Court Opinion

ID: 9489085
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:05:20.136354+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:18.711231
License: Public Domain

STAPLETON, Circuit Judge,
Dissenting:
Because I conclude that Fedorczyek has produced sufficient evidence to allow a reasonable jury to infer causation, I would reverse and remand for trial.
Comment b to Restatement (Second) of Torts § 433B (1965) is directly on point:
The fact of causation is incapable of mathematical proof, since no man can say with absolute certainty what would have occurred if the defendant had acted otherwise. If, as a matter of ordinary experience, a particular act or omission might be expected to produce a particular result, and if that result has in fact followed, the conclusion may be justified that the causal relationship exists. In drawing that conclusion, the triers of fact are permitted to draw upon ordinary human experience as to the probabilities of the case.
Illustration 3, which provides an example of the application of this principle, is similar to the present case:
The A Railroad Company fails to use reasonable care to light a steep and winding stairway leading from its waiting room to the train platform. B, an elderly and corpulent woman, is in the room waiting for a train. The attendant calls out the train. B hurries down the steps, and misses her footing in the dusk on the unlighted stair, falls, and is injured. On the basis of common experience that absence of light increases the likelihood of such a fall, and that people do not ordinarily fall on properly lighted stairs, it may be found that the absence of light was a substantial factor in causing the fall.
Id. More specifically, Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts § 41 (5th ed.1984) explains that a conclusion of causation is permissible where “the injury which has in fact occurred is precisely the sort of thing that proper care on the part of the defendant would be intended to prevent.” Id. at 270.
I would resolve this appeal using these basic principles. Fedrorczyck’s expert testified that the bathtub was too slippery to be reasonably safe because it had insufficient abrasive strips. Fedorczyek was standing in the bathtub and she fell. Her fall is precisely the type of injury that adequate abrasive strips were designed to prevent. Moreover, one could eoneludé based on everyday experience that while falls do occur in bathtubs that are not too slippery, they are not routine. Accordingly, a reasonable jury could infer that Fedorczyk’s fall was caused by the unsafe condition of the tub. While I agree with the court that Fedorczyek cannot invoke res ipsa loquitur, “[a] res ipsa loquitur case is ... merely one kind of case of circumstantial evidence, in which the jury may reasonably infer ... causation from the mere occurrence of the event and the defendant’s relation to it.” Restatement (Second) of Torts § 328D cmt. b (emphasis added).