Court Opinion

ID: 9735617
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:25:53.011678+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:43:11.739435
License: Public Domain

Opinion Concurring and Dissenting in Part by
Mr. Justice Musmanno:
I concur in that part of the Majority decision which affirms the verdict against the Borough of East Pittsburgh, but I dissent from that part which holds the verdict against Anna Y. Sladek, Administratrix of the Estate of William J. Sladek, deceased. The Majority says: “The presumption that decedent used due care was overcome by testimony sufficient to establish negligence, if believed by the jury. There was no matter introduced to exculpate him, and the facts made out a case for the jury.” This is a strange statement. There was considerable matter introduced to exculpate William Sladek. Samuel Whitman, called by the estate defendant, testified: “Q. How fast would you say you were going? A. I would say I couldn’t go over 20 miles an hour going around that bend up there. Q. About how fast was the Sladek car moving? A. Didn’t look much faster than I was going, to me. Q. On what side of the road was it going on? A. On the right side. Q. And from what you could see of the *94Sladek ear was there anything unusual about its operation? A. No, I didn’t see anything.” *
Even the witnesses called by the plaintiff introduced matter exculpating Sladek from negligence. Hughie Cassidy testified that Sladek was travelling at a normal rate of speed: “Q. When you said that the car was going about — what did you say? A. 25, 30 miles an hour. Q. That would be your best judgment as to what the speed was at that time? A. Right. Q. Which you would describe as a normal speed, is that it? A. I would, yes. Q. And would that be the normal speed generally of cars that would stop there and pull out and go on down the hill? A. I believe so.” Jerome Sanders, also called by the plaintiff, testified that he was only 50 feet away from the Sladek car when it started over the hill and that Sladek was operating his car “in a proper and normal manner”: “And during that time was it being operated as you said, on direct examination, approximately 15 or 20 miles an hour? A. That is correct. Q. On its right-hand side of Linden Avenue? A. That is correct. Q. And so far as you could see in a proper and normal manner, is that right? A. That is also correct.”
There is nothing in the record to show why Sladek’s car left the highway and plunged over the embankment. The witness Cassidy seemed to suggest that possibly Sladek’s car slid because of contact with one of the rails on the street car track: “Q. What was the first thing that was unusual as you were watching it? A. Well, I think one of the wheels must have touched the track because — one of the wheels must have touched against the track because it threw it a little bit. Q. Did you see that? A. I could see the little weave like that. That’s all there was, a small weave. Q. In other *95words, there was a little weave, is that it? A. Yes.” But, according to the standard laid down in the case of Riley v. Wooden, 310 Pa. 449, this would not have been enough to hold the Estate of Sladek. This Court said in that case: “It is not alleged that he was incompetent to drive or cognizant of any defect in the car. It is clear that the cause of upsetting was not excessive speed, . . . Defendant did not leave the road in consequence of a negligent rate of speed or of inadequate observation, as in Knox v. Simmerman, 301 Pa. 1, relied on by plaintiffs. The accident may have been due to the slippery condition of part of the surface of the road, ... or to some suddenly occurring defect in, or temporary failure of, the machinery of the car, with nothing in the record to charge defendant for such consequences.”
The Majority says that the “presumption that deceased used due care was overcome by testimony sufficient to establish negligence.” But the Majority does not indicate what that testimony was. The presumption of due care is a very important element of proof and it cannot be taken out of a case with a wave of the hand. In Travis v. Pennsylvania Railroad Company, 377 Pa. 537, we said: “There was no testimony as to what Travis did just before committing himself to the crossing, but the law assumes, in the absence of anything to the contrary, that one who meets sudden death exercised the care of a reasonably prudent person. This is not a makeshift abstraction. It is a legal presumption based on the tenacious and objective reality that life is sweet and death is cruel. . . .”
The Majority cites the case of Kotal v. Goldberg, 375 Pa. 397, in support of its holding that Sladek was proved negligent. The facts in the Kotal case are as far removed from the facts in the case at bar as Mercury is from Neptune. In the Kotal case we specifically *96said: “Speed is the burden of this particular lawsuit ” Some idea of the recklessness with which the defendant car was operated in that case can be gathered from an excerpt from that Opinion: “After passing the heavy truck-trailer, the Studebaker [defendant car] continued at its same pace [60 miles per hour], but when the highway bent to the right, the Studebaker failed to take the curve, left the concrete and plunged into the middle untravelable space, knocking over several reflector posts. Its velocity unabated, it upset, righted, and turned over several times until it reached the middle of the eastbound lane when the vagaries of momentum sent it cartwheeling back across the medial strip and on to the westbound lane where it finally came to a stop, lying on its roof with wheels in the air. In the violent capsizings of the car, Miss Goldberg was thrown to the concrete of the eastbound lane and Mrs. Kotal to the berm of the westbound lane, both suffering mortal injuries resulting in practically instantaneous death.” In the case at hand the car did not upset and when it stopped at the bottom of the hill, the driver was still behind the steering wheel. There are many other differences between the Kotal case and this case which it is unnecessary to delineate here.
The Estate of William Sladek did itself bring a suit against the Borough of East Pittsburgh. Counsel for the Estate endeavored at pre-trial to have that suit consolidated for trial with the instant suit. According to the Majority, the lower court refused the consolidation on the basis that the “jury might have been influenced by sympathy for the decedent to the prejudice of the defendants in this case.” The Majority finds this to be a perfectly good reason although it seems to me it fails to answer to any semblance of logic. If sympathy for the decedent would have influenced the jury in the-Estate’s behalf, how is it that *97in this case the jury found against the Estate? Isn’t the purpose of a trial to ascertain the facts and on those facts render justice? I can see how two cases with different plaintiffs might have caused confusion in the trial and on that basis, a separation might have been justified. The reason given for the separation however, in my opinion is legally insupportable.

 Italics throughout, mine.