Case Name: Thomas A. GRAINY, a minor, by Thomas F. Grainy, and Dorothy A. Grainy, his parents and natural guardians, and Thomas F. Grainy and Dorothy A. Grainy in their own right v. Bruce A. CAMPBELL, an Individual, Turner Dairy Farms, Inc., a corporation, Charles G. Turner, an Individual, Lydia C. Turner, an Individual, M. O'Herron Co., a corporation, Equitable Gas Company, a corporation, and Peoples Natural Gas Company, a corporation (two cases). Appeal of M. O'HERRON COMPANY. Appeal of PEOPLES NATURAL GAS COMPANY
Court: Superior Court of Pennsylvania
Jurisdiction: Pennsylvania
Decision Date: 1979-09-06
Citations: 269 Pa. Super. 225
Docket Number: No. 748; No. 754
Parties: Thomas A. GRAINY, a minor, by Thomas F. Grainy, and Dorothy A. Grainy, his parents and natural guardians, and Thomas F. Grainy and Dorothy A. Grainy in their own right v. Bruce A. CAMPBELL, an Individual, Turner Dairy Farms, Inc., a corporation, Charles G. Turner, an Individual, Lydia C. Turner, an Individual, M. O’Herron Co., a corporation, Equitable Gas Company, a corporation, and Peoples Natural Gas Company, a corporation (two cases). Appeal of M. O’HERRON COMPANY. Appeal of PEOPLES NATURAL GAS COMPANY Appeal of Bruce A. CAMPBELL, an Individual, and Turner Dairy Farms, Inc.
Judges: Before CERCONE, WIEAND and HOFFMAN, JJ.
Reporter: Pennsylvania Superior Court Reports
Volume: 269
Pages: 225–242

Head Matter:
409 A.2d 860
Thomas A. GRAINY, a minor, by Thomas F. Grainy, and Dorothy A. Grainy, his parents and natural guardians, and Thomas F. Grainy and Dorothy A. Grainy in their own right v. Bruce A. CAMPBELL, an Individual, Turner Dairy Farms, Inc., a corporation, Charles G. Turner, an Individual, Lydia C. Turner, an Individual, M. O’Herron Co., a corporation, Equitable Gas Company, a corporation, and Peoples Natural Gas Company, a corporation (two cases). Appeal of M. O’HERRON COMPANY. Appeal of PEOPLES NATURAL GAS COMPANY Appeal of Bruce A. CAMPBELL, an Individual, and Turner Dairy Farms, Inc.
at No. 748. at No. 754.
Superior Court of Pennsylvania.
Argued Oct. 23, 1978.
Filed Sept. 6, 1979.
Petition for Allowance of Appeal Granted Feb. 13, 1980.
Robert E. Wayman, Pittsburgh, for appellant at No. 714.
John R. Kenrick, Pittsburgh, for appellant at No. 748 and appellee at Nos. 714 and 754.
James E. Coyne, Pittsburgh, for appellants at No. 754 and appellees at Nos. 714 and 748.
Harry Zimmer, Pittsburgh, for Thomas A. Grainy, et al., appellees at Nos. 714, 748 and 754.
Before CERCONE, WIEAND and HOFFMAN, JJ.

Opinion:
WIEAND, Judge:
On the morning of Saturday, September 25, 1971, Thomas A. Grainy, a minor, and five other Boy Scouts were hiking easterly along the northern berm of Saltsburg Road, a two-lane thoroughfare in Plum Township, Allegheny County. As they walked along the berm the boys came upon an open ditch estimated to be three feet square and four feet deep. This excavation had been made by M. O'Herron Co., which had contracted with Peoples Natural Gas Company to replace a pipeline, and when work stopped on Friday afternoon, the excavation had been left uncovered but barricaded with metal horses and piles of dirt. When the boys were confronted by this open excavation, four of them passed it by entering upon and walking across privately owned lawns adjacent to the excavation. Plaintiff and another boy hesitated, intending to enter the roadway and pass around the excavation on the paved surface thereof.
At this moment, Bruce Campbell approached from the east, driving a dump truck owned by Turner Dairy Farms, Inc. and pulling a ten feet long trailer. Campbell testified, and his testimony was uncontradicted, that he observed the open excavation and the hiking Boy Scouts when 300 feet distant. Because he realized the peril of the two boys in the roadway and observed the absence of oncoming traffic, he moved his truck partially to the left side of the highway. The minor plaintiff and his companion thereupon started to pass the excavation on the paved portion of the highway. As Campbell's truck passed the boys, he suddenly swerved again to the right. This caused the first boy to leap upon a dirt pile to avoid being struck. The minor plaintiff, however, was struck by the swerving trailer and knocked into the open excavation. He sustained various injuries for which he sought recovery.
A jury returned a verdict in favor of plaintiff and his parents for $68,000 and against all defendants. Motions for new trial and judgment n. o. v. were denied by the court below, and defendants áppealed.
Appellants, M. O'Herron Cof and Peoples Natural Gas Company, had presented motions for binding instructions to the trial court. Their subsequent motions for judgment n. o. v., therefore, comprehended any defense apparent on the record. Koerth v. Turtle Creek Boro, 355 Pa. 121, 127, 49 A.2d 398, 401 (1946); Liquid Carbonic Company v. Truby, 40 Pa.Super. 634, 637-638 (1909). They argued in the court below and in this Court on appeal: (1) that as a matter of law they were free of negligence; (2) that the minor plaintiff was contributorily negligent as a matter of law; and (3) that the excavation was not a proximate cause of the minor plaintiff's injuries. The remaining appellants, Bruce A. Campbell and Turner Dairy Farms, Inc., argue only that the minor plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law.
The contentions of all defendants that the minor plaintiff was contributorily negligent as a matter of law and the contentions of O'Herron and Peoples that they were free of negligence cannot be sustained. A judgment n. o. v. is proper only in a clear case, where a defendant's lack of negligence or a plaintiff's contributory negligence is so clear that reasonable minds cannot differ. Lavely v. Wolota, 253 Pa.Super. 196, 384 A.2d 1298 (1978); Hilscher v. Ickinger, 194 Pa.Super. 237, 166 A.2d 678 aff'd., 403 Pa. 596, 170 A.2d 595 (1961). Where, as here, an obstruction to a sidewalk or pedestrian walkway forces a pedestrian into the roadway, a jury may find negligence on the part of those responsible if they have unreasonably failed to provide the means for safe passage. See: Bacsick v. Barnes, 234 Pa.Super. 616, 341 A.2d 157 (1975). So also, a pedestrian is not guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law because he or she stepped into the roadway to avoid the obstruction. Eller v. Work, 233 Pa.Super. 186, 336 A.2d 645 (1975); Bacsick v. Barnes, supra. In the instant case, moreover, the testimony disclosed that the minor plaintiff had not stepped into the roadway until after Campbell had steered his truck to the opposite side of the road to allow plaintiff to pass in safety. It was only after he had committed himself to the roadway at Campbell's apparent invitation that he was injured by a change in the direction followed by Campbell's truck.
The issue of proximate cause is more difficult. In Kline v. Moyer and Albert, 325 Pa. 357, 191 A. 43 (1937), the Supreme Court, relying in part upon the Restatement of Torts § 447, held that where a second actor has become aware of the existence of a potential danger created by the antecedent negligence of an original tortfeasor and thereafter, by an independent act of negligence, brings about an accident, the first tortfeasor is relieved of liability because the antecedent condition which he created was merely a circumstance of the accident.
Recent decisions have made it clear that the broad, general rule of law as it pertains to superseding cause is in accord with the view adopted by the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 447. See: Miller v. Checker Yellow Cab Company of Bethlehem, 465 Pa. 82, 348 A.2d 128 (1975); Flickinger Estate v. Ritsky, 452 Pa. 69, 305 A.2d 40 (1973); Pushnik v. Winky's Drive-In Restaurants, Inc., 242 Pa.Super. 323, 363 A.2d 1291 (1976). This principle, unchanged in substance from the original Restatement view, is as follows:
The fact that an intervening act of a third person is negligent in itself or is done in a negligent manner does not make it a superseding cause of harm to another which the actor's negligent conduct is a substantial factor in bringing about, if
(a) the actor at the time of his negligent conduct should have realized that a third person might so act, or
(b) a reasonable man knowing the situation existing when the act of the third person was done would not regard it as highly extraordinary that the third person had so acted, or
(c) the intervening act is a normal consequence of a situation created by the actor's conduct and the manner in which it is done is not extraordinarily negligent.
Appellee argues and the dissent concludes that the principle of Kline v. Moyer and Albert, supra, and the Restatement view are incompatible and that the former rule, therefore, has by implication been overruled by those decisions which have adopted Section 447 as a part of the law of Pennsylvania. With this we disagree.
Kline v. Moyer and Albert, supra, was a policy decision which limited an actor's responsibility for antecedent negligence. The Court was there concerned with proximate causation, an issue of law, and not causation in fact, which is a factual issue. This is a distinction recognized by the Supreme Court in Flickinger Estate v. Ritsky, supra, and by textbook writers as well. See: W. Prosser, Law of Torts § 45, at 289 (4th ed., 1971). See also: Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 453. Because Kline v. Moyer and Albert, supra, is a policy decision it should not be overruled by implication. If it has outlived its usefulness and should now be relegated to the list of incorrectly decided precedents, it should be overruled expressly by the Supreme Court so that both bench and bar will know that reliance can no longer be placed thereon. Until that occurs, this Court is required to follow the policy articulated therein and followed uniformly thereafter by the courts of Pennsylvania. See: Lowery v. Pittsburgh Coal Co., 216 Pa.Super. 362, 268 A.2d 212 (1970) (neither common pleas court nor Superior Court is authorized to change established legal principles).
Section 447 of the Restatement of Torts and Kline, moreover, are not incompatible. This was demonstrated by Justice Pomeroy in an opinion written in Whitner v. Lojeski, 437 Pa. 448, 263 A.2d 889 (1970). He there wrote: "Section 447 of the Restatement (Second) provides that a subsequent negligent act . . . will not relieve the original actor of liability if . . . it is 'a normal consequence of a situation created by the actor's conduct, and the manner in which it is done is not extraordinarily negligent.' While the Pennsylvania cases have sometimes conditioned an intervening actor's sole liability on his awareness of the danger to be avoided at a time when avoidance was still possible, this is but another way of saying that negligence in the face of a known danger is extraordinary. That is, it is one thing for an intervening actor to be unable to avoid a peril . because, through inattention, the danger was not observed in time; it is quite another to fail to exercise reasonable care and take proper action to avoid a collision after having become aware of the danger created by the original actor's negligence. In the first case, the intervenor's negligence may be called ordinary, and as to the first actor, a risk reasonably to have been foreseen; in the second case, negligence in the face of peril is properly denominated 'extraordinary' and as in § 447 excuses the original actor of liability for the harm brought about by the intervening negligence." (Emphasis added.)
The same compatibility is exhibited by Comment g to Section 447. It is there suggested as follows: "While the fact that . an intervening act of a third person is negligent does not prevent the actor's negligent conduct from being a legal cause of the harm resulting therefrom to another, the negligence of the act may be so great or the third person's conduct so reckless as to make it appear an extraordinary response to the situation created by the actor and therefore a superseding cause of the other's harm."
The decision in Flickinger Estate v. Ritsky, supra, did not purport to overrule Kline. There, plaintiff's decedent, while driving a motorcycle, was struck and killed by a motorist pulling onto the highway from a private parking lot. The motorist's view had been obstructed by a pile of dirt negligently left on the berm of the highway by a contractor in the course of laying a sanitary sewer line. The motorist, although he had been aware of the dirt pile, was not aware of decedent's approach on the highway. He did not consciously disregard a known danger to the decedent. The contractor responsible for the dirt pile defended on the grounds that he had created merely a "passive condition" upon which the motorist's negligence acted and that the motorist's conduct, therefore, had been a superseding cause. The Supreme Court overruled the rule which declined to impose liability for a "passive condition" upon which the negligence of another acted to cause an accident. It held, rather, that Section 447 of the Restatement was a correct statement of the law. The "passive condition" rule, however, is not the principle announced in Kline. Indeed, the Kline rule, having no applicability to the facts of Flickinger was neither discussed nor considered.
In the instant case, the evidence discloses an unforeseeable, extraordinary and reckless response by one who was aware of an antecedent condition and who comprehended fully the risk thereby created for the minor plaintiff. It is undisputed that Campbell had observed the plaintiff and his companion and was aware of their predicament. In light of Campbell's awareness of the danger to the minor plaintiff, several observations will suggest the extraordinary and reckless nature of his acts. First, until he pulled his truck to the left, the boys did not venture into the roadway. They did so only after the truck had been diverted from its original course to make room for them. Secondly, if the direction of Campbell's truck had not again changed after the boys had committed themselves to the roadway, their passage would have been completed without incident. Thirdly, there was no necessity for pulling back into the right lane before Campbell's truck and trailer had safely passed the boys. Unfortunately, after the boys had committed themselves to the roadway and before Campbell's unit had passed them, he suddenly turned his truck again to the right and cut down the minor plaintiff. This turn was made with a full awareness of the open excavation and the presence of the minor plaintiff on the roadway. Campbell's conduct, under the circumstances, evidenced a conscious disregard of a known and appreciated danger and was wanton and reckless. Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 500; Evans v. Philadelphia Transportation Company, 418 Pa. 567, 212 A.2d 440 (1965). See also: Fugagli v. Camasi, 426 Pa. 1, 229 A.2d 735 (1967); 27 P.L.E., Negligence § 9.
Application of the rule in Kline v. Moyer and Albert, supra, clearly compels the conclusion that Campbell's disregard of a known and understood danger was a superseding cause of the accident. Consistently, Section 447 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts compels the same result. Campbell's intervening act, coming after he was aware of the uncovered but barricaded excavation and after he understood the risk to the boys who were hiking along the roadway, was so extraordinary, so reckless, and so unforeseeable as to constitute a superseding cause as a matter of law. Campbell's recklessness in the face of a known danger was the proximate and legal cause of the minor plaintiff's injuries, and not the antecedent negligence of the contractor. Therefore, it is Campbell and his employer who are responsible for the loss. See: Klena v. Rutkowski, 432 Pa. 509, 248 A.2d 9 (1968). Cf. DeLuca v. Manchester Laundry and Dry Cleaning Co., Inc., 380 Pa. 484, 112 A.2d 372 (1955).
The judgment entered against Bruce A. Campbell and Turner Dairy Farms, Inc. is affirmed. The judgment against M. O'Herron Co. and Peoples Natural Gas Company is reversed, and the case is remanded for the entry of judgment n. o. v. in their favor.
HOFFMAN, J., files a concurring and dissenting opinion.
. M. O'Herron Co. and Peoples Natural Gas Company also contend that the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury that Pennsylvania Highway Department regulations which were incorporated into appellants' Highway Occupancy Permit did not constitute standards of care applicable to a determination of neglience. This issue, however, has not been preserved for appellate review. Appellants did not object to the admission of such regulations into evidence or to the reading of the same to the jury and did not except to the court's charge thereon. Dilliplaine v. Lehigh Valley Trust Co., 457 Pa. 255, 322 A.2d 114 (1974). See also: Kolb v. Hess, 227 Pa.Super. 603, 323 A.2d 217 (1974).
. See: Churchill v. Eakin, 233 Pa.Super. 466, 335 A.2d 378 (1975); Reese v. Hughes, 223 Pa.Super. 311, 299 A.2d 653 (1973); Boyd v. Hertz, 219 Pa.Super. 488, 281 A.2d 679 (1971).
. When Kline v. Moyer and Albert was decided in 1937, the Court cited and relied upon Section 447 of the Restatement of Torts. Although this reference was to the first edition, the original Section 447 was incorporated almost verbatim into the Restatement of Torts 2d. The only change occurred in subsection (c), where the words "normal response to . . ." were replaced by "normal consequence of . . . "
. In Cotter v. Bell, 417 Pa. 560, 208 A.2d 216 (1965), the "passive condition" had been a large hedge which impeded vision at an intersection. In Kite v. Jones, 389 Pa. 339, 132 A.2d 683 (1957), the "passive condition" had been a high fence which obstructed visibility at an intersection.
. The only reference to Kline appears in footnote 6, 452 Pa. p. 74, 305 A.2d p. 43 n. 6, where it is cited for the proposition that the Supreme Court had "cited and adopted the language of section 447 of the Restatement in various previous decisions."