Court Opinion

ID: 9731781
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:57:52.126103+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:21.179942
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Roberts :
The trial court was clearly wrong in instructing the jury that either Ingersoll-Rand or U.S. Steel could be found independently liable to Grasha. The situation here is entirely analogous to that in Evans v. Otis Elevator Co., 403 Pa. 13, 168 A. 2d 573 (1961), where we said: “[w]hen Otis joined Sperling as an additional defendant, it did so not upon any theory of sole liability to Evans but upon the theory that Sperling was either jointly liable with Otis or liable over to Otis. Under such circumstances, Sperling could not have been held liable on any theory of sole liability to Evans.” 103 Pa. at 29-30, 168 A. 2d at 581 (citations omitted).* So too in the instant case, the trial court erred in instructing the jury that U.S. Steel could be found solely liable. The majority apparently recognizes that this was error, but concludes that Grasha was not prejudiced because, even if only his case against Ingersoll-Rand had gone to the jury, the factual issues would have been the same and “we must assume that a verdict would still have been returned in favor of Ingersoll.” I cannot agree.
I am unwilling to ignore reality and say that the jury’s verdict with respect to Ingersoll-Rand would likely have been the same had only the case against that defendant been submitted to the jury. The jury clearly wished to give Grasha a substantial recovery, *222and had they been properly instructed that they could not return a verdict solely • against U.S. Steel, they might very well have found against Ingersoll-Rand. The net effect of the trial court’s error was to give the jury a very attractive target against whom they thought they could assess liability. Since the jury received the case under an erroneous impression of the possible alternatives which might well have affected the outcome, I would reverse the judgment of the trial court and award Grasha a new trial.

 We note that in this case, U.S. Steel probably had another meritorious defense to any action by Grasha by virtue of the fact that they were not joined as an additional party defendant by Ingersoll-Rand until after the statute of limitations on Grasha’s underlying cause of action had run. The trial court therefore clearly erred when it charged that U.S. Steel could be found solely liable to Grasha.