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____________________________________ * Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court. NON - PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37
TREVOR DARLING

Appellant

v.
DICKINSON FLEET SERVICES, LLC : : : : : : : : : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF

PENNSYLVANIA

No. 639 EDA 2019 Appeal from the Order Entered January 24, 2019 In the Court of Common Pleas of Monroe County Civil Division at No(s): No. 8857

- CV

- 2015

BEFORE: OTT, J., DUBOW, J., and COLINS*, J. MEMORANDUM BY DUBOW, J.: FILED OCTOBER 28, 2019 Appellant Trevor Darling appeals from the Order entered by the Monroe County Court of Common Pleas granting summary judgment to Appellee Dickinson Fleet Services. Appellant asserts that the trial court erred in granting the motion because he h ad alleged sufficient facts to establish that his shoulder injury resulted from Appellee’s negligence in repairing its truck. We glean the following summary of the facts of this case from our review of the reproduced record and the trial court’s Opinion granting Appellee’s Motion for Summary Judgment. See Trial Ct. Op., dated 1/24/19. Appellant filed a Summons and subsequent Complaint alle ging that on December 19, 2013, while he was attempting to open a roll

- up door on a truck’s trailer, it stuck, caus ing him to injure his shoulder and neck

. See Complaint, filedJ

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12/21/15. He asserted that Appellee was responsible for repairing the door 1 of the trailer prior to his injury and it did so negligently , causing Appellant’s injuries

. Appellee a nswered and asserted new matter

. Discovery proceeded, including the production of invoices from Appellee showing it had not worked on the subject trailer , and deposition testimony from Appellant and some of his co

- workers , none of whom could state definitively that Ap pell ee had worked on the subject trailer prior to Appellant’s accident

. Appellant did not present expert testimony. On November 19, 2018, Appellee filed a Motion for Summary Judgment, to which Appellant responded with a B rief in O pposition. The court did not hold oral argument, and on January 24, 2019, after considering the submissions of the parties, entered an Order and Opinion granting the Motion for Summary Judgment. Appellant timely appealed. Appellant raises one issue for our review: “[w]hether th e [t]rial [c]ourt made an error in granting summary judgment in favor of Appellee when a genuine issue of material fact existed as to the evidence presenting substantiating negligence on behalf of the Appellee.” Appellant’s Brief at 5. Summary judgment is appropriate where the pleadings fail to present a genuine issue as to a material fact “as to a necessary element of the cause of

_________________ __________ ______ ____ _______ 1 Appellant worked as a tractor
- trailer truck driver for Team One Contract Services, LLC, a subcontractor for UPS. He drove trailers containing Mazda vehicle parts throughout the East Coast. Appellee had, in the past, provided repair services to t railers owned and operated by UPS. The trailer that allegedly caused Appellant’s injury was owned by Extra Leasing, LLC.J

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action” or when the party bearing the burden of proof has failed to present evidence sufficient to prove the facts “essential to the cause of action

. ” Pa.R.C.P. 1035.2. Our review is informed by the following precepts: Motions for summary judgment necessarily and directly implicate the plaintiff's proof of the elements of her cause of action. Summary judgment is proper if, afte r the completion of discovery relevant to the motion, including the production of expert reports, an adverse party who will bear the burden of proof at trial has failed to produce evidence of facts essential to the cause of action or defense which in a jur y trial would require the is sues to be submitted to a jury. In other words, whenever there is no genuine issue of any material fact as to a necessary element of the cause of action or defense, which could be established by additional discovery or expert re port and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law, summary judgment is appropriate. Thus, a record that supports summary judgment either (1) shows the material facts are undisputed or (2) contains insufficient evidence of facts to make o ut a prima facie cause of action or defense. Upon appellate review, we are not bound by the trial court's conclusions of law, but may reach our own conclusions. The appellate Court will disturb the trial court's order only upon an error of law or an abus e of discretion. Chenot v. A.P. Green Servs., Inc. , 895 A.2d 55, 61 ( Pa. Super. 2006) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). Further, “t he issue as to whether there are no genuine issues as to any material fact presents a question of law, and therefore, on that question our standard of review is de

novo .“ Summers v. Certainteed Corp. , 997 A.2d 1152, 1159 (Pa. 2010) (citation omitted). Acco rdingly, we need not defer to the determinations made by the trial court

. Id

. “ To the extent that this Court must resolve a questionJ

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of law, we shall review the grant of summary judgment in the context of the entire record. ” Id. For purposes of deciding a Motion for Summary Judgment, the record includes the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, admissions, and affidavits. Bailets v. Pennsylvania Tpk. Comm’n , 123 A.3d 300, 301 (Pa. 2015) (citing Pa.R.C.P. 1035.1(1), (2)). “Where the non

- mov ing party bears the burden of proof on an issue, he may not merely rely on his pleadings or answers in order to survive summary judgment.” Truax v. Roulhac , 126 A.3d 991, 997 (Pa. Super. 2015) (citation and quotation omitted). “It is axiomatic that the elements of a negligence

- based cause of action are a duty, a breach of that duty, a causal relationship between the breach and the resulting injury, and actual loss.” Charlie v. Erie Ins. Exch. , 100 A.3d 244, 250 ( Pa. Super. 2014) (citations omitted). While the existence of a duty is a question of law, whether there has been a neglect of such duty is generally for the jury. However, the issue of whether an act or a failure to act constitutes negligence may be removed from conside ration by a jury and decided as a matter of law when the case is free from doubt and there is no possibility that a reasonable jury could find negligence.
Id. ( citing Emerich v. Phila. Ctr. for Human Dev., Inc. , 720 A.2d 1032, 1044 ( Pa. 1998) )

. Appellant contends that , contrary to the trial court’s conclusion, his deposition testimony and that of his co

- wor kers establish e s the elements of negligence and, “at a minimum, [it] has created a genuine issue of material fact.” Appellant’s Br. at 14. He also asserts that “[t]his case even moreJ

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speaks to the legal principle of res ipsa loquitur ” because Appellant showed that Appellee “was called out to perform repair s on the trailer door at issue[; ]” Appellee took on the duty to perform the repairs[;] ” and “the door would not have been jammed as it had been repeatedly identified to the Appellee and the Appellee had notice and undertook the duty to perform the repair.” Id

. at
14

- 15. “As such, clearly the Appellee’s negligence caused the Appellant’s harm. ” Id . at 15. In granting the Motion for Summary Judgment, the Hon. David J. Williamson rendered an Opinion thoroughly addressing the pleadings and evidence and providing a thoughtful analysis of the relevant law as applied to the facts. See Trial Ct. Op., dated Jan. 24, 2019 , at 3

- 5 (finding Appellant “cannot prove” that Appellee owed any duty to him because : (1) Appellant “has not presented sufficient evidence that [Appellee] was ever hired to maintain the trailer in question or that [Appel lee] worked on this specific trailer prior to his injury;” (2) Appellant was “unable to recall the number of the trailer he had been operating on the day of the accident; ” (3) Appell ee produced four invoices for work it had performed on trucks owned by UPS and “[t]he unit numbers of these trucks do not match the photographs of the truck [Appellant] alleges he was injur ed on;” (4) Appellant’s failure to discover documents stored in a facility out of state “does not alleviate [] his burden of establishing a p rima facie case for breach of duty;” and (5) Appellant “is unable to affirmatively identify the trailer he was driving on the day of theJ

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accident, let alone whether or not [Appellee] had recently serviced it” and he is, thus, unable “to meet the basic thre shold to support his claim. ” ) With respect to the issue of res ipsa loquitur , the court observed: First, there is the issue that [Appellant] ha s failed to adequately identify which trailer he was injur ed using and whether or not [Appellee] had ever attem pted to service it. Without those facts, it is impossible to say [that] the injury could only have occurred due to the negligence of [Appellee.] Secondly, as the deposition s presented by [Appella n t] show , the rollup doors of the t railers malfunctioned frequently whether they had been recently worked on or not. Therefore, it is impossible to say that [Appellant’s] incident is one which does not normally happen barring a negligent act or even that the negligence of [Appellant] or ot her third

- parties was not a cont ribut ing factor. Id . at 6. Our review of the record, including all of the deposition testimony, and the applicable legal authority , supports the court’s rationale, and we see no reason to disturb it. Having found no abuse of discretion or error of law, we affirm the court’s grant of summary judgment to Appellee. Order affirmed. Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq. Prothonotary

Date: 10/28/19J

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