Court Opinion

ID: 9457443
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:22:19.348364+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:21.330293
License: Public Domain

On Appellee’s Petition for Rehearing Supplemental Opinion
LEVENTHAL, Circuit Judge:
This opinion relates to two matters raised by the petition for rehearing filed by defendant-appellee Izzo.
*969A.
Izzo says the last clear chance doctrine may not properly be applied so as to impose liability on a defendant for its actions concerning a person in a perilous situation unless the defendant’s negligence contributed to the perilous situation.
There is language supporting Izzo’s view in Dean v. Century Motors, 81 U.S.App.D.C. 9, 10, 154 F.2d 201, 202 (1946) : “The doctrine [last clear chance] presupposes a perilous situation created or existing through the negligence of both the plaintiff and the defendant, but assumes that there was a time after such negligence had occurred when the defendant could, and the plaintiff could not, by the use of means available, avoid the accident. It is not applicable if the emergency is so sudden that there is no time to avoid the collision, for the defendant is not required to act instantaneously.” [Footnotes omitted.] The other cases of this court cited by Izzo are all opinions quoting or paraphrasing this language in Dean.
The language in Deem that there is no scope for the last clear chance doctrine unless the defendant contributed to the perilous situation of the plaintiff has vitality for those cases, like that considered in Dean where there was a last-minute emergency and defendant had no opportunity to change his course after he became aware or could reasonably have been expected to have become aware of the peril. In such a situation there is no post-peril negligence on the part of defendant, in view of the emergency exception to the last clear chance doctrine for which we cited Dean in our original opinion. Hence there is no liability unless there was pre-peril negligence which continued after the period became observable. Most of the cases citing Dean refer to this situation.1
The pre-Dean cases stated the rule that last clear chance negligence overrides the defense of contributory negligence without any qualification in terms of a requirement of defendant’s negligence preceding the emergence of the peril,2 as appears, for example, from Judge Miller’s opinion in Jackson v. Capital Transit Co., 69 App.D.C. 147, 149, 99 F.2d 380, 382 (1938),3 cert. denied, 306 U.S. 630, 59 S.Ct. 464, 83 L.Ed. 1032 (1939).
The Dean case and most of the post-Dean cases quoting or paraphrasing the Dean language (supra, note 2) were focused on the “sudden emergency” or “no *970clear chance” fact situations where defendant could not be charged with any negligence after plaintiff’s peril became or should have become apparent. In our other cases citing Dean defendant’s negligence preceded the creation of plaintiff’s position of peril, and defendant was held liable.4
In our Law opinion, decided May 13, 1971, (supra note 1) Judge McGowan’s opinion, concurred in by Judge Miller, cited Dean for the proposition that in general the last clear chance doctrine is “an ameliorative one applicable in the circumstances where both parties to an accident have some portion of culpability.” There was no statement of a general requirement that defendant’s negligence have contributed to the perilous situation in the first instance. And there is no such general requirement, apart from situations like the “sudden emergency” case with which Dean was concerned.
The rule is that under the last clear chance doctrine, in the absence of a sudden emergency or other situation negativing “clear chance” for the defendant, defendant is liable for failure to exercise reasonable care in avoiding a harm to which plaintiff exposed himself, and defendant’s liability is not dependent on a showing of negligence on the part of defendant prior to the time he discovered or should have discovered plaintiff’s peril. That rule is expressly set forth in the Restatement,5 it is sound, it is the thrust of our opinions establishing the last clear chance doctrine (see notes 2 & 3), and it is consistent with Dean and our post-Dean decisions.6 Nothing in the authorities cited by defendant Izzo leads to the contrary result.7
*971B.
Appellee Izzo also insists that in the absence of interpretive evidence, the autopsy report was not probative on the issue whether the injuries which resulted in death were attributable to the pinning or to the fall.
Appellant argued to this court that the disclosure in the autopsy report that decedent received fractures of the cervical spine, ribs (multiple), liver, pelvis and right femur, showed (by omission) that he did not receive fractures or injuries to his neck or to his head, and that this was probative that he died from the fall and the resulting impact rather than from pinning by the hoist. This point was not expressly discussed by the trial judge. The trial judge did not rule on the autopsy report when it was offered Its exclusion was one of a number of rulings, all going against plaintiff, that were included in the direction of a verdict for defendants.
While plaintiff’s inference from the autopsy report is not without merit, we conclude, on further reflection, that it is in the interest of justice that we should not make a ruling requiring its admission without interpretive evidence, but should rather assure that plaintiff be given a clear-cut opportunity on retrial, with the other adverse rulings out of the way, to supply interpretive evidence in addition to the autopsy report, in the event that the trial judge who comes to focus on this issue determines that the autopsy report is not sufficiently meaningful by itself to put to the jury in the absence of such interpretive evidence.
Our order will provide for remand to the District Court consistent with our opinion as supplemented herein.
So ordered.

. Capital Transit Co. v. Grimes, 82 U.S. App.D.C. 393, 164 F.2d 718 (1947), cert. denied 333 U.S. 845, 68 S.Ct. 664, 92 L.Ed. 1129 (1948) ; Landfair v. Capital Transit Co., 83 U.S.App.D.C. 60, 165 F.2d 255 (1948) ; Gay v. Augur, 97 U.S. App.D.C. 336, 231 F.2d 495 (1956) ; Matthews v. Lindsay, 108 U.S.App.D.C. 292, 281 F.2d 927 (1960) ; Law v. Virginia Stage Lines, Inc., 144 U.S.App. D.C. 115, 444 F.2d 990 (May 13, 1971).

. See, e. g., Kelly Furniture Co. v. Washington Ry. & Electric Co., 64 App.D.C. 215, 217, 76 F.2d 985, 987 (1935) ; Cobb v. Capital Transit Co., 79 U.S.App. D.C. 364, 365 n. 1, 148 F.2d 217, 218 n. 1 (1945) ; Cullen v. Baltimore & P. R. R. Co., 8 App.D.C. 69, 73 (1896) ; Haw-ley v. Columbia Ry., 25 App.D.C. 1, 5 (1905).

. “One operating a streetcar in a lawful manner, and giving proper and sufficient warning signals of its approach, may assume that a pedestrian upon, or drawing near to, the track will respect the preferential right of the streetcar, and have sufficient care for his own safety, to take notice and leave the track, or stop and let the ear pass; although this assumption may be indulged only until something appears which makes it evident, or by the exercise of diligence should make it evident, to the operator that the pedestrian is in a position of peril and that to proceed will result in a collision.
“The sole issue of the case, therefore, may be stated in the following question: Was there evidence to show that (1) the deceased was in a position of danger; (2) he was oblivious of his danger; (3) the motorman was aware, or by the exercise of reasonable care should have been aware, of deceased’s danger and obliviousness ; (4) the motorman was able to stop the car and avoid striking the deceased after he became aware, or should have become aware, of this danger and obliviousness and failed to do so? If so, then the case should have gone to the jury.”

. Richardson v. Gregory, 108 U.S.App.D.C. 263, 281 F.2d 626 (1960) ; Conlon v. Tennant, 110 U.S.App.D.C. 140, 289 F.2d 881 (1961). Hence the statement that antecedent defendant liability was required to establish liability was dictum.

. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 479 (1965) provides:
“A plaintiff who has negligently subjected himself to a risk of harm from the defendant’s subsequent negligence may recover for harm caused thereby if, immediately preceding the harm,
(a) the plaintiff is unable to avoid it by the exercise of reasonable vigilance and care, and
(b) the defendant is negligent in failing to utilize with reasonable care and competence his then existing opportunity to avoid the harm, when he
(i) knows of the plaintiff’s situation and realizes or has reason to realize the peril involved in it. * * * ”
Comment g says,
“It is not necessary that the defendant have been negligent prior to the time at which he discovered or should have discovered the dangerous position in which the plaintiff had negligently put himself. It is enough that thereafter he fails to utilize with reasonable care the ability which he then has to avert the plaintiff’s harm.”

. See text to notes 1 and 4. We have found no case in which this court has exonerated a defendant who saw plaintiff’s danger, was not beset by sudden emergency, yet failed to use his then existing opportunity to avoid the harm, on the ground that the last clear chance doctrine was inapplicable because defendant was not negligent before plaintiff’s negligence put him in peril. In Broderick v. Gletner, 249 A.2d 738 (D.C. App.1969), it is not clear whether or not the defendant was confronted with a sudden emergency. If there was none the court extended the Deem language, repeated in Richardson v. Gregory, beyonil the fact situation in which that language may soundly be applied.

. We have restudied Annot. 171 A.L.R. 365 (1947), quoted by Izzo. It properly emphasizes that the last clear chance doctrine cannot of itself raise a duty on a defendant’s part. Thus, the court cannot hold a track guard on the ground he should have discovered a tramp’s peril if he had no duty to look for tramps.
If anything defendant’s position is undercut by the statement, 171 A.D.R. at 365-366: “Its only proper scope and function is to relieve the plaintiff from the consequences and effect of the general rule of contributory negligence, upon the assumption that he establishes independently a breach of duty on the part of the defendant which originated or continued after the injured person’s peril arose.” (Emphasis added.) As the forerunner annotation notes, the doctrine of last *971dear chance “cannot rest upon a breach of duty on defendant’s part * * * before the time when the peril arose.” Annot. 92 A.L.K. 47, 57 (1934). There is nothing in these annotations to indicate that such an antecedent breach of duty by defendant is a requirement of recovery. The cases are concerned with insisting that “prior or antecedent negligence” does not suffice for recovery, and sometimes go so far as to say that no such negligence “enters into the [last clear chance] doctrine. That doctrine blots out all that preceded * * *." Gray v. Columbia Terminals Co., 231 Mo. 73, 52 S.W.2d 809, 813 (1932).
On the question whether defendant’s duty “originated or continued” after the discovery of plaintiff’s peril, we know that in this ease, Izzo’s employee saw the plaintiff and took action. Whether this involved a breach of the duty of due care owed someone engaged in business on the premises is a question for the jury.