Court Opinion

ID: 9764487
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:24:27.459092+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:57.315172
License: Public Domain

WIEAND, Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. John Altiere, the plaintiff, did not have cancer and did not claim damages for cancer. His claim, rather, was for the risk or fear of getting cancer in the future because of prior exposure to asbestos. His own medical expert, Dr. Donald Auerbach, testified to the statistical risk of cancer among persons who indulged in smoking and/or were exposed to asbestos dust. He said that: (1) in a group of people exposed to neither cigarette smoke nor asbestos, the incidence of cancer each year would be eleven (11) persons in a population of 100,000; (2) in a group exposed to cigarette smoke and not asbestos, the incidence of cancer each year would be 120 persons in a population of 100,000; (3) in a group exposed to asbestos and not cigarette smoke, the incidence of cancer each year would be 55 persons in a group of 100,000; and (4) in a group exposed to both asbestos and cigarette smoke, as was Altiere, the incidence of cancer each year was 600 persons in a population of 100,000. This evidence, in my judgment, was relevant to assist a jury in evaluating Altiere’s claim for the risk of future cancer because of his prior exposure to asbestos. Not only was it relevant but, in my judgment, the evidence was sufficient to permit a jury to apportion damages for the “risk” of possible, future cancer between smoking and exposure to asbestos. To hold, in the face of such evidence, that either exposure to asbestos or cigarette smoking, without apportionment, was wholly responsible for Altiere’s risk of future cancer flies in the teeth of both medical science and public knowledge.
Section 433A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts provides as follows:
*305§ 433A. Apportionment of Harm to Causes
(1) Damages for harm are to be apportioned among two or more causes where
(a) there are distinct harms, or
(b) there is a reasonable basis for determining the contribution of each cause to a single harm.
(2) Damages for any other harm cannot be apportioned among two or more causes.
In Martin v. Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp., 515 Pa. 377, 528 A.2d 947 (1987), the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania adopted § 433A of the Restatement and held that a trial court had erred when it permitted a jury to apportion damages without evidence to establish a reasonable basis on which to make an apportionment between asbestosis and emphysema. The Martin court reasoned:
The jury, although presented with a great deal of testimony concerning appellant’s history and physical condition, was provided no guidance in determining the relative contributions of asbestos exposure and cigarette smoking to appellant’s disability. In fact, two experts testified that such a determination was not possible. A situation analagous [sic] to the instant case arose in Offensend v. Atlantic Refining Co., supra [322 Pa. 399, 185 A. 745 (1936) ]. There, a jury award of damages for aggravation of an existing tubercular condition was modified (reduced), because the expert testimony did not address the duration of the aggravation. “If the doctors were not in a position to make an estimate of the extent of the aggravation in point of time, the jury should not have been allowed to hazard a guess beyond the period shown with reasonable certainty.” Id., 322 Pa. at 404, 185 A. 745. Here, as in Offensend, the jury cannot be expected to draw conclusions which medical experts, relying on the same evidence, could not draw. The causes of disability in this case do not lend themselves to separation by lay-persons on any reasonable basis. Thus, common sense and common experience possessed by a jury do not serve as substitutes for expert guidance, and it follows that any apportionment by the jury in this case was a result of *306speculation and conjecture and hence, improper. “Rough approximation” is no substitute for justice.
Id. at 515 Pa. 384-385, 528 A.2d at 950 (footnotes omitted). See also: Taylor v. Celotex Corp., 393 Pa.Super. 566, 591, 574 A.2d 1084, 1097 (1990).
In the instant case, however, the basis for making an apportionment between the causes for a risk of future cancer is persuasive. Altiere’s claim that he fears a future incidence of cancer is, by its very nature, speculative. No one can predict with medical certainty whether he will be afflicted by cancer in the future. The best we can do is look to the statistical evidence. If we can rely upon this evidence— without it, there is only speculation—to assess the value of Altiere’s claim that he may get cancer in the future, I am at a loss to understand why the same statistical evidence will not form a basis for apportioning responsibility for such risk between the asbestos to which Altiere has been exposed and the smoking of cigarettes in which he continues to indulge.
I would hold that it was error for the trial court in this case to refuse to allow the jury to apportion responsibility for the “risk” of future cancer between smoking and exposure to asbestos. Therefore, I dissent. I would reverse and remand for a new trial.