Court Opinion

ID: 9747762
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:31:56.746428+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:26.658960
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Musmanno:
The verdict of the jury in this case established that the news stand belonging to the Pittsburgh Newspapers Publishers Association obtruded into the cartway or was so close to the curb line that it came into contact with the overhang of the passing bus belonging to the Brentwood Motor Coach Company. The verdict further established that the stand was not fastened or otherwise secured to the sidewalk and that it was located on a busy street corner traversed by voluminous pedestrian traffic and where a considerable number of persons constantly accumulated in the act of boarding and leaving street cars and buses.
The majority opinion queries the avoirdupois weight of the involved news stand, but it seems to me that its weight has but little to do with the question before us. Whether heavy or light the stand was movable and it was its very movability which precipitated the accident and seriously injured the plaintiff who was standing where she had the right.to be.
One can conclude from .the' majority opinion -that if. the proprietor of any other kind of a sidewalk business allowed his*.stand..or .shop to pass into the. street, he would,be.liable for damage.done to those injured *578by that trespass. But the majority see a different rule for proprietors of news stands. They say that the social utility of such a business outweighs the risk of harm to the travelling public. Specifically they declare that the “importance of the press and of an efficient means of distributing newspapers among the populace of a large city are too apparent to require lengthy exposition.” But this to me seems quite irrelevant to the point of law involved. I would not bow to anyone in my ardent defense of freedom of the press, but I fail to see where freedom of the press is questioned here.
Freedom for the dispensation of news does not mean freedom for the locomotion of newsstands.
A news stand can be attached to the sidewalk without affecting its social utility. Or it can be placed against the building line without unduly inconveniencing the newspaper buyer. Have we reached such a vertiginous celerity in our daily routine that a retarding of two or three seconds in getting our favorite newspaper will work a disabling delay? Or have we grown so indolent that it will immeasurably tire us to step out five or six feet in order to obtain our preferred journal when we know that this little dog trot will inure to the security of innocent bystanders?
At the oral argument before the Court, counsel for the appellant complained that if this verdict is allowed to stand against the news stand proprietor, it will mean that from now on all news stands will need to be anchored to the pavement. That does not necessarily follow. The news stand can be placed somewhere on the corner or on the sidewalk where it cannot possibly be struck by vehicles pursuing their proper lanes of travel. It can be guarded by an attendant who will see to it that the stand is not jostled or pushed away from its safe position. It is interesting to note here that at the time of the accident in this case not only *579was there no attendant at the news stand, but there were no newspapers on the stand.
But even if safety for the public should demand that street news stands be bolted to the sidewalk surface or otherwise immobilized, I don’t see how that would deprive the proprietor of arre constitutional or any legal right. As we travel along the highways of the State we find other types of stands subjected to safety rules. Banana stands, hot dog stands, pottery bazaars, gasoline pumps, watermelon stalls, sandwich counters, ice cream booths, souvenir emporia — all cater to the public and all are either substantially attached to the earth or sufficiently removed from traffic lanes to avoid being pushed against pedestrians or vehicles.
If an exception against safety is made in favor of stands on which newspapers are sold, shouldn’t magazine stands also he excepted, and why shouldn’t book stores be allowed to place their wares next to the curb, immune from civil liability for damages which proximity could inflict on the passing population?
The fact that an ordinance of the City of Pittsburgh allows news stands on sidewalks at all does not mean that they can be placed, in such a manner and at such points as to endanger the travelling public.
The majority opinion states that “there was no proof that appellant knew that its news stand projected over the cartway.” But the proprietor certainly knew the dimensions of Ms news stand and he was charged by law with knowledge as to whether it projected out into the street or not. A truck owner driving along the street with a piece of lumber projecting sufficiently from the bed of his vehicle to strike pedestrians could never defend against a suit for damages by asserting that it wasn’t proved that he'knew-that the lumber extended out. It would be Ms duty to know, as it was the duty of the additional defendant here to know *580whether his place of business had moved from the sidewalk into the street where it had no right, under any circumstance, to be.
I would affirm the judgment of the lower court holding the additional defendant liable.