¶1with whom SIMMS, Justice, joins, dissenting.
¶2The court remands the minor’s tort claim for a new trial, holding that the jury’s verdict is made up of two inconsistent findings which cannot stand together. Because, in my view, the triers’ decision is not fraught with any internal incongruity, I must recede from today’s pronouncement.
¶3A two-year-old boy wandered behind a dryer in the laundry room of an apartment complex and injured himself when he came in contact with exposed moving parts of the appliance. The father sued in his individual capacity to recover medical expenses from the multiple owner-entities [defendants] alleged to have been negligent. Within the same suit he pressed another *372claim on his minor son’s behalf, seeking compensatory and exemplary damages for the latter's injury. The two demands were tried to the same jury whose verdict was:
For the defendants, on the child’s claim; but
on the father’s individual claim, negligence was assessed
to the plaintiff at 60% and
to the defendants at 40%.
¶4The legal dispute to be resolved on cer-tiorari is whether the jury’s exoneration of the defendants on the child’s demand is legally inconsistent with the triers’ attribution of 40% negligence to the defendants in the other demand pressed by the father individually. Stated another way, was it legally mandatory for the triers to make the very same 40% allocation of negligence against the defendants on the child’s claim as that which they made on the father’s demand? I would answer this question in the negative and hold that there is no legal inconsistency between the jury’s denial of recovery to the child and its 40% negligence assignment against the defendants on the father’s claim.
¶5At common law, as it stands in Oklahoma today, a child under seven years of age is conclusively presumed to be incapable of any negligence.
¶6The father was not a party to the child’s claim. But, if shown by the evidence, the fault of a non-party may be considered by the fact finder.
¶7In the father’s demand, the defendants were found only 40% negligent. Because their fault was less than that allocated to *373the plaintiff-father, no recovery was legally allowable on the latter’s derivative claim pressed by him individually. The jury’s decision against the father on his demand is totally consistent with that against the child. As a non -blameless plaintiff, the father stands barred from recovering from the defendants because the triers found them to bear less than 50% of the aggregate negligence.
¶8In sum, 1) in the child’s claim, no assessment of the degree or percentage of negligence need have been made either for each of the multiple defendants or vis-a-vis the father as a third-party negligent co-actor, 2) there is no record-supported proof that the jury imputed to the child its father’s negligence and 3) the verdict conclusively demonstrates that the jury treated the child as legally blameless; its decision is hence conformable to the law’s command that the child be regarded as incapable of any negligence,
¶9The court today explicitly condemns the verdict as inconsistent because, as it conjectures, “the jury must have imputed the father’s negligence to the child.” [Emphasis added.] I must recede from this conclusion. The court’s imputation is not supported by the record. Moreover, there is no rule of law that would prohibit a civil jury, who, in a derivative claim by the father, has allocated 40% negligence to the defendants, from returning a no-recovery verdict for the child’s principal claim in the same suit.
¶10Unless the record clearly demonstrates otherwise, a facially effective verdict cannot be made internally inconsistent by speculation or conjecture.
¶11A flawless jury verdict is impervious to judicial tinkering or invalidation. It is binding on this court. I would let the judgment stand.
¶12.At common law, as well as in Oklahoma, a child under the age of seven years or, in the absence of evidence establishing capacity, one between the ages of seven and fourteen years, is presumed incapable of negligence. Ramage Mining Co. v. Thomas, 172 Okl. 24, 44 P.2d 19, 23 [1935]; City of Shawnee v. Cheek, 41 Okl. 227, 137 P. 724, 732 [1913]; see also, Keck v. Woodring, 201 Okl. 665, 208 P.2d 1133, 1135 [1948]. This minimum age of civil liability or capacity for negligence is the same as that which, at common law, governs criminal accountability. The latter legal norm, now codified in 21 O.S.1981 § 152(1) and (2), provides:
"All persons are capable of committing crimes, except those belonging to the following classes:
“1. Children under the age of seven (7) years.
"2. Children over the age of seven (7) years, but under the age of fourteen (14) years, in the absence of proof that at the time of committing the act or neglect charged against them they knew its wrongfulness. [Emphasis added.] …”
¶13. 23 O.S.1981 § 13. Its terms provide:
“In all actions hereafter brought, whether arising before or after the effective date of this act, for negligence resulting in personal injuries or wrongful death, or injury to property, contributory negligence shall not bar a recovery, unless any negligence of the person so injured, damaged or killed, is of greater degree than any negligence of the person, firm or corporation causing such damage, or unless any negligence of the person so injured, damaged or killed, is of greater degree than the combined negligence of any persons, firms or corporations causing such damage.” [Emphasis added.]
¶14. Boyles v. Oklahoma Natural Gas Co., Okl., 619 P.2d 613, 616-617 [1980], and Anderson v. O'Donoghue, Okl., 677 P.2d 648, 653 [1983].
¶15. Paul v. N.L. Industries, Inc., Okl., 624 P.2d 68, 69 [1981].
¶16. See the cases cited supra note 1.
¶17. See Boyles v. Oklahoma Natural Gas Co., supra note 3 at 616-617, and Anderson v. O’Donoghue, supra note 3 at 653.
¶18. For cases in which a verdict was held fraught with a fatal inconsistency, see Burkett v. Moran, Okl., 410 P.2d 876, 878-879 [1966]; Hallford v. Schumacher, Okl., 323 P.2d 989, 992-993 [1958]; and Witt v. Martin, Okl.App., 672 P.2d 312, 317-318 [1983]. In Burkettthe jury rendered a general verdict for the plaintiff but attached an "itemized statement" listing the elements for which award was made. Damages for pain and suffering were excluded. The court held that because uncontroverted evidence showed the plaintiff was entitled to recover for pain and suffering, it was inconsistent for the jury to have withheld an award for that item of damages. The jury in Hallfordfound for the plaintiff on the general issue of liability and awarded medical expenses on the "first cause of action.” On appeal the court held it was inconsistent for the jury also to have determined the same liability question against the plaintiff by denying him recovery for pain and suffering. In Wittthe jury's award of medical and other expenses was inconsistent with its denial of damages for pain and suffering.