Court Opinion

ID: 9767351
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:17:15.730725+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:30.701591
License: Public Domain

CONKLING, J.
(concurring). — I concur in the principal opinion prepared by Judge Hollingsworth. Set out below are additional reasons for my concurrence in the reversal and remand with directions to reinstate the judgment entered on the jury’s verdict.
I cannot read, the principal opinion to rule that the petition alleges specific negligence, or that it may be so construed. The principal opinion states this is “not a true res ipsa loquitur, ease” and that the petition “did not allege general negligence of defendant.” The petition alleged general negligence of the operator of the bus, but not the general negligence of defendant. The instant petition, alone, could not preclude plaintiff from recovery under the res ipsa doctrine on the ground of negligent operation.
But I think that this record shows (see testimony set out in the principal opinion) that plaintiff herself proved the specific cause of her fall, the sudden application of the brakes by the bus operator. Plaintiff did not rest her ease in this respect upon any mere personal conclusion or opinion that the jolt of the bus was caused by the sudden application of the brakes. Plaintiff proved by Officer Graves and by her son.that the bus operator said the jolt was so caused. That testimony of those witnesses (called by plaintiff), was just as effective to establish that fact as if she had proved it by witnesses who had observed the sudden application of the brakes. Plaintiff herself testified that the bus stopped suddenly, that the brakes were “squeaking”, that she could tell the brakes of the bus were applied, and that *1084that threw her off balance. Defendant’s testimony also proved the brakes were suddenly applied. But considering the testimony adduced by plaintiff alone, in my opinion that testimony nailed down the fact that the jerk of the bus was caused by the sudden application of the brakes. Therefore, plaintiff knew, and proved she knew, the cause of her fall.
I think the plaintiff’s evidence in this case, viewed most favorably to plaintiff, shows the precise and specific act of the bus operator as the sole cause of plaintiff’s fall. That act, so shown by her evidence, was the sudden application of the brakes resulting in a sudden stop. If it be true that plaintiff’s testimony does show that precise and specific act of the bus operator to be the cause of her fall, plaintiff proved herself out of any right to a res ipsa loquitur submission even under the instant petition. Belding v. St. Louis Public Service Co., 358 Mo. 491, 215 S. W. (2d) 506, and cases cited, Powell v. St. Joseph Ry. Lt. Ht. & Pr. Co., 336 Mo. 1016, 81 S. W. (2d) 957, Conduitt v. Trenton Gas & Elec. Co., 326 Mo. 133, 31 S. W. (2d) 21. But, if plaintiff’s evidence but tends to show the specific cause of her fall and, upon the evidence “the true cause is still left in doubt or is not clearly shown” plaintiff had a right to submit her ease on the res ipsa loquitur doctrine. Cases last above cited.
It has been said that upon this question the instant case is ruled by Belding v. St. Louis Public Service Company, supra. I cannot agree that it is. I think the testimony of the plaintiff and her witness, Mi’s. Menser, in the Belding case, amounted to no more than a suggestion in plaintiff’s testimony that plaintiff’s fall in that case was due to an application, of the brakes, did no more than tend to show the cause of her fall, but in fact left the true cause of her fall in doubt. I think that the Belding case, on its facts, was rightly ruled. But I think the facts of the instant case are at least of equal probative value with the facts of Hoeller v. St. Louis Public Service Company, (Mo. App.) 199 S. W. (2d) 7, 11, to establish the true and'preeise cause of the fall. See also, 215 S. W. (2d) 1. c. 511. In the Iloeller ease, plaintiff proved by another witness, her daughter,such additional facts as that the court there correctly ruled that specific negligence was proved and that plaintiff was not entitled to submit her case at all upon the res ipsa theory. I think the principal opinion is not only not in conflict with the Belding case, but that it is in entire accord with the Belding case. I think also that plaintiff here proved herself out of the right to a submission of her case on the res ipsa loquitur theory.
Inasmuch as plaintiff was not, in my opinion, entitled to a res ipsa submission of her case, and, inasmuch as instruction 3, defendant’s theory instruction, was correct as a matter of law, submitted defendant’s theory and required the jury to find the operator was exercising the highest degree of care, I think plaintiff cannot be *1085heard to now complain that instruction 3 erroneously limited “the scope of the legal presumption or inference in plaintiff’s favor created by the establishment of res ipsa facts”. I believe that under these circumstances it is not required that instruction 3 “make it clear that an emergency does not excuse a party if such emergency resulted from that party’s own negligence.” Plaintiff’s res ipsa submission made in her instruction 2 was a submission to which she was not, in my opinion, entitled under her evidence. And it is immaterial to the disposition of this ease that instruction 3 did not require the jury to find that the sole cause of the sudden stop was an emergency created by another car cutting in front of and Stopping in front of the bus, which requirement was in the Durmeier case instruction.
In Mintz v. International Railway Co., 227 N. Y. 197, 124 N. E. 893, an appeal from a verdict for plaintiff, the plaintiff had boarded a street car which started up as she was walking to her seat; a sudden stopping of the car threw her to the floor and injured her; the car was stopped by the motorman by a sudden application of the brakes because a small boy ran upon the track immediately in front of the street car. In ruling that case, the New York Court of Appeals, Judge Cardozo concurring, said: “The facts do not support the verdict. Negligence on the part of the defendant cannot be predicated upon them. At the instant the boy first came into the sight of the motorman the danger of killing him was imminent. The defendant was bound to use every available agency or means, which did not within reasonable probability subject the passengers upon the car to serious bodily injury, to avoid killing or mangling him. As between the act of stopping the car suddenly before it ran upon him and thereby shaking, displacing, or jerking the passengers and the act of stopping it gradually and carefully and therein permitting it to run upon him, the defendant was bound by the commands of ordinary and reasonable prudence and care, as well as by the dictates of the right regard for human life, to adopt the former. The stopping of the car and the means used to stop it were not more urgent or vigorous than the peril of the boy, when first visible to the motorman, warranted. The likelihood of injury to the passengers in their use was slight and to be disregarded in contrast with that of killing the boy by neglecting them. The sudden stopping of the ear under the circumstances did not evince a disregard of the safety of the plaintiff or the other passengers. It was not only justified but praiseworthy.”
If it were necessary to do so, I think that rule of the Mintz case could well be applied in this case.
For these additional reasons I concur in the reversal and remand ordered in the principal opinion, and in the directions to reinstate the judgment entered in favor of defendant in accordance with the verdict of the jury in this case.