Court Opinion

ID: 9574479
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:05:20.528373+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:44:36.767609
License: Public Domain

Bruce Littlejohn, Acting Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent and would order a new trial for reasons hereinafter stated. Either one of the grounds on which I rely is sufficient to warrant a retrial. Certainly, the two collectively denied the Highway Department a fair trial.
I.
Witness Anderson, a hunter who frequented the area, testified relative to the area surrounding the place of the accident. Upon redirect examination by counsel for the Plaintiff, Mr. Anderson was asked:
Q. All right, in that case, Mr. Anderson, let me ask you if you ever observed any piles of dirt and barricades that the Highway Department might have put out there after the accident? (Emphasis Added)
MR. MONTGOMERY: Objection, Your Honor.
MR. KOON: Your Honor, he has opened the door.
MR. MONTGOMERY: No, sir.
*445THE COURT: I will permit it. Objection overruled. Proceed.
Q. After this accident, what kind of steps, if you recall, if you observed it, did the Highway Department take to protect this ravine?
A. After the accident?
Q. Yes, sir?
A. They had put some other kind of barricade closer to the hole.
Q. Right at the hole?
A. No, it wasn’t right at the hole, it was — Well, I really don’t know how far from the hole it was, but it was—
Counsel for the Highway Department addressing the Court said: “Your Honor, I have a matter of law I would like to take up with the Court.”
The judge replied: “All right, sir, we will argue it at the recess. Proceed, if you would like.”
The line of questioning was clearly improper as was later recognized by the Court. The contention of counsel for the Plaintiff that the attorney for the Highway Department had “. .. opened the door” simply is not substantiated by a review of his cross-examination.
Later on, before any recess, and before the judge could rule on the matter, counsel for the Plaintiff pursued the matter further when Dr. Phillip Wilkins was testifying. He inquired of Dr. Wilkins as follows:
Q. Now, Dr. Wilkins, let me ask you if after the accident you observed any measures taken by the Highway Department to change this—
MR. MONTGOMERY: We object, Your Honor.
MR. KOON: Your Honor, they have already opened the door to this area of inquiry. They asked a previous witness about it.
The Court then declared a recess and made the following comment: “Mr. Koon, as you know, changes of condition after-wards is not admissible. Now, what are you basing the fact that it is admissible on?”
Counsel then argues that the door had been opened, whereupon the judge, apparently realizing that the door had not *446been opened and that the evidence had been improperly sought and allowed, gave a curative instruction. If the door had been opened, as argued by counsel, no curative instruction would have been required.
By reason of the manner the issue was handled, the curative instruction did not overcome the prejudice. Technically, the ground of the objection should have been stated, but apparently counsel intérrupted; obviously both the judge and opposing counsel understood the ground.
II.
I agree with counsel for the Highway Department that witness Robert Roberts, an expert as to accident reconstruction, was allowed to testify improperly. He was asked to give his opinion “... as to the sufficiency of the signs and warning devices on Highway 441 before the accident----”
He responded:
A. My opinion wás that this signing was grossly inadequate. I . mean, I may be going beyond the context of what I should say here, sir, by my opinion was this signing out there borders on criminal negligence on someone’s part.
Assuming without deciding that there was involved matters about which expert testimony should be permitted, I think the witness should not have been permitted to denominate the conduct of the Highway Department employees as bordering “. . . on criminal negligence on someone’s part.” It can be forcefully argued that members of the jury are just as capable of determining what warnings reasonable prudent employees would have provided as is an expert.
The terms “negligence,” “gross negligence,” “willfulness,” “wantonness” and “recklessness” are well known to the law of torts in this state. Traditionally, “criminal negligence” has neither been alleged nor defined by the trial judges in tort cases. I am unaware of any definition in the statute or in our cases of “criminal negligence” as relate to civil litigation. The term is defined in the case of Commonwealth v. Heck, 341 Pa. Super. 183, 491 A. (2d) 212 (1985), aff'd, 517 Pa. 192, 535 A. (2d) 575 (1987) as follows:
*447“Criminal negligence” is a breach of duty so flagrant in the circumstances that we may safely indulge the legal fiction that it was committed with actual intent to in-jure____
Id. at 209, 491 A. (2d) at 225.
Counsel’s objection to the statement as being a comment on the law was proper. The testimony, if not a question of law, was at least a comment on a mixed question of law and fact. In no event was the objection sufficiently defective to warrant a denial of a review by this Court.
The witness’s testimony might easily be interpreted to infer that the employees of the Highway Department had actual intent to injure. The testimony of this witness reciting “criminal negligence” was emphasized by counsel in closing argument. In my view, the error was prejudicial.