Court Opinion

ID: 9705685
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:16:24.104408+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:13.636954
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Musmanno:
A prospective employer desiring to ascertain the antecedents of an applicant for employment,- telephoned *650the applicant’s previous employer and asked for information on the applicant’s character. The previous employer replied: “Oh, he’s all right, but if you want a crook like that around, go ahead and hire him.” The charge of the trial judge in this case was something like that reply. He told the jury that they could find for the plaintiffs but if they wished to do so senseless and idiotic a thing as that, it would be their responsibility, and he would have none of it.
Throughout the entire length of the Judge’s charge, which ran 20 printed pages, the defendant’s case travelled on a big wheel while the plaintiffs rode a small wheel. The defendant’s case strode on long legs, the plaintiffs’ case stumbled on short legs. The defendant’s case was trumpeted with a bass horn, the plaintiffs’ case squeaked through a piccolo. The Trial Judge’s charge was unilateral, partisan, partial, warped, unequal, inequitable, and unjust.
This Court has said over and over, as indeed it does in this very case, that a Judge may express his opinion of the facts provided he makes it “abundantly clear that it is the jury’s opinion of the facts that must govern in the determination of issues.”
The Judge in this case reversed the procedure by expressing that it was possible for the jury to return a verdict for the plaintiffs, but he made it abundantly clear that in all justice they should return a verdict for the defendant.
The facts in the case were very simple. Katherine Bizich was injured in the Sears, Roebuck store in Greensburg on March 21, 1953. She testified at the trial that, proceeding downstairs in the store, a metal strip on the first step caught the heel of her left shoe, she felt herself tripping and she seized a hand rail which was loosely fastened, and she fell. Her son-in-law, who was with her, also téstified to the loosé metal *651strip and railing. Her daughter explained further that the metal strip rose one-eighth of an inch above the surface of the step.
The defendant called witnesses who testified that the steps and railing were in good condition. During the trial the jury visited the store and saw the steps in question. They returned a verdict for the defendant.
The husband and wife plaintiffs allege various trial errors, including the one that the Trial Judge’s charge was argumentative and it thus deprived the plaintiffs of a fair trial. I am satisfied that on that point alone the plaintiffs are entitled to a new trial. Trial by jury can degenerate into a mere meaningless form if trial judges are to be permitted to coerce, persuade, and induce juries to return verdicts in accordance with the Judge’s will.
The jury here, which was made up of 12 ladies, could not but be persuaded by the graciousness, the charm, and the satire of the venerable Judge who justly enjoys in his community a justified name for equanimity, ability, and impartiality. But in this case he threw impartiality to the winds and neutrality to the hounds as he rode the steed of partisanship with the vigor and determination of a cavalry officer. At no time did he exhibit that equanimity of temper, that fairness of consideration, that deliberation of purpose for which he is known in Westmoreland County and by all who have ever had contact with him. He was determined, in this case, to see a verdict for the defendant and nothing could thwart him. Facts, law, reason disappeared under the thundering hooves of his partisan charge — and what was inevitable became reality: The jury brought in the verdict desired by thé Judge— and Mrs. Bizieh fell down the stairs of injustice and unfairness. She never had a chance once the Trial Judge mounted the courser of his charge. ; _ •
*652I have a high regard for the Trial Judge and I had hoped that this Court, upon reading the record, would have summarily ordered a new trial without saying too much about it because it is so clearly evident that January 14, 1956 was not one of the learned Judge’s best days in his long and distinguished career. But since the Majority of this Court chose to rationalize the many deficiencies in the Judge’s charge and has made an effort to support it with logic as faulty as that which characterized the charge itself, it has become my duty, to point out wherein the Trial Judge failed, — not because I have any less regard for him than my colleagues, but because so bad a set of instructions as this one cannot be allowed on the boohs as an undisputed example of legal correctness or fair treatment of a litigant in Court.
The plaintiffs have pointed out various excerpts from the Trial Judge’s charge which they urge as error. The Majority of this Court says that the charge must be considered as a whole and not as an accumulation of parts. (Thos. v. Mills, 388 Pa. 353.) It is precisely by doing that very thing that one gathers the full import of the Judge’s unfairness and his resolution not to have the plaintiffs prevail under any circumstances. But while the charge as a whole is wholly unseaworthy, it does not lack for leaks in its several compartments. For instance, the Trial Judge said, anent the jury’s visit to the stairs, the locale of the accident, “. . . All you ladies walked down safely, and there is ample testimony here that the condition is the same now, the day you were there, as it was at the time of the accident.”
If there was ample testimony that the condition of the stairs at the time of the visit was the same as they were at the time of the accident,- there was also testimony that- they - had undergone alteration- and *653repair since Mrs. Bizich tumbled down their length. The plaintiff and two other witnesses testified that on the day of the mishap the metal stripping was loose and the hand railing was insecure. If these two items were in order on the day of the jury’s visitation, the stairs, to that extent, had undergone mutation. Furthermore, the fact that the jury walked down the stairs safely is no criterion that one entirely unaware of a defect in the staircase might not have innocently fallen. In the case of Flower v. Baltimore etc. R. Co., 132 Pa. 524, 528, this Court emphatically condemned the practice that it apparently now condones. In that case we said: “It was never intended that the view of the jury should be substituted for the evidence, and that they should make up their verdict from the view in disregard thereof.”
An utterly unpardonable deviation from a Judge’s responsibilities and limitations in authority occurred when the Judge said: “They provided a hand rail, plaintiffs say it was loose; nobody else says it was loose. The manager says he examined them every morning, everything was in good shape. You take that all into consideration and determine what it is; the weight, I would say the weight of the testimony is that the defendant did use good care, and the fact that Sears Roebuck Company required the manager to examine and inspect and survey the entire store every morning before the store opened for business indicates that they were observing due care.” Who decides the weight of the testimony: the jury or the Judge? What was left for the jury to determine when the Judge, sitting in judgment with all the awesomeness of his robes, his years, his knowledge, and his wisdom, declared as a positive fact that the weight of the testimony was that the defendant used good care? If the defendant used good care, that was the end of the case and of *654course, that apparently was what the Judge intended his statement to be — the burial of the plaintiffs’ claim.
After once giving a fair, if not overly extended definition of what constitutes negligence in the case, the Judge put aside his robes and proceeded, as if he were the defendant’s attorney himself, to show that there was no negligence. Argued the Judge: “Now was there such negligence? The plaintiff herself says that she — well, you will recollect the testimony, that the son-in-law went down the steps first and then his wife followed and then Mrs. Bizieh came last. She said Helen and Joe were in front of me, I grabbed the rail; the rail was loose; the right leg first, as she stepped with the leg and no can pull the left leg.” Her left one caught on the metal strip, the top of the steps. She says her heel chipped. In connection with that testimony, she introduced this shoe that you will have out with you. It is Exhibit 2, and you should examine it carefully. As I look at that heel on that shoe, it doesn’t substantiate their testimony. She was going down the stairs, she said she could not pull the left foot down.
And now, from acting as defendant’s counsel, the Judge assumed another role, that of witness. He said: “If you will notice there is a nail sticking out from the heel of that shoe, it sticks out perhaps an eighth of an inch. As I see it there is no chip knocked off the heel, the chip is still hanging onto the heel; the nail instead of being bent sideways as she would go down, is bent forward; if she were going down in the ordinary fashion the nail would be bent back this way; it is bent to the toe of the shoe.”
On the scales of impartiality he cast a slight token of loyalty, namely, “Í think you ought to examine that very carefully and determine what caused her to catch her heel; whéther it was her Own negligence or whether *655it was the negligence of the company, that caused her to fall, if that was the cause of her fall. I don’t know that it was, or that it wasn’t; you determine that.” But he quickly swept that bauble off the scales by his utterance: “How long was this strip loose; nobody says, nobody says it was loose excepting the plaintiff and her son-in-law and daughter. Every other witness called, who said anything about that strip on the top of the steps, said it was not loose, that it is in the same condition today, same condition the other day when you went down the steps yourselves, as it was at the time of the accident.”
Who but the plaintiff and her witnesses would say that the step was loose? Certainly it was not to be expected that the defendant’s witnesses would testify that the store had failed in maintaining safe premises for the store’s customers?
Every once in a while an ember of neutrality stirred, and the Judge would begin a statement which seemed that he was about to leave to the jury the constitutional duty of determining facts, but he could hardly ever get himself to kindle a flame of absolute neutrality. For instance, “In fact that’s about all there is in this case, because if this plaintiff fell by reason of a strip being loose or a banister being loose and that caused the fall and it being in that condition, in a bad condition for a length of time that would — say for a day or perhaps it might be even less than a day for the number of people that would go up and down there, but it would have to be for such a length of time as would charge the owner or proprietor with notice of that condition.”
It will be noted here that the Judge wished to say that if the plaintiff fell by reason of a loose step or banister she would be entitled to recover but he never said it. It was an “if” left dangling in the midair *656of ambiguity and in the fog of obscurity, never so dense, however, that the jury could not see what the Judge wanted them to see, namely, that their verdict was to be for the defendant.
On another occasion the Judge found himself in the neighborhood of impartiality but he would not let himself enter the house of a fair deliberation of the case. He said: “If you determine that there was a defect in that stairway there, or the banister was loose, or that the strip was loose, . . .” One would naturally assume that after that kind of a beginning the Judge would say — “you will then return a verdict for the defendant.” But not the learned Trial Judge in this case. This is how he followed the utterance I have quoted: “. . . nobody here tells how long it was loose; there is no evidence whatever here that we can see as to how long that existed; whether of long standing that the manager should have taken notice of it.”
He then followed with a non sequitur: “Take that all into consideration and were these releases signed in blank or did these girls tell the truth here about the preparation of those statements?”
Not only did the Judge minimize the evidence of the plaintiffs, not only did he magnify the evidence of the defendant, but he even went so far as to arouse prejudice in the minds of the jury against the plaintiffs. It seems that even prior to the accident Mrs. Bizich had a disabled leg which required her to descend steps sideways. Her daughter and son-in-law preceded her down the steps of the Sears-Roebuck store on the day of the accident. The Judge gave the impression, undoubtedly unintentionally, that there was something cowardly about the manner in which the plaintiff’s daughter and her son-in-law preceded her down the steps. He said: “I just want to call your attention to the testimony of the plaintiffs in this case. *657Who observed due care? If your mother had fallen and broken a leg and she was lame, and had to go downstairs sideways, would you go down ahead of her or would you assist her going down?”
What did that have to do with the case? This statement could only have had one purpose and that was to arouse a resentment against the daughter who had testified in behalf of her mother and thus destroy her credibility. The Judge even lingered on this rather ignoble theme: “Who observed due care in going down those steps? The son-in-law went down first, the daughter went next and the mother came last. Who observed due care?”
What did this have to do with the accident? It may be that the daughter and son-in-law thought they could better protect Mrs. Bizich by going first, but even if there were poltroonery of the worst degree on their part, Mrs. Bizich should not have been deprived of a verdict if in fact the railing was broken and the step defective.
The Judge then touched another chord cacophonic with prejudice. He submitted to the jury: “Who is interested in the outcome of the case? Are these clerks, who get their salary whether you decide in favor of the company or against the company, are they telling the truth or are they interested in the outcome of the case, or are the witnesses for the plaintiff, who are asking a verdict at your hand, interested in the outcome of the case? In other words, who would gain or lose by your verdict.”
What had that to do with the case? According to this type of reasoning a plaintiff could never recover when he stands to gain by a verdict in his favor. It should not be necessary to point out to a judge that a verdict is not to be decided on who stands to gain but on what the evidence proves to be the truth. *658The Judge had a difficult time getting away from this drumfire of prejudice. He went on: “In deciding this case, you don’t decide it on sympathy. Of course, we are all very sorry for this lady that fell, she is hurt, but whose fault was it; who was negligent; who was careless; who didn’t observe due care and who stands to lose or gain by the result of your verdict?”
He also added that if the jury should return a verdict for the plaintiff she was not entitled “to be made rich by it.” Did the Judge mean that the jury was to pass on equal distribution of wealth in the land?
I regret that I must write this Dissenting Opinion because I hold the Trial Judge in high esteem but we will never achieve the ideal, of fair, impartial charges if we allow so conspicuous a failure as this particular charge to go unnoticed and uncommented upon.
I do not believe that the Majority has done the Trial Judge any service by placing its approval on a charge which is obviously one-sided and partial, and I believe that a great disservice has been done the plaintiff in this case. She never had her case submitted to the triers of the facts in accordance with the rules of law and elementary rules of fairness and good sportsmanship.
I dissent.