Mills v. Smith
673 P.2d 117, 9 Kan. App. 2d 80, 1983 Kan. App. LEXIS 201 (1983)
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Rule of Law:
Under a comparative fault system, the strict liability of a wild animal owner for injuries caused by the animal may be compared with the simple negligence of other parties who contributed to the injury to apportion causal responsibility.
Facts:
- Ray and Maude Smith owned a nine-month-old, 90-100 pound African lion named Chester at their Circle 3 Ranch.
- On June 27, 1981, 21-month-old Darci Lynn Mills visited the ranch with her parents, sister, and grandparents.
- The adult family members observed Ray Smith play with the lion and posed for pictures with it.
- Maude Smith testified that she warned the family to keep the children away from the lion.
- Darci's mother, Althea Mills, stayed with her two daughters about 30 to 50 feet away from the lion.
- While Althea Mills was momentarily distracted by her older daughter, Darci ran towards her grandparents, approaching the lion from behind.
- Chester the lion reared up, knocked Darci to the ground, and grabbed her head in his mouth.
- Darci's grandfather immediately pulled the lion's jaws apart, and her grandmother pulled her away, after which she was hospitalized for cuts requiring stitches.
Procedural Posture:
- Darci Lynn Mills, through her parents, filed a personal injury action against Ray and Maude Smith in a Kansas trial court.
- The Smiths, as defendants, named Darci's grandparents, the Buckbees, as additional defendants.
- At trial, the jury was instructed on strict liability for the Smiths and comparative negligence for all parties.
- The jury returned a verdict attributing 40% of fault to the Smiths, 50% to Althea Mills, and 10% to the Buckbees.
- The jury awarded $248 in actual damages, and the trial court entered judgment for the plaintiff in the amount of $99.20 (40% of the total).
- The plaintiff, Darci Lynn Mills, appealed the judgment to the Kansas Court of Appeals, an intermediate appellate court.
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Issue:
In a strict liability action for injuries caused by a wild animal, does the doctrine of comparative negligence permit the comparison of the defendant owner's fault with the simple negligence of the injured party's custodians?
Opinions:
Majority - Parks, J.
Yes. In a strict liability action for injuries caused by a wild animal, the doctrine of comparative negligence permits the comparison of the defendant owner's fault with the simple negligence of the injured party's custodians. The court first formally adopted the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 507, which imposes strict liability upon the possessors of wild animals for harm caused by them. However, the court held that Kansas's comparative fault statute, K.S.A. 60-258a, applies to all actions based on strict liability. Citing precedent from Albertson v. Volkswagenwerk Aktiengesellschaft, the court rejected the argument that the fault underlying negligence cannot be compared to the fault associated with strict liability due to a difference in degree. The court reasoned that all types of fault, regardless of their nature or degree, must be compared by the jury to properly apportion the causal responsibility for an injury. Therefore, the trial court was correct to instruct the jury to compare the simple negligence of the plaintiff's mother and grandparents with the strict liability of the lion's owners.
Analysis:
This case establishes the principle in Kansas that strict liability is not absolute in the context of a comparative fault regime. By allowing the simple negligence of a plaintiff's custodians to be compared with the strict liability of a defendant, the court integrated the traditional common law doctrine of strict liability for wild animals into the modern statutory framework of comparative fault. This decision prevents a strictly liable defendant from being held 100% responsible for damages when other parties' negligence also contributed to the injury. The ruling has broader implications for other areas of strict liability, such as products liability, reinforcing that a plaintiff's or third party's fault is a relevant factor in apportioning damages.
