Court Opinion

ID: 9651626
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:29:17.527098+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:36.878769
License: Public Domain

FLAHERTY, Justice,
dissenting.
It is a fundamental precept of tort law that a plaintiff must prove causation. The majority now finds liability in a case totally devoid of evidence that the defendant’s negligence caused the plaintiff’s injury. I dissent.
*28The late Justice Musmanno based liability in Kotal v. Goldberg, 375 Pa. 397, 100 A.2d 630 (1953), on evidence that the defendant was driving at an excessive rate of speed. This case, by contrast, presents no evidence of negligence, unless it be asserted that driving after consuming an unspecified quantity of alcohol over an unspecified period, without more, constitutes negligence, which is not the law, or that driving while fatigued is negligent. Such an assertion would be tantamount to applying a novel strict liability standard to the activity of automobile driving — a standard unprecedented in this context.
The trial court correctly analyzed the plaintiffs case. The evidence of beer drinking was not evidence of intoxication. Compounding the problem was the total absence of evidence that intoxication, if it were present, caused the accident. Clearly, a plaintiff need not “eliminate every conceivable cause of an accident in order to recover,” or, in Justice Musmanno’s graphic parlance, “produce a blue print to show why the offending motorist acted in the manner he did.” But the plaintiff must produce some evidence of negligence, as he did in Kotal, where there was proof of undue speed. The Kotal court stated:
It is not a case of res ipsa loquitur, for negligence is not presumed from the mere happening of the accident, but from the circumstances under which it occurred____ An automobile when driven along a dry level road in daylight at proper speed and under control is not accustomed to leave the pavement____
Id., 375 Pa. at 401, 100 A.2d at 632 (emphasis added). The eyewitness testimony of excessive speed in Kotal provided the predicate for a finding of negligence. The absence of such evidence in this case required the trial judge to enter a compulsory nonsuit. The majority’s view, that negligence may be presumed from the mere occurrence of the accident, is clearly erroneous.
McDERMOTT and ZAPPALA, JJ., join this dissenting opinion.