upon the language of Palsgraf v. Long Island R. R. Co., 248 NY 339, 162 NE 99, 59 ALR 1253 (1928), that “[t]he risk reasonably to be perceived defines the duty to be obeyed, and risk imports relation; it is risk to another or to others within the range of apprehension * # 248 NY at 344, 162 NE at 100. Orchard Auto Parts argues that it no more could have foreseen the chain of events that produced the death of the plaintiff’s intestate than the operators of a commuter train could have foreseen the injuries that befell Mrs. Palsgraf. In other words, even if it be conceded that Orchard Auto Parts made a mistake, and thus, perhaps, was negligent in so doing, it is argued that such negligence was neither a breach of any duty owed the present plaintiff, nor a substantial cause of the harm.

The trial court correctly analyzed the problem [482]*482and committed no error in submitting it to the jury. It was for the jury to decide whether or not harm to the public might be a foreseeable result of the conduct of Orchard Auto Parts. If it was reasonably foreseeable that some harm to the traveling public could result from the installation of the wrong part on an automobile, and if it was reasonably foreseeable that the mechanic might negligently install on an automobile a part supplied him for such a purpose, then it would follow that there was a duty on the part of the suppliers not to supply the mechanic the wrong part. For a discussion of the “duty” concept, see Leon Green, Judge and Jury 30-96 (1930).

Orchard Auto Parts presses the point that it was the duty of the mechanic to install the part with due care, and that if he had exercised due care he would have discovered that he had been given the wrong part and presumably would not have installed it upon the automobile. The admitted negligence of the mechanic, Orchard Auto Parts urges, “breaks the chain” of causation, and refutes the contention that the negligence of the parts suppliers was a “substantial” or “proximate” cause of the plaintiff’s loss.

The suppliers’ conduct, Orchard Auto Parts contends, could not have been the legal, or responsible, cause of the harm, as those terms are employed in the discussion of proximate cause found in the Restatement, 2 Torts (1934), particulary at § 447. The difficulty with this argument is that it assumes that it is the function of the court rather than of the jury to decide whether the conduct of Orchard Auto Parts was a substantial factor in producing the harm.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

State v. Meiser
551 P.3d 349 (Oregon Supreme Court, 2024)
Haas v. Estate of Mark Steven Carter
525 P.3d 451 (Oregon Supreme Court, 2023)
Lasley v. Combined Transport, Inc.
261 P.3d 1215 (Oregon Supreme Court, 2011)
Lasley v. COMBINED TRANSPORT, INC.
227 P.3d 1200 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2010)
Bailey v. Lewis Farm, Inc.
171 P.3d 336 (Oregon Supreme Court, 2007)
Knepper v. Brown
50 P.3d 1209 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2002)
Becker v. Barbur Blvd. Equipment Rentals, Inc.
726 P.2d 967 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 1986)
Christensen v. Epley
601 P.2d 1216 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1979)
Brennen v. City of Eugene
591 P.2d 719 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1979)
Rice v. HYSTER COMPANY
540 P.2d 989 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1975)
McEwen v. Ortho Pharmaceutical Corporation
528 P.2d 522 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1974)
Woosley v. Dunning
520 P.2d 340 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1974)
Hickman v. HAUGHTON ELEVATOR COMPANY
519 P.2d 369 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1974)
Emerson v. Western Photomount Co.
518 P.2d 171 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1974)
Allen v. Shiroma
514 P.2d 545 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1973)
Jones v. Mitchell Bros. Truck Lines
511 P.2d 347 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1973)
Owings v. Rose
497 P.2d 1183 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1972)
Wiener v. Gamma Phi Chapter of Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity
485 P.2d 18 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1971)
Brizendine v. Visador Co.
437 F.2d 822 (Ninth Circuit, 1970)
Brizendine v. Visador Company
437 F.2d 822 (Ninth Circuit, 1970)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
402 P.2d 722, 240 Or. 476, 1965 Ore. LEXIS 524, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hills-v-mcgillvrey-or-1965.