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Hutto v. Francisco3/3/2005
ed from the vehicle were killed. Id. See also Law, 157 Ariz. at 149, 755 P.2d at 1137 ("State and federal requirements for seat belt . . . were a response to increasingly authoritative evidence that seat belts could prevent many deaths and injuries arising from automobile accidents."); Twohig v. Briner, 214 Cal. Rptr. 729, 731-32 (1985) (discussing importance of seatbelts in vehicle safety). Because a jury could find that failing to maintain the original safety equipment on the truck created an unreasonable risk of harm, the court improperly granted Defendants' summary judgment.
Other jurisdictions have considered similar situations. In Tiemeyer v. McIntosh, 176 N.W.2d 819 (Iowa 1970), taxicab passengers sued the driver and the owner of the cab, alleging that their injuries were enhanced by the failure to provide safety belts in the cab. Id. at 821. The passengers produced evidence "that seat belts are a valuable safety device that the cost of installation is negligible." Id. at 822. The Supreme Court of Iowa stated that:
The defendant cab company was under no statutory duty to have seat belts in its cab at the time this accident occurred. We believe the issue of negligence for failing to provided such a safety device was properly determined as a question of fact and not as a matter of law.
Id. Similarly, in Mortensen v. Southern Pacific Company, 53 Cal. Rptr. 851 (Cal.App. 1966), an injured employee sued his employer under the Federal Employers' Liability Act for negligently failing to equip its vehicles with safety belts. Id. at 852. The vehicle was not required by statute to have safety belts. However, at the time of the accident, California statute required anchors for safety belts in new cars. Id. at 854. The California Court of Appeal held that "it was for the jury to decide whether defendant's failure to provide seat belts amounted to negligence." Id. at 853.
Defendants emphasize that they did not remove the safety belts. Instead, they merely failed to replace them when the truck was refurbished by Defendants after its purchase. This is a fact that distinguishes this case from others in which liability was allowed when the owners removed the safety belts, such as Twohig v. Briner.
We are unpersuaded, however, that this distinction relieves Defendants of liability as a matter of law. See Tiemeyer, supra. Defendants concede that they owed a duty to provide a reasonably safe vehicle. The existence of a duty requires the person subject to the duty to exercise reasonable care under the circumstances. Markowitz v. Ariz. Parks Bd., 146 Ariz. 352, 356, 706 P.2d 364, 368 (1985). The jury must decide whether a breach of that standard occurred. Isbell v. Maricopa County, 198 Ariz. 280, 282, 6, 9 P.3d 311, 313 (2000). Defendants neither contended nor produced evidence that the burden of reinstalling safety belts was so great that, as a matter of law, their conduct could not be found unreasonable. In fact, some evidence to the contrary was adduced. The vehicle was prepared to readily accept safety belts, such as by having cutouts in the seats to accept the belts. Defendant had substantially refurbished the vehicle himself, and was sufficiently mechanically adept to have been able to reinstall the safety belts, but omitted this safety measure in his restoration efforts. It is for the jury to decide whether the burden was a reasonable one in light of the risk of harm: "The risk/benefit analysis involved in deciding what is reasonable care under the circumstances is generally left to the jury. . . ." Rossell v. Volkswagen of Am., 147 Ariz. 160, 164-65, 709 P.2d 517, 521-22 (1985).
Son, as a co-owner of the vehicle, may have been compara
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