Whether Preston Mill was strictly liable for mink kittens killed after their mothers were frightened by vibration and noise from distant blasting.
Holding
No. Strict liability for blasting does not extend to this loss because harm caused by the extraordinary nervousness of commercially raised mink was not within the risks that make blasting ultrahazardous.
Reasoning
Washington recognizes strict liability for harms directly associated with blasting, including damage caused by flying debris, earth vibration, or air concussion. The rule can apply even without a physical invasion of the plaintiff's land, as the court's earlier decision in Patrick v. Smith showed when a blast damaged a neighboring well through violent shaking.
But strict liability is not unlimited. It covers only consequences within the extraordinary risk that justifies imposing liability without fault. This is a policy limitation analogous to proximate cause: a party conducting a dangerous activity must bear reasonable costs of its special dangers, but need not insure against every unusual consequence that may follow from it.
The normal dangers of blasting concern direct injury to people or property from debris, vibration, or concussion. The court found no authority imposing strict liability where blasting merely frightened an animal, which then caused damage. Cases involving frightened animals generally rested on negligence, not absolute liability.
Even assuming that fright to domestic animals could sometimes fall within blasting's inherent risks, the disturbance here was relatively moderate at a distance of more than two miles. The trial court found that the blasting did not unreasonably interfere with neighboring landowners generally; the damage occurred because mink were exceptionally sensitive during whelping season.
The law does not extend strict liability to protect against harm attributable to a plaintiff's extraordinary or unusual use of land. Foster's losses were therefore attributable to the unusual susceptibility of his mink rather than to the ordinary ultrahazardous risks of Preston Mill's blasting. Other theories, such as trespass, statutory violation, or negligence, might permit recovery on different facts, but absolute liability did not.