Court Opinion

ID: 9481238
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:12:04.105178+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:10.313978
License: Public Domain

SENTELLE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
While I believe the district court erred in permitting plaintiff’s action to survive defendant’s motion for directed verdict and instructing on a theory of res ipsa loqui-tur, I understand how it did so. The trial court operates in real time, generally without a transcript, and with only the memory of the judge and counsel to reformulate the evidence for assessment of its sufficiency. I am at a loss to explain how the majority of this panel, blessed with the complete transcript of the evidence and ample time to review it, can reach the conclusion that res ipsa applies.
As the majority acknowledges, under District of Columbia law (applicable here' under the quasi-Erie doctrine treating D.C. as a state, see Kuwait Airways Corp. v. American Sec. Bank, 890 F.2d 456, 460 (D.C.Cir.1989)), the res ipsa principle “permits a jury to draw an inference of negligence based upon special circumstances where direct evidence of negligence is lacking.” Maj.Op. at 886-887 (quoting Bell v. May Dep’t Stores Co., 866 F.2d 452, 455 (D.C.Cir.1989) (citations omitted)). Those special circumstances are only present when the plaintiff has established that:
(1) The event [is] of the kind which ordinarily does not occur in the absence of someone’s negligence;
(2) [I]t must be caused by an agency or instrumentality within the exclusive control of the defendant;
(3) [I]t must not have been due to any voluntary action or contribution on the part of the plaintiff.
Bell v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 483 A.2d 324, 329 (D.C.1984) (quoting Prosser, Law of Torts § 39, at 214 (4th ed. 1971)).
While there is no argument as to element three, there is no way on the evidence of record in this case that the plaintiff has established either of the first two elements.
As to the question of whether the event “was caused by an agency or instrumentality within the exclusive control of the defendant,” as the majority notes, the direct evidence only shows that the elevator went on safety. The expert testimony (the only evidence on causation) set forth at least five possible reasons why an elevator could go on safety:
1. People jumping up and down in the elevator or similar violent movement.
2. A burnout of the HI and H2 contacts.
3. A malfunction in the governor.
4. A fluctuation in electrical current.
*8905. An overloaded elevator traveling in the down direction.
The evidence explicitly left open the possibility of other causes. Walter Hanner, the sole expert witness, presenting the only causation evidence, after listing the first four of the above five causes, described the list as “a summary of some of the possible causes. There are a few others that come to mind.” Joint Appendix (“J.A.”) at 126. He then supplied the fifth possibility noted above as an example, not an exhaustion, of the other possible reasons for unexplained activation of the elevator safety device. J.A. at 125-26.
Even if the list is treated as exclusive, the so-called “undisputed evidence eliminating three of these explanations,” Maj.Op. at 887, amounts only to an inconsistency with other evidence in the case. The difficulty, in addition to the obvious possibility that the inconsistent evidence is itself incorrect, is that the two possible causes the majority sees as remaining are just as inconsistent with other evidence as the three the majority eliminates. This is, in fact, evident from the majority opinion, coupled with the evidence referenced in it. Assuming that the majority is correct as to the elimination of all causes except the momentary sag in electric power and the burnout of HI and H2 contacts (which, concededly, Otis seems to assume on this appeal), the majority in no way justifies discounting the power sag, a cause outside the control of defendant, in favor of the HI and H2 contacts, a cause at least arguably within the control of the defendant. Indeed, the testimony of Mr. Hanner, if it eliminates any cause, eliminates the contact failure. His testimony is undisputed on the point that the burnout of the contacts can cause the safety to malfunction only when an elevator is descending, not ascending as was the elevator in this case according to plaintiffs own testimony. As no one seriously contends that Otis controlled the power lines, plaintiff has simply failed to establish the element of control of causation.
The majority professes bafflement at my discussion of this second factor in the res ipsa calculus. See Maj.Op. at 888. They would dispose of this element by the statement that “Otis never argued that it did not have exclusive control over the elevator and all of its mechanical components.” This would be more understandable if the plaintiff had established that the injury was caused by some failure of the “elevator and ... its mechanical components.” Granted, plaintiff has established that it occurred in the elevator. If this is all that is required for the causation element of res ipsa, then everyone buying an elevator, an automobile, or any other mechanical device should be advised that in the event of injury to anyone from its use, a prima facie case for your negligence was established when you assumed ownership and control.
Furthermore, even if plaintiff had established that the elevator (presumably in Otis’s control), not the power lines (definitively out of Otis’s control), caused the event, plaintiff has in no fashion established element one of the res ipsa tripod; i.e., that “[t]he event [was] of the kind which ordinarily does not occur in the absence of someone’s negligence.” Bell v. Westinghouse, 483 A.2d at 329 (citation omitted). Even if we eliminate from consideration all other possible causes except the burnout of the HI and H2 contacts, there is no evidence from which a jury could infer, as to opposed to conjecture, that this malfunction was the result of defendant’s negligence. While the majority proudly holds up the fragment of testimony that “the burnout of HI and H2 contacts was the ‘most likely suspect’ of an elevator’s going on safety,” Maj.Op. at 887, the fact that this is exactly what the witness said seems to escape them. That is, the reference to those contacts failing being “the most likely suspect” was in reference to the question of an elevator’s going on safety. Plaintiff never established that it was the most likely cause of the elevator’s doing so in this case. And, in fact, the witness made it plain that he could not give any real estimate as to the probability that it was the cause. The same witness, as the majority admits, testified that the HI and H2 contact failure could not occur under the circumstances alleged by the *891plaintiff in this case (that is, a rising as opposed to descending elevator).
Also, contrary to the majority’s assertion, Hanner’s testimonies at deposition and trial are not inconsistent. His testimony that, in the abstract circumstance of a hypothetical elevator going on safety, contact failure is “the most likely suspect,” is not inconsistent in any way with his testimony that such a cause was impossible on the specific facts described by plaintiff. Thus, the majority’s references to impeachment are not only inapposite, but unfair.
As the evidence stands, there is no basis upon which a jury could reasonably conclude that the event was more likely than not caused by the failure of the HI and H2 contacts. However, even if there were evidence from which a jury could find that the contact failure was the most probable cause, indeed, even if it were conclusively established, res ipsa still should not apply. Plaintiff has not offered any evidence that contact failure “ordinarily does not occur in the absence of someone’s negligence.” In Bell v. May Dep’t Stores, 866 F.2d at 457, we upheld a district court’s allowance of a motion for directed verdict in favor of a defendant against a plaintiff asserting res ipsa where plaintiffs “made no effort either to rebut the non-negligent causes or to identify defendant’s alleged negligence as the most probable cause of the injury.” Id. (footnote omitted). The present case is not only well within our analysis in Bell, but in fact is a stronger one against the application of res ipsa. Here, plaintiff not only failed to rebut possible non-negligent causes and failed to identify defendant’s alleged negligence as the most probable cause of the injury, plaintiff also failed to produce any evidence that defendant’s negligence was in any percent likely to cause contact failure. So far as we know from the evidence, or for that matter from anywhere, contact burnout may be analogous to electric lightbulb burnout — one of those equipment failures of modern civilization which can cause much difficulty, but which will often occur even in the presence of due or extreme care.
Granted, defendant did not affirmatively eliminate the possibility that its negligence caused plaintiff’s injury, but that is not defendant’s burden, even under res ipsa. As the courts of the District of Columbia (whom we follow in this case) have observed: “[i]t would do violence to the concept [of res ipsa loquitur ] to permit a jury to balance possibilities rather than probabilities.” Quin v. George Washington Univ., 407 A.2d 580, 584 (D.C.1979). In the present case, plaintiff’s evidence provides no more than a mere possibility. I would therefore hold that the district court erred in instructing on res ipsa. See Quin v. George Washington Univ., supra. As there is no other evidence, direct or indirect, of defendant’s negligence, I would further hold that the trial court erred in denying defendant’s motion for directed verdict.