Court Opinion

ID: 9693897
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 17:09:16.23104+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:52.297679
License: Public Domain

*438Dissenting Opinion by
Me. Justice Musmanno:
William Shula paid an admission fee for himself, wife and two children to witness automobile races at the Rose Speedway in Penn Township, Westmoreland County. Desirous of enjoying a closer view of the racing cars, Shula obtained a pass which admitted him to the “pit” area, the inner hub of the circular track where racing cars were refueled or, if necessary, repaired while still in the race. At a crucial moment, a speeding car jolted from the track, struck him, and dragged him some 75 feet, inflicting serious injuries for which a jury awarded him damages in the sum of $20,579.72. This Court is affirming a judgment n.o.v. entered in the court below.
I would uphold the verdict of the jury. Shula ivas at a place where he had a right to be. The management accepted his money and then issued to him a pass admitting him to an area which held from 75 to 100 other people. Whether the management should have erected a fence, crash wall, or barricade to protect this large number of persons from cars which might leave the track was, as I see it, strictly a question of fact for the jury. The Majority Opinion says that Shula, by going into the pit, voluntarily assumed the risk of being injured. It is common knowledge that professional automobile racing is a sport fraught with danger to participants and even to spectators. This, however, does not mean that because spectators are willing to undergo the risk attendant upon watching this sport, that those who make money from the spectacle should not afford them reasonable protection. The law does not favor invitation to disaster. If automobile-race-watching is so hazardous as to preclude safety measures it should be outlawed. But so long as it is permitted by the law, those who make a business of it should be required, to the extent that it is *439possible, to prevent unnecessary death, mayhem, and physical harm.
The Majority Opinion cites the case of Rauch v. Pennsylvania Sports and Enterprises, Inc., 367 Pa. 632, in support of its decision. In that.case a paying-patron of an ice skating rink was injured because of rowdyism on the ice which the management could have and should have stopped. It knew that unruly skaters were refusing to follow the flow and pattern of movement of the mass of the skaters. The guards knew of this dangerous conduct but did nothing to warn the bladed hoodlums to desist from their dangerous practice. In what I regard to be a wholly illogical and unjust decision this Court held that the plaintiff there, a Mrs. Rauch, was guilty of contributory negligence because, after paying her money to skate, and after telling the guards to make the unruly skaters behave, she did not herself leave the skating rink. She had the right to remain in the rink and there was a duty on the part of the management either to compel the sweatered ruffians to obey the rules of the rink or to expel them from the rink. But this Court held that because Mrs. Rauch insisted on her rights as a patron she was to be blamed. It is a strange decision which penalizes the law-abiding patron and excuses, as well as practically encourages, the rowdy violator of law, orderliness and decent behavior. I do not believe the Rauch decision to be good law, and if, the great honor conferred upon me by the people of Pennsylvania in electing me to this bench, had been accelerated by a year, the Rauch decision would not be a precedent today for the case at bar, because three of the Justices in the Rauch case dissented. One more vote, which I gladly would have contributed, would have retained for Mrs. Rauch the verdict which the jury awarded to her and to which she certainly was entitled.
*440Simla, the plaintiff in the' instant case, was, like Mrs. Bauch, a business visitor and not a gratuitous invitee. His visit to the race track was financially beneficial to the proprietor-defendant. He thus was entitled to expect that the proprietor-defendant would' exercise reasonable care to protect him from harm. Whether he did exercise that care or not was for the jury to determine.
It was argued by the defendant that Shula was in no better legal position to recover damages for injury than the baseball patron who is injured by a foul ball. The analogy is not valid. For a foul ball to leave the field and enter the grandstand is not to be unexpected. It is part of the game of baseball for foul balls to be struck. A foul ball is not an accident of the game, it is part of the routine of the contest. It is as much a part of the game as the dust raised by a player who slides into one of the bases. However, a car’s leaving the track and plunging into an area occupied by paying customers is not a part of the routine of the race. It is a fortuitous occurrence, a departure from the routine. It is ah accident and not a risk which the patron accepts as a necessary part of the entertainment. Whether such an accident is foreseeable and should be provided against, so far as the proprietor of the race track is concerned, is strictly a question of fact.
The jury in this case found that the defendant should have known that it could happen that an automobile would crash into the pit where scores of persons were legitimately watching the races and that, therefore, it should have provided for some kind of a barricade to protect them from injury. Accordingly the jury awarded the plaintiff $20,000 because of the failure of the defendant to measure up to responsibilities devolving upon race track owners. To the extent that the Majority decision invades the province of the jury *441it leaves the track, I respectfully submit, of what should be, and is, acceptable tort law.