Court Opinion

ID: 9707166
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:04:16.216031+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:28.725645
License: Public Domain

ENGLISH, J., dissenting: I cannot agree that there was evidence of negligence on the part of defendant, or, if such were conceded to exist, that it bore any causal relationship to plaintiff’s injury. To begin with, there is no evidence, direct or circumstantial, as to how the speck of steel got into plaintiff’s eye. I realize that plaintiff testified that as he lifted the tool out of its holder “some foreign object came with it” and struck him in the eye. This is not evidence, however, but the rankest kind of speculation or mere calculated expression of theory, since the proofs established conclusively that the minute particle of steel was so small that it could not be seen by the naked eye. This testimony is, therefore, entitled to no more standing than would be the testimony of a blind person as to what he had “seen.” The law requires some qualification of a witness which will justify the court’s receiving his testimony, and the rules established toward this end are concerned with the necessity of showing his opportunity for observing and his actual observation. As stated by Wig-more: “Observation of the matters to be testified to is an essential conception in the qualification of every witness without exception.” (Wigmore on Evidence, § 651.) Without this fundamental safeguard, any speculation stated as fact could be considered as presenting a jury question. And this, in my opinion, is precisely what the majority have done in the instant case when they permit a verdict to rest upon this direct “evidence” of plaintiff. I am not unmindful of the extreme to which some of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act decisions have gone in recognizing the existence of questions of fact for the jury. I know of none, however, which has gone as far as the majority opinion does in accepting, as a basis for verdict, testimony about something which was beyond the sensuous perception of the witness. The speculation thus involved cannot properly take the place of the proof which plaintiff had the burden of producing. (Moore v. Chesapeake & O. Ry. Co., 340 US 573.) Nor has that lack been supplied by circumstantial evidence. Plaintiff’s evidence shows that in the wheel-grinding operation engaged in by plaintiff, steel shavings and tiny particles of steel and steel dust “as fine as a pin point” bounce off in all directions; some of the shavings drop on top of the machine, some on the other side underneath the wheels, some up around the tool; “some of them fly.” Plaintiff’s helper on the job testified that after each operation was concluded he would clean off the lathe with a brush and use an air hose for that purpose when they were finished for the day. While the grinding operation was going on, plaintiff and his helper wore their goggles. When dusting off the lathe, the helper also wore his goggles. During the evening in question a wind was blowing in the building through the large doors nearby. These were the doors through which the wheels, connected by axles, were moved on tracks to the lathes. It is against this background that plaintiff’s lifting of the tool from its holder must be considered. For as the case developed, the negligence charged to defendant was the use of the sprung tool holder, and plaintiff, therefore, had the burden of producing evidence to show that the particle which entered his eye came from the tool in his hand or the holder from which he lifted it, and not from any place else. Plaintiff testified that after shaking the tool back and forth and twisting it a little to free it, he lifted it up and out of the holder.* He did not testify that he lifted the tool up to his eye level (1½ to 2 feet), and it would have been ridiculous for him to have lifted it that high. Nor was there any evidence that the tool was jerked out of the holder by plaintiff or that any strong pull was required. In fact, plaintiff testified that it didn’t require any strength to lift out the tool; that “a lady could do it very easily.” His helper agreed, testifying that “a child could pick it up.” (The tool itself was a steel cylinder only about 1½ inches in diameter and 2½ to 3 inches long.) From these circumstances plaintiff must, if reliance is to be made on circumstantial evidence, contend for either one of two inferences: (1) that the invisible speck of steel was pocketed in the tool holder under or behind the tool and when released it sprang straight up on its own, two feet through the air to plaintiff’s eye, even though it must be admitted that such a minute particle could not possibly have the physical characteristics of a tightly-wound steel spring which might ordinarily be capable of such a maneuver upon release; or (2) that the speck of steel adhered to the tool upon its removal from the holder and after thus being carried for several inches, and without there being any jerk or sudden impetus given to it, it then ceased its adherence to the tool and travelled independently straight up into the air the rest of the way. Both these suggested inferences are contrary to reason and the law of gravity — especially when considered against the background circumstances of wind blowing through the building and steel shavings and particles all over the place, having been thrown off from the machine in all directions through the air less than a minute before. Both the positive and negative inferences required for plaintiff’s case — that the particle of steel came from the tool or tool holder and that it did not come from any other source — are wholly unreasonable. Circumstantial evidence as to the occurrence of the injury in accordance with plaintiff’s theory of his case is, therefore, lacking by definition, for the facts or circumstances in evidence are to be considered as proper proof only if they give rise to a reasonable inference of the truth of the fact sought to be proved. (IPI 1.03 and cases there cited.) The evidence which, it is claimed, shows negligence on the part of defendant is the continued use of the tool holder after it had become sprung and after repeated complaints by plaintiff to his foreman. It is significant, I believe, that in making complaint, plaintiff had no thought whatsoever of calling attention to a dangerous condition. He testified only that, with the tool being looser than it should have been in the holder, it chattered and gave an uneven cut which required him to take more time in smoothing out the wheels with the other tools. The entire gist of his complaints was toward efficiency of operation rather than safety. Plaintiff, himself, certainly foresaw no danger in the condition of the holder, for he customarily removed his goggles before changing the tools. Was there any circumstance, then, which required defendant to foresee danger? I can find none. And, if there was no foreseeable danger, was there any negligence in permitting a somewhat inefficient, time-consuming operation of the lathe? I believe not. A finding of negligence in this case does not square with the repeated authoritative holdings to the effect that, in determining the existence of negligence, the consequences of the employer’s acts must be tested for reasonable foreseeability. Nor is it consistent with the often expressed and presently undisputed principle that a railroad is not an insurer of its employee’s safety. Yet that is the practical result of the majority’s decision here, for surely no one could have foreseen or had any intimation of danger in the circumstances of the present case. It may well be that the trend of the decisions is in the direction of a railroad employer’s liability without fault, but I believe that we should not anticipate its extension beyond the limits currently defined. (Inman v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 361 US 138; Brady v. Southern Ry. Co., 320 US 476; Scocozza v. Erie R. Co., 171 F2d 745, cert den 337 US 907; Southern Ry. Co. v. Bell, 114 F2d 341.) If we were to assume that negligence on the part of defendant had been established, plaintiff’s proof would still fail for lack of evidence of causation. This would be true not only because there is no proof as to how the steel speck entered plaintiff’s eye, but also because defendant’s furnishing of a brand-new unsprung tool holder would have made no difference whatsoever to the occurrence in question. An unsprung tool holder in evidence discloses that the space around the tool, while less than % inch, is, nevertheless, many times the diameter of the steel particle which entered plaintiff’s eye. If a new tool holder had been furnished on plaintiff’s complaint, it would have prevented the accumulation of the larger steel shavings, but this case is not concerned with the larger shavings. It is concerned only with a minute speck of steel, hundreds or thousands of which could have accumulated in a tool holder which was in perfect condition. Under the controlling statute it is as much a part of plaintiff’s burden to show causation as it is to show negligence, and this he has utterly failed to do in the case at bar. The jury was permitted to speculate again in order to find a connection between the alleged negligence and the injury. In Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Toops, 281 US 351, the Supreme Court stated at pages 354, 355: “But proof of negligence alone does not entitle the plaintiff to recover under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act. The negligence complained of must be the cause of the injury. The jury may not be permitted to speculate as to its cause and the case must be withdrawn from its consideration unless there is evidence from which the inference may reasonably be drawn that the injury suffered was caused by the negligent act of the employer. (Citing cases.)” After commenting that the testimony lacked substance (as it does in this case), Mr. Justice Stone concluded: “If allowed to sustain the verdict it would remove trial by jury from the realm of probability, based on evidence, to that of surmise, and conjecture.” To the same effect see also Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Co. v. Collins, 235 F2d 805, 808, cert den 252 US 942; Dessi v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 251 F2d 149, 151, cert den 356 US 967; and Finley v. New York Cent. R. Co., 19 Ill2d 428, 434, 167 NE2d 212. Surmise, conjecture and speculation — not evidence— constitute the basis for the verdict in this case. In my opinion, the trial court should have allowed defendant’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict.   This was not the first time plaintiff had changed the tools during the evening in question.