Court Opinion

ID: 9534467
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:40:08.332324+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:30:51.244879
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. The plaintiff abandoned its claim of negligence, and relied solely on the so-called “res ipsa loquitur” doctrine. This doctrine is bottomed on negligence by an inference, from a cause unexplained. Plaintiff abandoned a theory based on negligence, the burden of which necessarily was his. In this case 100% reliance was placed upon the defectiveness of an escalator. The jury held this escalator was not defective. That should have ended this case, but the jury said that nonetheless the defendant should respond in damages. The main opinion’s sanction of this sort of legerdemain, in my opinion, is more inconsistent than the jury’s antithetical conclusions. Let’s face it. The jury said there was nothing wrong with the escalator, but anyway, Penney should respond. This not only is inimical to the historical concept that no one is liable without fault, but espouses the dangerous doctrine that one is an *50insurer against injury, regardless of the pleadings, common sense or the facts.
CALLISTER, J., concurs in the views expressed in the dissenting opinion of HENRIOD, C. J.