Court Opinion

ID: 9756158
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 21:10:21.266017+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:15.061972
License: Public Domain

CAVANAUGH, Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. As noted by the majority, the trial court charged the jury with respect to the rescue doctrine as follows:
Now, members of the jury, there is a theory of law which you must consider in your deliberations, and that is where a person places another person or himself, where he negligently places another person or himself in a position which in the natural and normal course of events invites rescue, he is liable to the person who comes to his rescue for any injury which that person may suffer in the attempted rescue, provided, of course, that the person who attempts the rescue acts reasonable in attempting to effect that rescue.
The court further charged with respect to contributory negligence.
Now, I have indicated to you what negligence is, but there is another phrase used in these cases that is called contributory negligence. Contributory negligence refers to the plaintiff. It refers to conduct on the part of the plaintiff which falls below the standard to which he should conform for his own protection and which is a legally contributing cause cooperating with the negligence of the defendant in bringing about the plaintiffs harm. Regardless of whether the defendant was negligent, if you find that the plaintiff contributed to the accident by any negligence of his own, then it is said he is guilty of contributory negligence.
In addition, the court charged on negligence as to the defendant and further charged that if negligence be found, it must be a proximate cause of the incident. In so charging, I believe that the court effectively emasculated the *523rescue doctrine as it applies to this case. The majority reduces the rescue doctrine to ordinary negligence principles. (Was either part causatively negligent and, if so, what is the percentage of negligence?) In so doing, the majority strips the rescue doctrine of two of the principles upon which it is founded: first that the imperiled person’s negligence is actionable even though it be antecedent and, secondly, that the rescuer be excused from a standard of ordinary deliberative care. The majority recognizes that Pennsylvania in 1900 adopted the rescue doctrine and opined that a rescuer could only be barred from recovery by acts on his part which were "unmistakable evidence of his rashness and imprudence.” Corbin v. City of Philadelphia, 195 Pa. 461, 469, 45 A. 1070, 1072 (1900). To have denied appellant the benefit of this standard in the charge to the jury was, in my opinion, error. Further, I would hold that the court erred in its charge with respect to causation and comparative negligence. Causation is not a separate consideration in determining the applicability of the rescue doctrine. In the first portion of the court’s charge above, the jury was correctly told that if one negligently places himself in a position [which invites rescue] he is liable to the person who, coming to the rescue, suffers injury. Thus, the jury must, in order to apply the doctrine, find that one has invited rescue, and that the rescuer has responded to the invitation. If the jury finds that the facts call for the imposition of the doctrine it has nécessarily resolved any issue as to causation on the part of the imperiled person. The only remaining question is whether the rescuer acted with rashness or imprudence. Corbin v. City of Philadelphia, supra; Altamuro v. Milner Hotel, Inc., 540 F.Supp. 870 (E.D. Pa. 1972); Simmons v. Pennsylvania Railroad CO., 2 Pa.D. & C.2d 233 (1955).
I would further depart from the majority by holding that there should be no application of comparative negligence since the rescuer is excused from ordinary negligence and there should be no attempt to measure the conduct of the rescuer unless it amounts to rashness or imprudence. On *524the other hand, if the jury were to conclude that the rescuer did act with rashness or imprudence there should be no recovery. I recognize that the majority follows existing authority from- other jurisdictions in its reliance on Cords v. Anderson, 80 Wis.2d 525, 259 N.W.2d 672 (1977); Ryder Truck Rental, Inc. v. Korte, 357 So.2d 228 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App. 1978) but I conclude that the rescue doctrine, a unique theory of tort recovery, was not contemplated by and is not covered by the comparative negligence statute. (There are other instances where the comparative negligence statute does not supercede doctrines which permit recovery even in the face of a plaintiffs ordinary negligence — as for example, products liability or cases involving a defendant’s willful and wanton misconduct.)
Rather than rely on Cords, supra, and Ryder Truck, supra, I find the reasoning in a case which refused to follow these authorities far more compelling. Furka v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co., 755 F.2d 1085 (4th Cir. 1985), involved a suit for the death of a seaman who drowned in an attempt to rescue a fellow employee on the Chesapeake Bay. The jury found for plaintiff in the amount of $1,200,000, but also found that the decedent was sixty-five percent contributorily negligent, thus reducing the verdict under applicable federal law to $420,000. Plaintiff appealed, alleging that the trial court committed reversible error when it charged the jury that the decedent’s conduct was to be judged by ordinary standards of negligence. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, reversing on the ground that the charge to the jury, though not objected to by plaintiff, constituted plain and fundamental error, explained:
The submission to the jury of the question of Furka’s contributory negligence without reference to the special context of rescue ignored the very premise upon which appellant’s case was based. The instruction in this case failed to inform the jury that no contributory negligence may be inferred from a rescue attempt alone and further that no comparative fault may be assessed unless plain*525tiff’s conduct was wanton or reckless. As stated long ago by Justice Cardoza, “Danger invites rescue. The cry of distress is the summons to relief. The law does not ignore the reactions of the mind in tracing conduct to its consequences. It recognizes them as normal.” Wagner v. International Ry. Co., 232 N.Y. 176, 133 N.E. 437 (1921).
The common law doctrine of rescue may be succinctly stated: “[T]he law has so high a regard for human life that it will not impute negligence to an effort to preserve it, unless made under such circumstances as to constitute rashness.” Scott v. John H. Hampshire, Inc., 246 Md. 171, 227 A.2d 751, 753-754 (1967), quoting Maryland Steel Co. v. Marney, 88 Md. 482, 42 A. 60, 66 (1898). See also Altamuro v. Milner Hotel, Inc., 540 F.Supp. 870 (E.D.Pa.1982); Brown v. National Oil Co., 233 S.C. 345, 105 S.E.2d 81 (1958); Andrews v. Appalachian Electric Power Co., 192 Va. 150, 63 S.E.2d 750 (1951). When confronted with an emergency, a rescuer “should not be charged with the consequences of errors of judgment resulting from the excitement and confusion of the moment____” Corbin v. Philadelphia, 195 Pa. 461, 45 A. 1070, 1074 (1900); see also Rodgers v. Carter, 266 N.C. 564, 146 S.E.2d 806, 810 (1966); Restatement (Second) of Torts § 470(1) (1965). In rescue, promptness may be prudence, and reflex may claim the seat of reason.
Whether or not there was a rescue attempt is, of course, a question for the jury. If the jury finds plaintiff engaged in a rescue, there must be evidence of wanton or reckless behavior on plaintiff’s part before any fault may be assigned. This is the standard traditionally applied to the conduct of plaintiffs in rescue situations. See, e.g., Scott v. John H. Hampshire, Inc., (standard of “dangerous but not reckless” behavior), 246 Md. 171, 227 A.2d 751, 753, citing Maryland Steel Co. v. Marney, 42 A. 60, 66 (“Rashness”); Brown v. National Oil Co., (“wanton or foolhardy”), 233 S.C. 345, 105 S.E.2d 81, 87; Andrews v. Appalachian Electric Power Co., (“rash” or “reck*526less”), 192 Va. 150, 63 S.E.2d 750, 757 Wagner v. International Ry. (“wanton”), 232 N.Y. 176, 133 N.E. 437, 438; Corbin v. Philadelphia, (“rashness and imprudence”), 45 A. 1070, 1073.
We reject appellee’s contention that these policies lose their force under the Jones Act, where the doctrine of comparative negligence applies damages proportionately. It is true that the “wanton and reckless” standard developed under the common law, where contributory negligence was a complete bar to recovery. In some comparative negligence jurisdictions, not in admiralty, the wanton and reckless standard has thus been diluted. See, e.g., Cords v. Anderson, 80 Wis.2d 525, 259 N.E.2d 672, 683 (1977); Ryder Truck Rental, Inc. v. Korte, 357 So.2d 228 (Fla.App.1978). We do not think that is the appropriate course here. ... The wanton and reckless standard reflects the value society places upon rescue as much as any desire to avoid a total defeat of recovery under common law. Law must encourage an environment where human instinct is not insular but responds to the plight of another in peril. (Footnotes omitted.)
755 F.2d 1088-1089.
The Court of Appeals found no intention on the part of Congress to alter the salutary common law rescue doctrine, as exemplified by Corbin v. City of Philadelphia, supra, when Congress prQvided for the application of comparative negligence in the Federal Employers Liability Act (45 U.S.C. § 53), which was incorporated in the Jones Act (46 U.S.C. § 688). Neither can I find such an abrogative intention on the part of the Pennsylvania legislature when it passed the Comparative Negligence Act, 42 Pa.C.S. § 7102.
I would add that, if in fact, ordinary principles of legal causation apply, I would agree with the majority that the court’s charge that “Proximate means immediate, nearest, next in causal connection” was in error. I would, however, also find the error to be harmful so as to merit reversal. In the context of this case, an application of this definition leads inevitably to the conclusion that the negligence of *527appellant was the cause of the incident, since her negligence was clearly the most immediate, nearest, next in order and closest in causal connection as compared with the appellee’s negligence which was at the time passive in nature. That the jury struggled with the causation issue is demonstrated by the fact that they asked for further instructions as to the meaning of “substantial” and asked for a dictionary.
I would grant a new trial.