Court Opinion

ID: 9703816
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:08:33.470856+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:51.846695
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Me. Justice Musmanno:
On the night of February 16, 1957 (10:45 p.m.), the plaintiff Geve Dunmore, 42 years of age, was operating *478his Ford automobile in a southwardly direction on Tilghman Street in the City of Chester. When he came to the point where Tilghman Street is intersected by Seventh Street (a through highway), he stopped at the Stop sign, looked to the right and left to be assured that traffic was clear, and, then being so assured, he entered into the intersection. When halfway through he was struck by an automobile coming from his left on Seventh Street and driven by the defendant, Charles McMillan, thereby sustaining serious injuries. In the ensuing lawsuit which he brought against McMillan he was nonsuited on the averred basis that he did not prove that McMillan was negligent. This appeal followed.
In relating from the witness stand how the accident occurred, the plaintiff explained that he stopped at the •Stop sign and then: “I did not see nothing coming, no cars approaching, no lights. So I looked and I started to cross. When I got out in the street a piece, I kept looking going out in the street, going across. And when I got about the middle of the street, something hit me.” He could not tell what happened after the collision because he was knocked out of his car to the street, rendered unconscious and taken to a hospital.
A disinterested witness, Susie Harper, who was walking along the street at the time of the accident, testified that she saw the plaintiff stop at the Stop sign, that she saw him “look both ways” and that after she had taken two or three steps, she. heard the crash of the cars.
The Majority Opinion says that in considering this case on appeal, “the evidence, together with all reasonable inferences, must be viewed in the light most favorable to the appellant.” Then, applying that rule to the record in the case, it comes to the conclusion that the appellant-plaintiff did not make out a case of negli*479gence against the defendant McMillan. Even without inferences the testimony of the plaintiff showed McMillan to have been negligent. McMillan was driving at night without lights, this in direct violation of The Vehicle Code provisions. In addition, he drove his car into an automobile which was directly in his path. And then, even though he was on a through highway, he still was required to observe the rules of the road with regard to ears committed to an intersection before his arrival at the intersection. In addition, he operated his car at such a rate of speed that after hitting the plaintiff’s car broadside he still had enough momentum to travel some 70 feet, climbing the curb and hitting a parked car with such force as to propel it '6 or 7 feet into the street.
Upon such an uncontradicted narrative of events, I believe it was a flagrant abuse of discretion on the part of the Trial Judge not to submit the case to the jury on the question of the defendant’s negligence. In seeking to justify his nonsuit the Trial Judge said: “Plaintiff’s principal contention seems to be that the evidence showed that defendant’s headlights were not burning, and thereby established negligence. This contention is based entirely on a casual, almost chance, remark made by the plaintiff on direct examination: ‘I did not see nothing coming, no cars approaching, no lights.’ In the course of his cross-examination, plaintiff stated that his eyes were ‘good’, that he ‘never had any trouble’ with his eyes.
“We think this testimony is too vague, indefinite and fragmentary to support a finding that defendant was in fact operating his automobile without the headlights burning, and was therefore guilty of negligence.”
Why does the Court characterize the plaintiff’s testimony as casual? The plaintiff was testifying to a very grave event in his life, one that will affect him *480for the rest of his days. • He suffered a severe cerebral contusion, fractures of the skull, permanent loss of the use of his right hand and arm, and for a period of time lost the function of memory. His testimony was by no means casual. The Trial Court said further that Dun-more’s testimony was “vague, indefinite and fragmentary”. Would the Court have been more satisfied if the plaintiff had spoken in perfect English and had emphasized an'd embroidered the simple story of his disaster? If the plaintiff had been an educated man, he might have said: “Being thoroughly aware of my responsibilities as a careful driver, I stopped at the Stop sign a sufficient length of time for me to appraise the entire traffic situation. I looked to the right and I looked to the left to make certain that nothing was moving in the intersecting streets which might imperil my passage through the intersection. There were no cars within my view, and I do have excellent vision. However, since it was nighttime I made it a point to look searchingly for headlights of cars because I knew that if there was a car anywhere close, I would be sure to see its lights. However, I saw no lights, and I thus assured myself that there were no cars approaching the intersection, and I thus passed into the intersection.”
Would such a tautological explanation have said more than the uneducated Dunmore said when he uttered his simple, but highly informing statement: “I did not see nothing coming, no cars approaching, no lights.” Was it not for the jury to decide upon that testimony whether the defendant was driving at night without lighted headlamps and, therefore, negligent? Was it not for the jury to say whether the defendant was travelling at a high rate of speed if, even assuming he had lights, he sped into the intersection from a far away invisible point during the seconds which elapsed between the moment the plaintiff stopped and *481looked and the moment that he was hit by the defendant?
In addition to characterizing the plaintiff’s testimony as vague and fragmentary, the Trial Court called it negative. What is negative testimony? As that term is used by the Trial Court, it is a snare, a delusion, and a fraud. In reality there is no such thing as negative •testimony. Let us suppose a situation where in fact there were no cars on a certain street at night and a university president was asked if he had seen any cars. Let us suppose he replied to that question: “I saw no lig’hts.” Could there be any doubt that he meant by that reply that there were no cars moving? And what more direct and clearer way would there be to state that there were no lights than to say: “No lights”? And why would such a statement if made from the witness stand be called “negative testimony”?
Negative suggests inferior. Does such a statement become inferior because it is short? Julius Caesar said: “I came, I saw, I conquered.” Could he have said more if he had talked for an hour? Perry said: “We have met the enemy and they are ours.” Could he have said more if he had written a report of 100 pages? Wellington said: “Bluecher or night.” Would Wellington’s victory at Waterloo have been more glorious if he had voiced his supplication in thousands of words?
And so, the unhistorical and uneducated Geve Dun-more, but a man entitled to everything that the law allows in justice, when asked what he saw, replied that he saw “nothing coming, no cars approaching, no lights.” Was it necessary for him to say more? Could he have said more?
When the defendant’s car struck him, he was catapulted out of his car into the street with such violence that he was unconscious for 16 days. He was still a disabled man when he testified. He was a man of few *482words. How did the accident happen? Why didn’t he avoid the disaster which overtook him? He did all that a careful man could do. He stopped and looked east and looked west, saw the intersection, but he saw no cars, he peered into the darkness and he saw no lights. What more should he have done? The Majority Opinion does not say.
The Majority Opinion is content to quote the Trial Court which says that Dunmore’s evidence was vague and fragmentary. Even with his impaired memory, as Dunmore now goes through life as best he can, he cannot help but feel that his experience in the temple of justice somehow was rather vague and fragmentary.