“Mischief which no reasonable person would have anticipated cannot be taken into account as a basis upon which to predicate a wrong in the law of negligence”
How later courts described this case
- “Mischief which no reasonable person would have anticipated cannot be taken into account as a basis upon which to predicate a wrong in the law of negligence”
- duty to protect a discovered trespasser in a position of peril due to an active operation
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
EAGER, Judge
(concurring in result only).
I feel that this case may be decided much more simply upon the question of plaintiff’s negligence; his negligence was pleaded by defendant, and the question is briefed here as one determinative of the case. This may, in my opinion, be properly adjudicated without the necessity of deciding: (a) whether plaintiff was a trespasser; or (b) whether defendant was negligent. It is my view that the plaintiff was negligent as a matter of law, and that his negligence was, in any event, either the sole cause of his injury or it was negligence directly contributing to the injury. In either event, it bars any recovery. It seems probable to me that the present opinion unnecessarily extends and expands the Missouri doctrine of liability to trespassers when such discussion is not necessary to a determination of this case.