Following a bench trial in Charlevoix County District Court, plaintiff received a judgment of no cause of action in its suit against defendant, a minor, for fire damage to the barn of plaintiffs subrogee. The Charlevoix Circuit Court sustained the decision, and plaintiff now appeals by leave granted.
*546 Defendant was eight years old when the incident giving rise to this lawsuit occurred. Defendant took some matches from the kitchen of his parents’ home and, intending to cook some food, went behind his neighbors’ barn to light a fire. His parents had on occasion showed him how to light matches and gather kindling to start a fire, and he had also learned about building fires in the Cub Scouts. However, his parents had advised him not to build a fire without adult supervision or close to buildings, and defendant had never built a fire on his own. The fire burned under control for a few minutes and then defendant and his friend attempted to put the fire out by dousing it with water, covering it with dirt and stamping on it. The next morning, defendant’s neighbors discovered that their barn was on fire, and the local fire department was called to extinguish it. At the scene, a small burned-out area in the grass approximately six feet from the barn was found along with a book of matches from the restaurant owned by defendant’s parents. Defendant’s neighbors submitted a claim for the damage to their barn to their insurance company, plaintiff Farm Bureau Insurance Group. Plaintiff then brought an action against defendant’s parents in the Charlevoix District Court. The jury returned a verdict of no cause of action, so plaintiff then brought suit against defendant.
Plaintiff’s first issue on appeal is whether the building of a fire is a "dangerous and adult activity” for which a minor should be charged with the same standard of care as an adult. Although the law of our state has dealt with a minor’s standard of care in negligence actions, the issue of whether the building of an outdoor fire is a dangerous and adult activity to which an objective, adult standard *547 of care should be applied is a question of first impression in this state.
In
Ackerman v Advance Petroleum
Transport,
Inc,
"The law is well settled in this State that a child [over age seven] is responsible for the exercise of such care and vigilance as may reasonably be expected of one of his age, intelligence, and experience, and that failure to exercise such degree of care is negligence.”
An exception to the rule that a child is held to a different standard of care than an adult has been recognized by courts in many other jurisdictions where the minor’s alleged negligence occurs in the course of an "adult activity”.
"[T]he courts have developed the rule, which is now quite generally accepted, that whenever a child, whether as plaintiff or as defendant, engages in an activity which is normally one for adults only * * * he must be held to the adult standard, without any allowance for his age.” Prosser, Torts (4th ed), § 32, pp 156-157. See, also, 2 Restatement Torts, § 283A, Comment (0.
Until recently the applicability of the exception for adult activities had not been addressed in Michigan. However, in
Constantino v Wolverine Ins Co,
"* * * because the instruction that the appellee driver was not held to the same standard of conduct as an adult was erroneous. When a minor engages in a *548 dangerous and adult activity, e.g., driving an automobile, he is charged with the same standard of conduct as an adult.” Id., 896.
It would thus appear that the adult activity exception is now the rule in Michigan, although, without the benefit of a formal opinion, the contours of the exception are not yet defined.
Cases from other jurisdictions in which a minor was found to be engaged in ail adult activity and thus held to the standard of care of a reasonable adult have generally dealt with the minor’s operation of a motorized vehicle. See
Jackson v McCuiston,
However, in
Neumann v Shlansky,
Courts which have considered the question of whether the use of a firearm is an adult activity have declined to impose an adult standard of care
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on a minor who has injured a person with a firearm while hunting.
Purtle v Shelton,
"[A]uthorities recognize the identical rule, that if a minor is to be held to an adult standard of care he must be engaging in an activity that is (a) dangerous to others and (b) normally engaged in only by adults. * * * We are unable to find any authority holding that a minor should be held to an adult standard of care merely because he engages in a dangerous activity. There is always the parallel requirement that the activity be one that is normally engaged in only by adults. * * * We have no doubt that deer hunting is a dangerous sport. We cannot say, however, * * * that deer hunting is an activity normally engaged in by adults only. To the contrary, all the indications are the other way. A child may lawfully hunt without a hunting license at any age under sixteen [in Arkansas].”251 Ark 519 , 521-522;474 SW2d 125 . (Emphasis added.)
We believe that the building of a fire is more closely analogous to the use of a firearm in hunting than to the driving of an automobile. While building a fire, like hunting, is undoubtedly dangerous, it cannot be said that only adults build outdoor fires. The building of fires is a normal and expected activity engaged in by young members of youth organizations such as the Boy Scouts. The fact that the children are generally ordered not to light fires without adult supervision is not significant because many activities undertaken by chil
*550
dren should not be undertaken without the supervision of an adult, including such obviously nonexclusive adult activities as swimming. We decline to extend the adult activity exception to the building of fires. Thus, the trial court was correct in holding that the degree of care to be exercised by a minor engaged in this type of activity is that care which a reasonably careful person of the same age, capacity, and experience would exercise under the same or similar circumstances.
Baker v Alt,
Plaintiff next argues that, assuming the appropriate standard for determining negligence was applied, the trial court’s determination that defendant was not negligent was clearly erroneous. A finding of fact is clearly erroneous where, although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire record is left with a definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.
Pohl v Gilbert,
*551 In light of our determination that the trial court applied the proper standard of care and was justified in finding that defendant did not breach that standard of care, we need not address plaintiffs third issue on appeal regarding whether the fire set by defendant was the proximate cause of the fire damage to the barn of plaintiffs subrogee.
Affirmed.