Court Opinion

ID: 9754254
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:52:12.984361+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:51.113088
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Musmanno:
Water boils at 212° Fahrenheit. The evidence in this case reveals that the radiator on which the minor plaintiff was injured functioned at a temperature of 212° Fahrenheit. If, instead of a radiator, the defendants had maintained an open vat of boiling water, and a child had been scalded by water escaping from the vat there could be no question of the defendant’s negligence. Nor would anyone doubt the defendant’s responsibility for burns incurred if the child had simply brushed against the outside of the boiling vat. The fact that the boiling water, instead of hissing in an open vat, seethed in cast iron tubes, did not reduce the temperature of the water nor decrease the danger of burning if one came into contact with the tubes.
A temperature which will inflict third degree burns upon a child’s legs to the point where the flesh becomes shredded and adheres to the instrumentality containing that heat is such a temperature as will burn a man’s *600hand or any other part of his body which might come into contact with it.
The fact that this appalling heat agency is contained in so commonplace an article as a radiator does not alter or modify its inherent potentialities for inflicting serious injury on those unaware of the existing peril.
The duty of a common carrier towards its invitees is one of the highest care, short only that of insurer. Archer v. Pittsburgh Rwys. Co., 349 Pa. 547; Dayen v. Penn Bus Co., 363 Pa. 176. And, of course, there is no question that the minor and mother plaintiff, while in the lounge of the railroad station, were invitees of the defendant railroad company.
In my opinion the lower court committed grave error in not permitting the plaintiff to show by expert testimony that in other public places catering to the same kind of clientele, dangerous radiators were suitably covered or equipped with guard rails so as to prevent contact with human bodies. The only standard of care that justice expects of any one is reasonable care. What is reasonable depends upon circumstances, situation and environment. While we all know that there are many radiators which are uncovered, we also know that in numerous public places the radiators are sheathed or so situated that people cannot come into direct contact with them. And the reason for this is that the proprietors of such places are aware of the dangers attendant upon unguarded radiators.
Reasonable care, like everything else arising out of human conduct, develops with circumstances and time. Motorists today are required to do many things in order to protect the pedestrian population which decades ago would have been regarded as highly visionary. Jurisprudence advances with the awareness of the people as to the sequence of events and the irrefragable bond between cause and effect. Reasonable*601ness under the circumstances will always remain the standard of responsibility, but the circumstances are not always constant. If a radiator can be covered and thus made safe to the travelling public by the trifling expenditure of from $18 to $25, as the plaintiff offered to prove in this case, is it not a question for a jury as to whether the railroad company exercised reasonable care (or as the law requires, the highest degree of care) when it refused to install such a safeguard? Especially if it can be shown, as the plaintiff was prepared to show, that in other similar public places such covers were standard equipment?
Counsel for the defendants argue in their brief “that the proximate cause of the injury was the act of the older child in placing the plaintiff on the radiator.” But if the instrumentality was inherently dangerous, the railroad would not be absolved from responsibility because an immature child did an impulsive thing. The act of Roberto was not an intervening incident which eliminated the proximateness of the cause planted by the defendant through the installation of a device inherently dangerous to children. Renato, the injured boy was one and a half years old; Roberto, who placed Renato on the radiator, was five and a half years old. The instinctive desire of the infant Roberto to have his little cousin infant Renato share with him the exciting spectacle of a passing train caused him to commit the heedless act. The combined performance of a five and a half years old child and a one and a half year old child does not total up to a mature reflection, any more than ten three-year olds can produce the thought responsibility of a thirty year-old person.
Contributory negligence, of course, is not in this case at all. The only question before us is one of proximate cause, and in that respect we must view the situation in the light of one infant climbing on to a *602scalding radiator or another infant toddling np to a scalding radiator. Neither one conld be charged with anticipation of consequences, especially in view of the excitement which instinctively attracted them to the window.
As far back as 1903 this Court said: “ ‘Children, wherever they go, must be expected to act upon childish instincts and impulses; others who are chargeable with a duty of care and caution toward them must calculate upon this, and take precautions accordingly.’ ” Rachmel v. Clark, 205 Pa. 314. This doctrine was reaffirmed in 1948. Styer v. Reading, 360 Pa. 212.
Appellees’ counsel stated in their brief: “But assuming that defendants can be held to anticipate that a very young child may voluntarily come in contact with the radiator, any child old enough to crawl will automatically pull away from a hot object without receiving any injury, or, at most a very superficial burn.” But the facts are quite to the contrary. The child was on the radiator for only a second but he sustained not a “very superficial burn,” but very serious third degree burns. The burns were so serious that the child was taken to a hospital and two skin grafting operations followed. In addition, one of the child’s legs had to be subjected, for a period, to a plaster cast.
Appellees’ counsel argue further that the defendants were no more responsible for what Roberto did than if he had thrown Renato from a window. This bizarre illustration is not analogous at all. Casting a child from a window would certainly not involve the railroad company, but placing a child upon a scalding radiator maintained by the defendant company produces a real question of fact as to liability.
I do not agree with the majority opinion that radiators must perforce be declared innocuous because they can be found in homes, courtrooms, hospitals, *603schools, churches and offices. Carpets and chandeliers are also to he found in homes, hospitals and offices, but they unfortunately have been the cause of inflicting serious injury on human beings. The most utilitarian object can, under certain circumstances, become a dangerous agency. We all know that occasionally chandeliers fall, carpets slip, stoves blow up, furnaces crack, water pipes burst, and gas tubes leak — and, as a consequence, people are injured. Did the owner of the agency which was the proximate cause of the injury exercise reasonable care under the circumstances of the case? That is always the question, and that will always be the question so long as courts and juries pass upon problems which harass and distress the human race.
I do not maintain that the negligence of the defendants in this case was established conclusively, but I do say that the unique circumstances which brought about serious injury to a helpless infant formed an issue for submission to the jury under appropriate instructions from the court. This case should not have been taken away from the jnry.
A factual issue is removed from a jury’s consideration only when reasonable minds cannot differ on the inferences arising out of the facts. The decisions of our appellate courts, and the appellate courts of other states, all declare that proposition uncompromisingly. Therefore, when two minds, guided by the same compass of honesty, looking at the same circumstances, can and do take two different courses of thought direction, a question arises which must be settled, in our system of justice, by the unanimous decision of twelve citizens of our Commonwealth. That was not done in this case and I, therefore, dissent.