Court Opinion

ID: 9691813
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 15:13:04.729751+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:25.813886
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Roberts:
I am in complete agreement with the majority that defendant’s alleged negligence in leaving its hole uncovered could not possibly have been the cause of plaintiff’s fall. It was the slipping of the brace which caused plaintiff to leave the scaffold upon which he was working. However, it is not the proximate cause of the fall which is controlling. It is, rather, the proximate *223cause of tbe injuries; and here, I part company with the majority’s reasoning. See Restatement 2d, Torts §5(a).
Frisch v. Texas Co., 363 Pa. 619, 624, 70 A. 2d 290, 293 (1950), is indeed authority for the proposition' that plaintiff’s “recovery cannot be predicated upon the mere conjecture that his injuries might have been less serious had [defendant’s negligent condition] not been there.” But, throughout the opinion in Frisch, the Court spoke in terms of what caused the injury* Thus, when the trial judge, having heard plaintiff’s entire case, was convinced that, as a matter of law, defendant’s negligence could only have increased the injury already suffered by plaintiff due to his fall, and that the amount of such increase would have been mere conjecture on the jury’s part, the lower court in Frisch was correct in granting defendant’s motion for a directed verdict.
However, in the present case, plaintiff has never even been given a chance to present evidence that a three foot fall could not have caused any of the injuries received. I have no doubt that if such a fact could be proven, Frisch would not control, and plaintiff’s initial fall, unless caused by his own contributory negligence, would then become no more legally relevant than the fact that a man must first drive his car along the highway before an automobile accident can occur, or must first walk the pavement before plunging into *224an unlighted ditch. But see Quinn v. Philadelphia, 224 Pa. 176, 73 Atl. 318 (1909).
In Quinn, a ease cited by the majority, plaintiff tripped oyer a cellar door hinge, obstructing the sidewalk through no fault of defendant, and fell into defendant’s negligently unguarded adjacent cellar. In sustaining a compulsory nonsuit, the Court concluded that defendant could not be liable for plaintiff’s injuries because the door hinge was the “real occasion of the mischief.” Other language in the opinion indicates that by “mischief”, the Court meant plaintiff’s original fall, rather than the injuries themselves. The fallacy in Quinn’s reasoning, as well as in the present majority’s, is the apparent assumption that any unnatural occurrence whereby plaintiff is brought into contact with defendant’s negligent condition must always, as a matter of law, be itself either an injury-producing act or an act caused by plaintiff’s own negligence. This is simply not so.
In fact, even if the slipping bracket in the present case, or the protruding hinge in Quinn, resulted from a third party’s negligence, this would not automatically relieve defendant from liability unless the third party’s negligence also caused plaintiff some harm sufficient to invoke the Frisch cumulative injury doctrine. It is axiomatic that not all negligence is actionable. Thus, to the extent that Quinn bars recovery as a matter of law simply because plaintiff tripped into the cellar rather than walked into it without fault, it should be overruled.
It is not our duty, nor is it the duty of the trial judge, to speculate on the possibility that plaintiff could or could not prove that a three foot fall would have caused none of these injuries. Hard as this burden of proof may be, a demurrer must never be sustained unless, as a matter of law, plaintiff has failed to state a cause of action. Whether he eventually *225proves this cause of action can only be determined after his evidence is presented. In the instant case, plaintiff’s complaint clearly alleges that he sustained his injuries “[bjecause of the negligence of defendant.” In Lerman v. Rudolph, 413 Pa. 555, 558, 198 A. 2d 532, 533 (1964) the writer of the present majority opinion included strong dictum that “a demurrer should not be sustained where there is a possible theory under which the complaint might be self-sustaining . . . .” (Emphasis in original.) The possible theory in the present case is as old as tort law itself: defendant negligently left an uncovered sixteen foot hole in the ground into which plaintiff fell through no fault of his own. This hole proximately caused plaintiff’s injuries.
I believe that defendant’s preliminary objections should not have been sustained, and I therefore dissent.
Mr. Justice Musmanno joins this dissenting opinion.

 In Zlates v. Nasim, 340 Pa. 157, 16 A. 2d 381 (1940), there does appear the statement that “Damages cannot be awarded because the unguarded areaway was not the proximate cause of her fall.” Id. at 158, 16 A. 2d at 381. (Emphasis supplied.) As a pure statement of law I believe this to be clearly wrong, and would suggest that this aspect of Zlates be overruled. However, the opinion also contains language indicating that the fall itself was harmful. Thus, plaintiff would have been somewhat injured even without defendant’s negligence. Furthermore, the Court states, as an alternative holding, that plaintiff was contributorily negligent.