Court Opinion

ID: 9636070
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:15:14.089051+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:41.781729
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Musmanno:
On February 8, 1950, at 5:30 a.m., Mike Jursic, a mill worker, left his home on a farm in Stanton, Pennsylvania, to drive to his place of employment, the National Tube works in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. Arriving in McKeesport in his small Dodge truck, he proceeded on Sheridan Street which ran directly up to the mill. To reach his destination, Jursic had to drive over three B. & O. railroad tracks and two P. & L.E. R.R. tracks which crossed Sheridan Street and flanked the mill. Before entering on the B. & O. tracks, Jursic stopped, looked and listened. Seeing and hearing nothing to warn him of any danger he crossed the B. & O. tracks which were separated from the P. & L.E. right of way by a wide pavement. Moving up to the P. & L.E. tracks, Jursic stopped, looked and listened again. The railroad tracks were curtained in darkness and the atmosphere was unbroken by any sound save the rumbling noises from the steel mill. With this assurance of safety, Jursic advanced in slow gear across the P. & L.E. tracks, travelling, because of wariness and irregularities in the surface of the road, at a man’s walking pace. While between the two tracks, the cab of his truck was suddenly flooded with the light of an oncoming locomotive and, by the time Jursic’s truck’s front wheels had passed the last rail, the locomotive was upon him, inflicting physical injuries and damage to his truck, not necessary to consider here.
At the ensuing trial a jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff against the P. & L.E. Railroad *152Company. The defendant company moved for judgment n.o.v., which the lower court granted. The plaintiff-appealed to this Court, the majority of which sustained the judgment n.o.v., but oh entirely different grounds from those announced in the opinion of the court below.
The plaintiff testified that at no time did the locomotive sound a whistle or ring a bell, nor did it flash any admonitory signal light until it was within 30 yards of the crossing when, of course, the plaintiff had no time to avoid the crash. The defendant company called three members of the train crew who collectively testified that the locomotive rang .its bell;. sounded four blasts of its whistle and travelled with headlight illuminated from McKees Rocks to Newell. The majority opinion say that “the testimony of. the three members of the train crew . . . was not shaken on cross-examination.” The testimony may not. have been shaken on cross-examination, but it was certainly shaken by the jury. In fact, it was demolished by the jury which unequivocally repudiated the testimony of the train crew and definitively accepted the plaintiff’s account of the collision.
I do not believe that the jury was very much impressed -with the testimony of one of these three witnesses, the fireman, who said that although he saw the plaintiff on the track he did not warn the engineer who, on the other side of the. cab, could not see what was ahead of him. After admitting he knew of the plaintiff’s presence on the tracks, the witness went on to testify: “I didn’t say anything- to the engineer because I didn’t think it was necessary-at the time and when he approached the paved street between the two tracks I stillkept my.eye op:him.; because^we got-.to be about a--.car length away from, ..the - Sheridan Street crossing — I.' knew, definitely:/where.he. was;./going /then *153and I hollered to the engineer to ‘dynamite’ it, and then I shut the valve on the stoker off and I followed the brakeman down to the front to see how bad the man was hurt.”
This statement alone, revealing as it does, wanton negligence on the part of the defendant’s employe, would entitle the plaintiff to a recovery.
The majority states that it is unnecessary to consider or discuss the issue of negligence because judgment n. o. v. is fully justified on the basis of contributory negligence. If we intend to give anything more than lip service to the rule that in a review of this kind, all contradictions and doubts in the evidence are to be resolved in favor of the verdict-winner, I fail to see how this Court can in law and logic brand this plaintiff guilty of contributory negligence. Mike Jursic was on his way to work. Crossing the railroad track was a matter of earning his daily bread. He did everything that was humanly possible for one to do to avoid being struck by a train. As I had occasion to say in the case of Meade v. Pennsylvania Railroad Co., 375 Pa. 325, the right of a railroad company to sever a public thoroughfare in two with a piercing locomotive is a right exercised in the best interests of society, but the right of travellers to be saved from unnecessary harm is equally sacred in the law.
If the headlight on the locomotive had been shining, its beam would have flashed warning to Mike Jursic. The majority assumes that the headlight was operating, although the jury has found that it was not. In support of this assumption the majority states that the plaintiff did not prove that the headlamp was not lit, but that he merely claimed this. I quote the plaintiff’s testimony which, with all the unvarnished phrases of an unlettered mill worker, still graphically portrays what happened: “When I come across the street *154I do the same; I look in both sides and listen. I didn’t see nothing coming, no heard noise. I start across. As soon as I was — when I was on the middle of the railroad my cab was all at once on a shining like on fire, on shine. I throw my eyes on the side where light come from and train was right there. I didn’t have time to do anything. They just smack me like this (indicating) and push me down on the railroad— oh, I couldn’t estimate; maybe about 200 feet.”
The majority quotes from the plaintiff’s cross examination as follows: “Q. So that the headlight of the train was on, wasn’t it; it was burning? Do you understand me? A. (No response.) Q. Do you understand me? A. I don’t think. Q. Well, I want you to understand. I say that the headlight of the train was shining and the headlight of the train was on as it came down the track and before it hit you? A. Did you mean the train come down and just snapped the light on before? Q. No. I don’t mean any such thing. A. Is that what you mean? Q. I certainly do not. A. That is exactly what I claim. Q. Oh, that is what you claim? A. Yes.”? With this quotation the majority disposes of the plaintiff’s case with the laconic utterance : “Claim is not proof.”
The plaintiff was obviously not a person schooled in the niceties of the English language. For instance, when he was asked: “Would you have heard a whistle or a bell if any had been sounded?” he replied: “I don’t got you” When asked in cross-examination if he had had a view down the straight track, he answered: “What- kind of straight you'tell me now?” Describing 'the episode of the taking of- the'statement by the representative of thé railroad company'at his home, he'testified : “Mostly I remember that they Was twisting me and asking me,' I don’t- know -how many times, same- question and' mine daughter- was' standing *155with me by bed when I was lay down. I wasn’t sit down. And while I was hollered from the pain, so I was bad hurt, and dope with — I don’t know what— from the shock maybe I got before, and Dr. Iliberger give me from his medicine. .
To hold a person of such obvious lingual limitations to the technicalities of grammar and rules of syntax does not comport with the principles of justice which aim at ascertaining the truth even if it must be dug from beneath a mountain of solecisms, dredged from a marsh of malapropisms and hunted in a jungle of grammatical blunders.
It so happens, however, that, without the benefit of a college education, Mike Jursic used a proper popular expression. He claimed the headlight was not operating. What is the definition of “claim”? One of its meanings (Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary) is “to assert as a fact, right or relation which ought to be acknowledged or conceded.” Jursic asserted that the headlight was unlit. If one asserts that the sun rises every morning and another contradicts that assertion, the former claims that his statement is true. To say, after a verdict, that claim is not proof is to say that contradicted assertions from the witness stand, no matter how verified by other witnesses and no matter how accepted by the jury as true, still do not constitute proof.
But this discussion, as well as the assertion of the majority in this respect, is entirely supererogatory because the plaintiff specifically testified that the locomotive approached in darkness and that the headlight was thrown on just before the accident: “Q. Well, how do you account for the fact that you couldn’t see this train coming toward you with its headlights on; how do you account for that? A. The way I figure, *156lights was just snapped on me before it struck me. This is the way I figure.” (Emphasis supplied.) And it may be added that this answer of the plaintiff’s in cross-examination followed the “claim” answer, so that if his previous response was the result of misunderstanding, it was certainly cleared up by the unequivocal statement that the lights were “just snapped on” before the collision.
The majority decision falls into another error, as I view it, when it attributes contributory negligence to the plaintiff because of the manner in which he crossed the tracks. I quote from the majority opinion: “It will be noted that while plaintiff testified that he stopped, looked and listened before starting over the crossing, conspicuous by its absence in plaintiff’s account is any testimony that he continued to look or listen after starting across. Indeed his testimony permits only the contrary conclusion that he did not look after starting across until he was committed to the second track and then only when the train was practically upon him and after the headlight of the engine illuminated the cab of his truck.” This assertion would assume that the crossing over the P. & L. E. tracks was a long and tortuous trip and that throughout this lengthy journey the plaintiff ignored everything on his right or left. The distance between the point where he stopped to look and listen and the point where he was struck could be only some ■20 feet, not more than 2 lengths of his truck. Considering the fact that the track here was- a straightaway for a half mile, if the locomotive lights had been functioning, the plaintiff would have seen the glare from the point where he very definitely stated he had looked and listened. One glance would tell the story.
But here again the majority opinion pours water into a sieve, because the plaintiff did testify that he *157did look while crossing the tracks. The defendant company’s attorney was cross-examining the plaintiff on whether the windows of his truck were open as he crossed the tracks: “Q. The one on the right was up? You mean the one on the right was closed, is that what you mean? A. On the right was up. Q. Well, you mean up and closed? A. On my side, that window is always down because I hardly wait to get out so I use much tobacco. I always spit, see? That window was down. Q. Were you chewing tobacco as you crossed this crossing? A. Huh? Q. Were you chewing tobacco as you crossed this crossing? A. Well, I chew tobacco all the time. Q. And spitting out the window, huh? Well, maybe . . . you were so busy spitting out the window you didn’t look up to the right? A. I did. Q. Well, did you? A. Yes, sir. Q. You say you did look? A. I did look, yes ”
Mike Jursic was injured by a collision with a locomotive, but it would appear that his inability to hold the verdict won before a jury was due to a second collision — this time with the English language.
I dissent.