Court Opinion

ID: 9644928
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:08:54.477074+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:20.260820
License: Public Domain

*200Horney, J.,
filed the following dissenting opinion.
To me the effect of the majority opinion is to hold — contrary to the prior decisions of this Court — that the position of the automobiles and the location of the debris, despite the inability of the only expert witness to locate the point of impact, were sufficient to support a reasonable inference that the impact occurred on the south or Whitney side and not the north or Antonelli side of the road.
In these consolidated cases, where the primary questions on appeal concern the refusal to direct a verdict for the defendants Antonelli in the case of the Whitneys against them and the refusal to direct a verdict for the plaintiffs Antonelli in their case against the Whitneys,1 it is my opinion that the case of the Whitneys against the Antonellis was improperly submitted to the jury. But all the members of the Court, who heard these appeals, agree that the rulings of the lower court, refusing to instruct the jury concerning the failure of Whitney to wear eyeglasses, and striking out the judgment against the Antonelli-father, were proper.
Other than the testimony of the Antonelli-daughter to the effect that she was driving on her right side of the road and the testimony of the investigating police officer to the effect that it was impossible to determine the point of impact from the physical facts, the only other evidence was the physical facts (and the photographs introduced as exhibits thereof) showing that the Whitney automobile was on the south side of the highway with its rear in the ditch paralleling the shoulder of the eastbound or Whitney lane and was pointed toward the northeast with its left front wheel on the southerly shoulder; that the Antonelli automobile was directly across the Whitney lane facing south with its right rear wheel in the westbound or Antonelli lane; that the left front of each vehicle received the most extensive damage and was so badly *201mangled that most of the debris remained crushed against the vehicles; that there was debris “all over the road” but the greater part of such of it as fell on the highway was in the area between the fronts of the two vehicles near the southerly shoulder where the vehicles came to rest after the accident; that there were rim cuts on the south side of the road and shoulder leading to a deflated tire on the Whitney automobile (a fact that the Whitneys do not claim was positive evidence of the point of impact) ; and that there were no visible brake or skid marks in the area.
The majority bases its holding that the evidence produced was sufficient to support the finding of the jury — that the Antonelli-daughter was guilty of negligence and that Whitney was not — on the following conclusions: that the jury was not bound to believe the testimony of the Antonelli-daughter that she was on her right side of the road and that disbelief of her story amounted to belief that she was on the wrong side of the road; that had the occupants of the Whitney automobile been alive failure to produce them might have permitted an inference that their testimony would be unfavorable; that the failure of the Antonelli-daughter to explain why she had not seen the Whitney automobile until the moment of the impact was some evidence that she had not kept a proper lookout; that this was not a case in which the accident could be found to be inevitable or unavoidable; and that one or both of the drivers must have been over the center-line and hence at fault.2 But the majority' — other than this and the citation of several cases apparently as authority for allowing the case to go to the jury — have not discussed the propriety of submitting the issues of negligence to the jury to be decided by it as questions of fact. To me, however, the evidence presented only questions of law to be decided by the trial court.
The principle of the prior decisions of this Court is that to justify the submission of a question of negligence to a jury, *202it is necessary that there be some evidence of negligence or evidence from which negligence may be inferred. The rule in an action for damages is that a court is not justified in inferring negligence merely from possibilities; and the test to be applied — whether the question involved is the existence of an injury or its cause — is reasonable probability or reasonable certainty. Brehm v. Lorenz, 206 Md. 500, 112 A. 2d 475 (1955); Ager v. Baltimore Transit Co., 213 Md. 414, 132 A. 2d 469 (1957). And while it is true that a case should not be withdrawn from the jury if there is any evidence (however slight) tending to prove negligence, Ford v. Bradford, 213 Md. 534, 132 A. 2d 488 (1957), a mere scintilla of evidence or a mere surmise that there may have been negligence on the part of a defendant does not warrant submission of the case to the jury. Olney v. Carmichael, 202 Md. 226, 96 A. 2d 37 (1953); Shafer v. State use of Sundergill, 171 Md. 506, 189 Atl. 273 (1937).
When these principles are related to the evidence produced at the trial of these consolidated cases and such inferences of fact as are fairly deducible therefrom, it seems apparent to me that the Antonellis were entitled to a directed verdict in their favor in the case of the Whitneys against them.
In a case where there is nothing but physical facts to support the existence of negligence, it is imperative that the trial court exercise the greatest of care to prohibit the jury from speculating on the possible causes of an accident of which there is no tangible proof. Gloyd v. Wills, 180 Md. 161, 23 A. 2d 665 (1942). This becomes even more imperative in a case such as this where, on one hand, the position of the automobiles and the location of the debris without any substantiating evidence was insufficient to permit a judicial determination as to where the collision occurred, and, on the other hand, the absence of brake or skid marks and the inability of the expert witness to fix the point of impact was clearly indicative of the fact that it was impossible to determine where the collision had occurred. The absence of brake or skid marks, even without the expert testimony, was enough to prohibit the case from going to the jury. In State for use of Balderston v. Hop*203kins, 173 Md. 321, 196 Atl. 91 (1938), where, as here, there were no marks on the road to indicate where the motor vehicles were immediately before the collision, it was held that the position of the trucks after the accident on the same side of (and partly off) the road did not indicate that the defendant’s truck was over the center line of the road at the time of impact, and the opinion distinguished Wolfe v. State use of Brown, infra, where the point of collision was established by a large quantity of glass and other debris on only one side of the road. (See pp. 204, 205 of this opinion.)
The cases cited by the majority for the proposition that the position of the automobiles and the location of the debris was sufficient to support a reasonable inference as to where the impact occurred convince me that the case of the Whitneys against the Antonellis should not have been submitted to the jury.
Although the test laid down in Acme Poultry Corp. v. Melville, 188 Md. 365, 53 A. 2d 1 (1947), cited by the majority, is to the effect that evidence is sufficient to take a case to the jury if the physicial facts rationally permit an inference from the “preponderance of probability,” it is significant to note that it was the testimony of an expert witness, pointing to one of the alternatives the jury had to decide, which induced this Court to reverse the judgment entered on a directed verdict for the appellee.
The facts in Melville v. State use of Morris, 155 F. 2d 440 (C.C.A. 4th 1946)3 and Scott v. James Gibbons Co., 192 Md. 319, 64 A. 2d 117 (1949), also cited by the majority, have little similarity or analogy to the facts in the cases at bar. In Melville, the judgment for the appellee was affirmed because the physical facts (the position of the trucks on the highway after the collision forming a rough V and the location of the debris within the V), plus the evidence as to the course and speed of the Melville truck immediately before the collision, indicated that the southbound Melville truck was largely or wholly in the eastern (improper as to it) lane while the north*204bound Acme truck was also in the eastern (proper as to it) lane. In Scott, the judgments for the appellee for costs were reversed because the existence of skid marks showing that the tractor was traveling on its wrong side of the road and that the automobile was traveling on its right side of the road was sufficient evidence of negligence to take the case to the jury. The case of Terry v. O’Neal, 194 Md. 680, 72 A. 2d 26 (1950), involving a question as to whether an admission was at odds with the physical facts does not appear to have a direct bearing on the questions of negligence in these cases.
The case of Shafer v. State use of Sundergill, supra, (171 Md. 506), as the majority point out, was distinguished on the facts in Wolfe v. State use of Brown, 173 Md. 103, 194 Atl. 832 (1937), and properly so. But the distinction this Court drew between these two cases does not mean, as the majority seem to intimate, that the Wolfe case was authority for allowing the case of the Whitneys against the Antonellis to go to the jury. In Shafer, where broken glass was scattered near the wrecked automobile, but there was no evidence as to the quantity or character of the glass, or whether it was from the automobile or the truck, or whether it was from the windshield or the headlights, it was held that the mere presence of glass near the automobile afforded no proof that the collision occurred near that point. In Wolfe, where there was an admission by Wolfe that he had pulled to the left “directly in the path of Brown’s car,” in addition to broken glass in a “pretty heavy pile” along with pieces of metal from Brown’s automobile on his side of the road, and only small particles of glass on Wolfe’s side of the road, it was held that the evidence was sufficient to take the case to the jury. Obviously the holdings in both Wolfe and Shafer were proper under the distinctive facts in each case, but to me it seems apparent that the case of the Whitneys against the Antonellis is more in line with Shafer than with Wolfe. Moreover, as was hereinbefore stated (on p. 203 of this opinion), Wolfe was distinguished on its facts in State for use of Balderston v. Hopkins, supra (173 Md. 321), because, in the absence of tire marks to indicate the point of impact, the position of the trucks after *205the accident did not indicate where the vehicles were immediately before the accident. Here, the absence of brake or skid marks plus the fact that the expert witness was unable to fix the point of impact from the physical facts, is why in my opinion the judgment in the case of the Whitneys against the Antonellis should be reversed without a new trial.
But because the jury chose to disbelieve the testimony of the Antonelli-daughter that she was driving on her right side of the road, and there was no other evidence that Whitney was guilty of negligence (for much the same reasons that there was no evidence of negligence on the part of the Antonelli-daughter in the case of the Whitneys against the Antonellis), it would seem to be futile to reverse the judgment in the case of the Antonellis against the Whitneys and remand the case for a new trial: it is therefore my belief that the judgment in this case should be affirmed.

. The designation “Whitneys” is used here for the sake of brevity: actually the defendants in the case of the Antonellis against the Whitneys were the administrators of Stewart J. Whitney, Sr., who was killed in the accident, and Robert J. Pugh, the owner of the automobile that Whitney was driving.

. It would seem that if there was any evidence — as there may well have been — that both drivers were over the center line, then neither was entitled to recover from the other.

. This Morris case (155 F. 2d 440) apparently arose out of the same accident as that involved in the Acme case (188 Md. 365).