Court Opinion

ID: 9707043
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:59:37.769323+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:27.356763
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Montgomery, J.:
I fail to find in this record any evidence of negligence on the part of the appellant-defendant, Allegheny County, creating the cause of plaintiff’s fall. Admittedly, in the operation of this outdoor skating rink, one of the underlying pipes through which the freezing solution flowed did not function as well as the others, resulting in a softening of the ice in that area when the outside temperature arose above the freezing mark. However, there is absolutely no evidence that such a condition existed on the night of this accident. The only evidence as to the accident is that given by plaintiff, to the effect that shortly before 8:30 p.m., after *316standing on the side line with his skates on, smoking and watching the skaters go by, he went on the ice and took several strides with the flow of skaters, counterclockwise on the rink; that after traveling 15 to 20 feet his foot stopped and he fell straight forward on his right shoulder but did not slide on the ice; that as he pulled himself back up his hand touched the ice, the condition of which he described as soft, mostly wet, his hand sinking into it “to a certain extent. It wasn’t like it would be like hard ice.”
Plaintiff’s witness, William Zader, described the troublesome condition, aforementioned, when it occurred, as being about one foot wide, 25 feet or more from the place where plaintiff entered the ice and extending across the rink. He also testified that the condition occurred when the outside temperature reached 38 or 40 degrees.
Plaintiff testified further that he watched the skaters pass over this entire area (where he fell) without mishap and that he was not aware of any softening condition of the ice thereabouts prior to the time he arose after his fall. It is also undisputed that the ice had been in use since 7:30 p.m. that evening and that an intermission was about to be called for the purpose of cleaning the fragments of ice, etc., which had accumulated thereon, in preparation for the second half of the session.
In order for the plaintiff to recover damages he must still prove by a fair preponderance of the evidence that the defendant’s negligence was the proximate cause of his accident. Steiner v. Pittsburgh Railways Company, 415 Pa. 549, 204 A. 2d 254 (1964) ; Markle v. Robert Hall Clothes, 411 Pa. 282, 191 A. 2d 374 (1963). In my opinion he has not done so in this case. Too much was left to conjecture. Plaintiff might have fallen because his skate struck a ridge of accumulated ice shavings as he first indicated, or a paper or *317other foreign object, or a cigarette butt which another skater had not placed in the receptacle wherein he had placed his cigarette, or from his own ineptness (he had just renewed his interest in ice skating after a ten or fifteen yearlong layoff therefrom), or for many other reasons which might be imagined.
The duty which the law places on the appellant was to use reasonable care for the safety of its patrons. It was not an insurer of the safety of its patrons. Oberheim v. Pennsylvania Sports and Enterprises, Inc., 358 Pa. 62, 55 A. 2d 766 (1947). It is not unusual for skaters on ice to fall, or for the ice to erode from the contact of the skates with it, or for its degree of smoothness or hardness to vary with its use and the changing temperature of the atmosphere. Snowlike shavings, slush, and water are not unusual on artificially frozen ice.
I would enter judgment n.o.v. for the appellant-defendant on this record. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.
Weight, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.