Court Opinion

ID: 9765867
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:22:48.924496+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:16.267881
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Me. Justice Musmanno:
John Karcesky, 50 years of age, and his wife, 40, started out after dinner on March 15, 1951, for a leisurely evening in Beaver Falls, their home town. They window-shopped, stopped at several stores, looked over the offerings at a couple of movies and finally decided to take in the show at the Granada theatre on Seventh Avenue. Seventh Avenue is a wide thoroughfare, measuring 66 feet from curb to curb and accommodating not only 4 lanes of traffic but supplying space on either side for diagonal parking. Arriving about 7:30 at a point on Seventh Avenue between 12th and 13th Streets, the plaintiffs proceeded to cross from the east to the west side. The street was clear of traffic .with the exception of a car about 400 feet away to their left on Seventh Avenue in the vicinity of the intersecting 11th Street. To the Karceskys’ right the traffic was stopped by a red light at 13th Street. They crossed the first two lanes of Seventh Avenue (northbound), and were just about at the center of the street when the traffic from the right (which had been stopped at 13th Street about 250 feet away) now began to move southwardly. The car to the left which had been first seen 400 feet away (and later identified as a Cadillac driven by Sam Laria) was now slowly *239moving np Seventh Avenue northwardly toward 12th Street, but still 140 feet away. While standing in the center of the highway waiting for the traffic in front of them (that is, moving southwardly from 13th Street to 12th Street on Seventh Avenue) to pass, both the Karceskys were struck by the Laria car from the rear. One of the cars moving from 13th Street, a Ford driven by Arvid R. Werner, arrived at the scene of the accident just as the plaintiffs were being struck by the Laria car.
At the ensuing court trial the jury returned verdicts in favor of the Karceskys against both Laria and Werner. This Court has now rendered a judgment n.o.v. in favor of Werner. I believe that, aside from the brush mark on Werner’s car, there was sufficient circumstantial evidence to show that his car arrived on the scene in time to contribute to the vehicular battering to which both plaintiffs were subjected. The proof of Laria’s negligence was direct and unequivocal. There was no reason for Laria not to have seen the Karceskys long before he reached them. Seventh Avenue at this point is a veritable river of concrete on which any person must stand out as conspicuously as a black object on a white sheet. Had Laria displayed the slightest concern about the Karceskys on the street the accident would not have occurred because with the plaintiffs admittedly in the very center of the highway, Laria would not have been where, given the width of the highway, he had no need to be. Laria’s testimony factually convicts him of a high degree of negligence: “Q. Now, while you were crossing Twelfth Street on Seventh Avenue, did you become aware of anybody on the street ahead of you — any persons or people: A. I seen two people standing there as I drive along, around the center of the block — I imagine right outside the Rio. Q. I don’t get that answer. What *240is that? A. Right in the center of the block, I seen two people standing. I didn’t know who they were. Q. In the center of what block? A. The center of thirteen — between Twelfth and Thirteenth Street. Q. You mean, you judged that they were about halfway between Twelfth and Thirteenth, is that it? A. Before that- — before I reached to that, I seen, the way I was driving, this way— Q. Yes? A. Out of the corner of my eye, I seen the people standing in the center of the street. . . Q. As you approached them, go ahead and tell us what happened. A. I just go along the way I was driving. I look the corner of my eye, this left eye. I seen something fell, but I stopped immediately, just dead, so I get off the car, and I seen two people was laying there, one alongside — ” (Italics supplied)
It is obvious from this testimony that Laria would have done better if, instead of relying only on the corner of his eye, he had used the entire cornea. Anyone who drives on a main highway restricting his vision of pedestrians in the very center of the highway to the corner of his eye admits by that very statement a culpable indifference to the rights of people in his path of travel. There is no possible explanation for the accident except on the basis of Laria’s negligence. The plaintiffs stood before him as vividly as ten pins in a bowling alley and, as it developed, he practically accepted them as such targets.
I have devoted this much attention to the negligence feature of this case because of the theory advanced in the Majority Opinion that the inadequacy of the verdicts returned by the jury was possibly due to a conclusion reached by them that the defendant’s negligence had not been definitively established.
The Majority justifies its refusal of a new trial on any ground of inadequacy by citing the case of Carp*241enelli v. Scranton Bus Company, 350 Pa. 184. In fact, the Majority says that “Factually, the instant case is on all fours with Carpenelli v. Scranton Bus Company, 350 Pa., supra,” and then quotes from the Carpenelli case as follows: “. . . When liability is admitted by the defendant, or when the evidence is clearly preponderant in favor of the plaintiff, it is likewise possible to say, with some fair measure of certainty, whether the verdict properly covered the items of damage for which recovery should have been allowed or whether it was inadequate. But when the evidence is equally divided in weight, or, a fortiori, when the preponderance of testimony is clearly with the defendant and the verdict rendered for the plaintiff, while small, is substantial, the problem becomes one of an entirely different nature, for in such event it can no more reasonably be said that the plaintiff recovered too little than that he should not have recovered at all; therefore, in such a case, it is just as likely, or more likely, that the granting of a new trial would constitute an act of injustice to the defendant rather than one of justice to the plaintiff.”
The Karceskys are entitled or not entitled to a verdict and if the facts justify a verdict they should receive the full measure of the damages which the injuries warrant. John Karcesky’s doctor and medical bills for both himself and his wife totaled $2,750. Their total damages in expenses and loss of wages amounted to $7,350, excluding impairment of earning-power and pain and suffering, both substantial items. Yet the combined verdict amounted to only $5,000. When a verdict is $2,350 less than the actual out-of-pocket expenses, it is obviously inadequate and, being inadequate, something less than justice has been done. The Carpenelli case seeks to rationalize injustices of *242this character by stating that, it is possible the plaintiff should have received no verdict at all,
.1 believe that the time, has come, to retire the Garpenelli case as authority. -It, cannot be supported in law or in logic. It is obvious that when the evidence in a trespass case does not prove negligence the plaintiff receives nothing. This Court has reversed countless verdicts, entering judgments: n.o.v., on the proposition that no negligence was proved against the defendant in the ease. It. has likewise, deprived countless plaintiffs of verdicts on the proposition that although the defendant was .proved guilty of, negligence,. the plaintiff contributed to the happening of. the accident through what is known as contributory negligence. But in the Garpenelli case the Majority, did not say that the defendant was without negligence, nor did it say that the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence. Nonetheless the plaintiff was denied a fully compensatory verdict because, the Majority argued, the plaintiff himself was partly responsible for the accident.
It is to be noted here that the Garpenelli decision was rendered by a Court divided 4 to 3, with the Minority filing a vigorous Dissenting Opinion. Mr. Justice Drew, (later Chief Justice), writing with the concurrence of Chief Justice 'MAxey, and'Mr.. Justice Hughes, said:. “. . It is perfectly clear that the .amount of this verdict .[$3,000]. barely compensates plaintiff for his actual outlay of $2,628.45 for hospital and doctor'.bills, and gives. him .. practically nothing, for the other damages suffered . by, him, aside from the loss of past earnings or diminution of'éarning'capacity.”'
Mr. Justice Drew sáid ..further: “The jury, by its finding in favor of plaintiff, determined that his injuries were caused by defendant’s negligence and that he himself was free Nora contributory negligence. *243It is undisputed that as a result of the accident plaintiff suffered a fractured thigh hone close to the point where it joins his body, that he was confined in the hospital for approximately a year, most of which he spent in bed, that he had three operations up to the time of trial in an attempt to reset and cause the bone to heal, that his leg is still 11/2 inch shorter than the other and there is no complete union of the ■bone, that he will never be able to follow his trade as a stone mason. It is also undisputed that he has and will continue to suffer much pain and inconvenience.”
In categorically condemning the Majority Opinion, Mr. Justice Drew used the following vigorous language: “After reading this record, I cannot concur in the conclusion which the majority has reached. In view of the very serious and permanent nature of plaintiff’s injuries, his great expense for hospital and medical attendance, the pain and suffering which he has and will endure as a result of the negligence of the defendant, and his loss of past and future earnings, I am convinced that the verdict is, as was said in Palmer v. The Leader Publishing Co., 75 Pa. Superior Ct. 594, 598, so unreasonable as to bring conviction ‘the jury must have been influenced by partiality, passion or prejudice or by some misconception of the law or the evidence.’ Under these circumstances, it is a denial of justice, in my opinion, not to grant a new trial to plaintiff on account of the verdict’s inadequacy.” (Emphasis supplied).
This is another instance in the law where a Minority Opinion could well be the Majority decision and unquestionably will some day express the view of this Court. Vigorous as was Chief Justice Drew’s language in that case it still was restrained in the light of what the Majority Opinion did. It stultified in Pennsylvania the law on inadequacy of verdicts in a *244manner which could throw it into the shadows of wonderment leading to the gloom of disrespect. It agitated the waters of the question as to whether we do or do not have comparative negligence in Pennsylvania without settling them with a definitive expression of policy. In Weir v. Haverford Elect. Light Co., 221 Pa. 611, 617, this Court said: “The doctrine of comparative negligence has not been recognized in our State. Any negligence on the part of a plaintiff that contributes to, and is the proximate cause of, his injury defeats his action. There can be no balancing or matching of degrees of negligence.”
In 1943, in the case of Kasanovich v. George, 348 Pa. 199, Mr. Justice Stern (now Chief Justice and the writer of the Majority Opinion in the Carpenelli case) said: “At the outset it may be well to reiterate what was said in Weir v. Haverford Electric Light Co., 221 Pa. 611, 617, 70 A. 874, 876: 'The doctrine of comparative negligence has not been recognized in our state. Any negligence on the part of a plaintiff that contributes to, and is the proximate cause of, his injury defeats his action. There can be no balancing or matching of degrees of negligence.’ ”
Yet, the following year, Chief Justice Stern in the Carpenelli case practically invoked the doctrine of comparative negligence through the argument that the plaintiff should be satisfied with the unsatisfactory verdict he received because: “In the number of witnesses, in their disinterestedness, in the clarity of their testimony as to the happening of the accident, in the plausibility of their version of the occurrence, — in all these factors the advantage- was markedly on the side of defendant.”
The Court below in the Carpenelli case said: “The verdict seemed to the court to be merely a sympathetic verdict, not warranted by the weight of the evidence.” *245This would indicate that the Trial Court also invoked the comparative negligence doctrine and the Majority of this Court did not see fit to disavow it.
I agree with the Minority of the Court in the Garpenelli case that the Majority decision was unjust, but the wounds it inflicted on Carpenelli have probably been healed by the poultice of time. However, the harm of the Garpenelli decision lies in the fact that as an unsheathed sword it goes on inflicting wounds on others, as indeed it has now been used in the case at bar to deprive, in my opinion, the Karceskys of a verdict commensurate with the losses they have sustained.
It is somewhat comforting to note that one decision recently handed down may serve to blunt a little the sharp edge of the Garpenelli sword. Chief Justice Stern said in the Garpenelli case: “Indeed, it would seem that it is only where the verdict was merely nominal that the appellate courts have looked askance on a refusal of the trial court to set it aside and grant a new trial.” Commenting on this statement in the case of Nikisher v. Benninger, 377 Pa. 564, 567, Mr. Justice Allen Stearns said: “But by the use of this language we did not state, or intend to decide, that a new trial because of inadequacy would be granted only where the verdict was nominalThus, in the case at bar it seems to me that a new trial should not be refused merely because the sum awarded by the jury is not merely nominal. Five thousand dollars is a substantial sum but it can never fill a pocket book that has already been emptied of at least $7,350.
I have said, and I repeat, that the logic in the Majority Opinion in the Carpenelli case leaves much to be desired. There, Mr. Chief Justice Stern said: “When the complaint is that a verdict is excessive the problem is comparatively simple, because a conclusion may *246fairly be reached as to the maximum amount to which the plaintiff was entitled and therefore any sum beyond that amount necessarily represents an improper recovery.”
Thus, he finds an easy solution when the verdict is excessive but encounters a problem when the verdict is inadequate. But if the jury has returned a verdict for the plaintiff, why should the determination as to whether it is inadequate be any more difficult than the ascertainment as to whether it is excessive? Assuming that in a given case a reasonable verdict should be $10,000, why would it be easy to say that a verdict of $13,000 would be too much, but it would be a problem to say that $7,000 is not enough? Why is it that when the verdict is less than it might reasonably be, according to the proof of injuries and losses, the Court must then weigh the evidence as to the negligence when the jury has already passed on the issue of negligence? Of course, where the verdict is clearly against the weight of the evidence, the remedy of a new trial is quickly available. But if the verdict is not against the weight of the evidence, on what authority of law may an appellate court take out an apothecary scale to determine whether, in the words of Chief Justice Stern, “the evidence is equally divided” or that “the preponderance of testimony is clearly with the defendant,” and on that basis decree that the verdict should be less than what the proof of damages shows?
If the slightest degree of contributory negligence will deny the plaintiff any recovery at all, no matter how negligent the defendant may be (excluding, of course, wanton misconduct), on what basis can the plaintiff be denied a full recovery where contributory negligence is not proved? On the other hand, if there is no adjudication of contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff and there is adjudication of neg*247ligence on. the part of the defendant, on what basis can an appellate court intervene to whittle down a verdict by assuming that the plaintiff probably was guilty of some contributory negligence and the defendant may have not been too guilty of negligence? An appellate court could interfere in such a situation only by proclaiming the doctrine of comparative negligence. Do we then have that doctrine in Pennsylvania?
As above indicated, this Court declared in Weir v. Haverford Elect. Light Co., supra, and in Kasanovich v. George, supra, and recently in Hucaluk v. Clyde Realty Co., 378 Pa. 169, that Pennsylvania is not a comparative-negligence State, Yet the CarpenelU decision is acceptable only on the basis that it placed comparative negligence on the scales of decision. And now that the CarpenelU case has been, cited in the case at bar as authority for affirmance of an inadequate verdict, does that mean that this Court stamps an imprimatur on comparative negligence? If it does, then the doctrine must be applied methodically and not spasmodically. This Court or the Legislature will need to establish procedure and norms of appraisal such as perhaps those which are now embodied in the Federal Employers Liability Act.
However, until that is done, I believe that the views expressed by the Minority in the CarpenelU case should be recognized as the law of this State. On that basis I believe that this Court, in the interests of justice and clarity in the law, should overrule the CarpenelU decision as being unworthy of the jurisprudence of Pennsylvania.