# Aaron v. Havens

> Supreme Court of Missouri · October 18, 1988 · 758 S.W.2d 446

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9652800

## Case

- **Full name:** Lorri AARON, Appellant, v. David HAVENS, Respondent
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Missouri
- **Decided:** October 18, 1988
- **Citations:** 758 S.W.2d 446; 1988 Mo. LEXIS 88; 1988 WL 108134
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Donnelly
- **Judges:** Billings, Blackmar, Donnelly, Higgins, Rendlen, Robertson, Welliver
- **Cited by:** 38 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9652800

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- stating "[i]t is not necessary to allege that past crimes involving entry into unauthorized places are of the same general nature as the one which gave rise to the claim.... If a burglar may enter, so may a rapist."

## Opinion text

DONNELLY, Judge,
dissenting.
In my view, the jury system is without equal as an instrument of fairness. But juries should be allowed to function within a process designed for fairness. Adoption and application of a concept of pure comparative fault would expand the role of juries in the civil justice system and would make the matter of legal causation less important and less inscrutable. See Smith, Legal Cause in Actions of Tort, 25 Harv.L.Rev. 103 (1911).
The principal opinion holds that a landlord may be held liable to a tenant for criminal acts of a third person.
I would concur if I could persuade my brothers to permit the jury to allocate fault between the landlord, the tenant, and the criminal actor and to hold each of the three responsible “only in proportion to his fault”. Steinman v. Strobel, 589 S.W.2d 293, 296 (Mo. banc 1979) (Donnelly, J., dissenting). But I cannot. I respectfully dissent.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9652800. Public record. Not legal advice.