Court Opinion

ID: 9635533
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:53:43.038188+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:56:09.969847
License: Public Domain

NIX, Justice,
concurring.
Initially, it will be noted that I am in full accord with the majority’s rejection of the trial court’s finding that the evidence in the case did not present a jury question as to whether appellee was negligent in permitting his property to become and remain in a pronounced state of disrepair and to be left vacant, open and abandoned. As the majority correctly notes, under our established law:
“ ‘A possessor of land is subject to liability to others outside of the land for physical harm caused by the disrepair of a structure ... if the exercise of reasonable care . . . would have made it reasonably safe by repair or otherwise.’ Section 365 of the Restatement of Torts, Second. See McCarthy v. Ference, 358 Pa. 485, 58 A.2d 49 (1948).”
This rule is clearly appropriate in instances where the physical harm resulting from the disrepair of the structure is fire damage. The danger of fire is certainly within the ambit of risks occasioned by the conduct of a property owner who allows his premises to fall in such a state of disrepair that it becomes a fire hazard, and the adjoining property owners are within the class of persons likely to be harmed thereby. If the jury determines from the evidence that the property owner could have abated the hazard and made the premises reasonably safe “by repair or otherwise”, the owner’s failure to do so may properly be considered a failure to exercise reasonable care, therefore justifying a finding of negligence.
*599Another basis for the trial court’s decision to grant the motion for a compulsory nonsuit, however, was that court’s conclusion that appellant had failed to introduce testimony to meet her burden of proving “that [defendant’s] negligence was the proximate cause of the plaintiff’s loss.” It is undisputed that the instant record fails to provide any basis for determining the origin of the fire. It is therefore urged that there can be no basis for a finding that the state of disrepair of appellee’s property was in fact a legal cause for the resulting damage to appellant’s property. In essence the argument presupposes that in absence of positive evidence that the dilapidated condition substantially contributed to either the start of the fire or its spread, we must hold as a matter of law that appellant has failed to establish that the condition was a legal cause and thus there would be no basis upon which to fasten upon appellee the responsibility for appellant’s loss. The majority rather superficially responds to this contention by suggesting that it then becomes a question of fact to be resolved by the jury. In my judgment this question is the heart of the issue presented and requires further amplification.
I believe the case is correctly decided because where it is established that a property has been allowed through the negligence of its owner to become and remain in such a deteriorated and dilapidated condition that it constitutes a fire hazard, and further, where it is shown that a fire of unknown origin actually occurs within the premises which results in damage to adjoining properties, such evidence is sufficient to give rise to a permissible inference that the owner’s alleged negligence was a substantial factor in either causing the ignition or facilitating the spread of the conflagration resulting in the loss to the adjoining property owners. When such evidence is in the case, the liability of the allegedly negligent property owner is a question properly left for resolution by the jury. The principle as stated is merely a procedural doctrine, the effect of which is to raise an inference to a causal nexus between the alleged negligence and the harm, and to shift to the defendant the *600burden of going forward with the evidence, thus taking all such cases to the jury.
At the outset, it should be noted that while the rule I espouse in this opinion is novel to this jurisdiction, the theory upon which it is based is well established in the law of other jurisdictions. The general rule appears to be that an owner of property is not liable for the spread of fire started upon the owner’s property by a stranger or by some other cause with which the owner has no connection, where he has not been negligent with respect to the condition of his premises. See Annot. 18 A.L.R.2d 1081, 1093-95. However, the critical question in determining the property owner’s liability turns upon whether his neglect has rendered the condition of the premises a fire hazard. A number of jurisdictions have held that an owner of property which has been negligently left in such a condition that it is easy for a fire to ignite thereon, or to spread to neighboring premises, is liable for damage resulting from a fire even though the fire starts by pure accident, by an act of a third party or some other source for which he would not otherwise be held responsible. See Scally v. Pacific Gas & Electric Co., 23 Cal.App.3d 806, 100 Cal.Rptr. 501 (1970); Reid & Sibell, Inc. v. Gilmore & Edwards Co., 134 Cal.App.2d 60, 285 P.2d 364 (1955); Little v. Lynn & Marblehead Real Estate Co., 301 Mass. 156, 16 N.E.2d 688 (1938); Menth v. Breeze Co., 4 N.J. 428, 73 A.2d 183 (1950); Arneil v. Schnitzer, 173 Or. 179, 144 P.2d 707 (1944); Prince v. Chehalis Savings & Loan Assoc., 186 Wash. 372, 58 P.2d 290, aff’d on reh., 186 Wash. 377, 61 P.2d 1374 (1936); Annot., 18 A.L.R.2d 1081, 1095; Annot., 111 A.L.R. 1140, 1148; 22 Am.Jur., Fires, § 12 (1957). The Washington Supreme Court, in Prince v. Chehalis Savings & Loan Association, supra, stated the rule as follows:
“[EJvidence as to the prigin of the fire is not a necessary element to entitle a recovery where the property causing the fire has gotten into such a condition that it creates a fire hazard, and that, if fire should occur in it, it is reasonably probable that it would spread to the adjacent property.” Id. at 375, 58 P.2d at 292.
*601Although not expressly articulated, the rationale for this rule appears to be that where a defendant’s negligence results in the creation of a fire hazard, and a fire actually occurs in the area within which the defendant’s alleged negligence was operating, the factfinder may infer that the hazard so created was a substantial factor in producing the injury, i.e., fire damage. This inference of causation is not conclusive, and unlike a rebuttable presumption, may be rejected by the factfinder even in absence of evidence contrary to the inferred fact. See Wigmore, Evidence, § 2490 (3d Ed. 1940). When the evidence in a case establishes that the condition created by the defendant’s negligence actually constituted a fire hazard; that is, created an unreasonable risk that a fire might ignite thereon, or an unreasonable risk that a fire, once ignited, would spread to adjoining premises; and that a conflagration actually occurred thereon, it does no violence to our jurisprudence to permit the factfinder to conclude, solely from these facts, if it chooses to do so, that there existed a causal relationship between the conduct of the defendant landowner and the resultant harm.1
The policy reasons underlying the inference of causation in the factual context of the instant case derive from the reality of today’s congested urban society and the inherent dangers that neglected and dilapidated premises present to the lives and property of adjoining residents. Further, the use of this procedural device is justified since the property owner has possession and control of the premises and is in a much better position to obtain information or evidence re*602garding the cause of a conflagration occurring thereon. Our law recognizes that a defendant’s exclusive control of an instrumentality causing injury is one circumstance which will invoke this Commonwealth’s procedural rule allowing a permissible inference of negligence to be drawn against that defendant. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 328D, comment g (1965); Gilbert v. Korvette’s, Inc., 457 Pa. 602, 327 A.2d 94 (1974). The application of this exclusive control rationale to circumstances permitting an inference of a causal nexus between negligence and injury is not novel. Indeed, the California Supreme Court adopted this reasoning in its landmark decision in Summers v. Tice, 33 Cal.2d 80, 199 P.2d 1 (1948), explaining that:
“ . . . ‘the particular force and justice of the rule . consists in the circumstance that the chief evidence of the true cause, whether culpable or innocent, is practically accessible to [the defendant] but inaccessible to the injured person.’ ” Id. at 87, 199 P.2d at 4, quoting from, Ybarra v. Spangard, 25 Cal.2d 486, 490, 154 P.2d 687, 689 (1943).
It should be emphasized that I do not go as far as the Tice Court, since here I am only suggesting a permissible inference of causation, whereas in that case the Court articulated a rebuttable presumption of cause.
Finally, the distinction sought to be made by the majority between this Court’s decision in Githens, Rexsamer & Co., Inc. v. Wildstein, 443 Pa. 480, 277 A.2d 157 (1971), and the issue presented in this appeal is in my judgment without substance. In each instance the question posed was whether or not the condition of the property was sufficiently related to the harm as to justify a finding that the defendant’s conduct was a legal cause. In fact, there was probably a stronger basis in Githens for arguing that the hazardous condition there alleged created an unreasonable risk that a fire once started would spread than there is here for concluding that the instant condition increased the risk that a fire might ignite.
ROBERTS and POMEROY, JJ., join in this opinion.

. The question of whether the condition of the premises in fact constituted a “fire hazard”, such as will give rise to the permissible inference of causation, must be resolved by the jury. In this respect, I therefore do not believe that the meaning of fire hazard must be confined to solely an “accumulation of combustible or inflammable materials” on the premises. See Menth v. Breeze Co., 4 N.J. 428, 73 A.2d 183 (1950). In my judgment, the fact of an accumulation of combustibles is only one basis for concluding that a particular property is in fact a fire hazard. The plaintiff has the responsibility of producing competent evidence to demonstrate that the deteriorated condition of the premises did in fact render it a fire hazard. Once such testimony has been introduced, it is then appropriate for the finder of fact to resolve the issue.