Court Opinion

ID: 9767419
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:19:15.48971+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:31.177615
License: Public Domain

KING, Associate Judge,
dissenting:
In my view, the trial judge was correct when she granted the motions of each defendant for a directed verdict at the close of the plaintiffs case. Because the majority concludes otherwise, I respectfully dissent.
Although the trial judge granted the directed verdict motions on several grounds, the principal basis for that ruling was the judge’s conclusion that the plaintiff failed to establish proximate cause. While I believe there were significant deficiencies in the plaintiffs case on the issues of notice, duty, and breach as to some of the defendants, I will focus on the proximate cause issue, applicable to all defendants, as the trial judge did. The bottom line for the trial judge was the lack of expert testimony concerning the “cause and effect” of the fire vis-a-vis the maintenance of the tank. While I do not necessarily agree that plaintiff could establish proximate cause only with expert testimony, it is clear to me, as the trial judge ruled, that plaintiff did not make his case on that issue.
From this record the jury could find, construing the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, see Corley v. BP Oil Corp., 402 A.2d 1258, 1263 (D.C.1979), that there was an underground tank in place on the premises, that it had been there at least since 1926, that it had been used previously to store either oil or gasoline, but, that it was no longer used for that purpose. Further, there was testimony that a fire occurred at or near each of the two outlets of the tank that injured the plaintiff.
There was also unrebutted testimony, however, that the tank had been pumped out. Moreover, there was no evidence of any failure to comply, or to substantially comply, with the provisions of the Fire Prevention Code, relating to abandoning a tank such as this one, other than testimony, by a Fire Department representative who had not examined the tank, that the Fire Department had no record of the tank being closed in accordance with the Fire Prevention Code.1 So far as the record shows, the tank could have been filled to the top with some nonin-flammable or noncombustible material. Finally, there was no evidence concerning what caused the fire, whether or not the fire was due to some substance in the tank, or in one of the outlet pipes, or both, or that it did not originate from some other source. On this record, the jury could only speculate that some unproven violation of the Fire Prevention Code was the proximate cause of the fire.
We have cautioned repeatedly in recent years that it is not enough to show that some duty has been breached and that some person has been injured: “the mere happening of an accident does not impose liability or reveal proof of negligence.” Rajabi v. Potomac Electric Power Co., 650 A.2d 1319, 1322 (D.C.1994) (internal quotations and citations omitted). In order to recover for an injury, the plaintiff must show a causal connection between the breach and the injury. See Twyman v. Johnson, 655 A.2d 850, 852 (D.C.1995). We have also said that under some circumstances this nexus may be shown only by expert testimony. Washington Metro. Area Transit Auth. v. Davis, 606 A.2d 165, *464170 (D.C.1992). In other circumstances, however, we have emphasized that, although the causal connection may be shown by either expert testimony or other evidence, it nonetheless must be established in some fashion in order to permit recovery. District of Columbia v. Billingsley, 667 A.2d 887, 843 (D.C.1995).
Here, the trial judge ruled that the plaintiff must present expert testimony in order to establish proximate cause. It may be that the trial judge is correct on that point, but I would not rule out the possibility that plaintiff could have met its burden by presenting evidence other than by expert testimony. The trial judge is certainly correct, however, whether or not expert testimony is necessary, that there was a failure to establish proximate cause in this case. Therefore, the trial judge did not, in my view, err when she granted the motions for directed verdict.

. The applicable provisions of the Fire Prevention Code are set out in the majority opinion. Ante at 460.