Court Opinion

ID: 9702887
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:29:00.61446+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:42.631394
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Me. Justice Eagen:
The opinion of the learned Chief Justice admits, under the uncontradicted facts, that the defendant, at the time of the fatal accident involved, was engaged in an unlawful and reckless course of conduct. Racing an automobile at 90 miles per hour, trying to prevent another automobile going in the same direction from passing him, in a no-passing zone on a two-lane public highway, is certainly all of that. Admittedly also, there can be more than one direct cause of an unlawful death. To me, this is self-evident. But, says the majority opinion, the defendant’s recklessness was not a direct cause of the death. With this, I cannot agree.
If the defendant did not engage in the unlawful race and so operate his automobile in such a reckless manner, this accident would never have occurred. He helped create the dangerous event. He was a vital part of it. The victim’s acts were a natural reaction to the stimulus of the situation. The race, the attempt to pass the other car and forge ahead, the reckless speed, all of these factors the defendant himself helped create. He was part and parcel of them. That the victim’s response was normal under the circumstances, that his reaction should have been expected and was clearly foreseeable, is to me beyond argument. That the defendant’s recklessness was a substantial factor is obvious. All of this, in my opinion, makes his unlawful conduct a direct cause of the resulting collision.
The cases cited in support of the majority opinion are not in point. Eor instance, in Johnson v. Angretti, *584364 Pa. 602, 73 A. 2d 666 (1950), this Court, in affirming the trial court, found that the bus driver was not guilty of any negligence or violation of The Vehicle Code1 in bringing the bus to a stop. The Court, as dicta, then went on to say, at p. 606, “Moreover it is clear that such alleged violation bore no causal relation whatever to the happening of the accident which was due entirely to the intervening and superseding negligence of Angretti in allowing his truck to pass over into the pathway of the westbound tractor-trailer instead of bringing his vehicle to a stop as Osterling [the driver of the truck directly behind the bus and in front of Angretti] had done and as he admitted he could readily have done without colliding with the truck ahead of him. The situation created by the stopping of the bus was merely a circumstance of the accident and not its proximate cause: (citing cases).” It is readily apparent that the instant case and the Angretti case are distinguishable in all the important factors. In the present case there was, (1) recklessness and a violation of The Vehicle Code; (2) a joint venture or common enterprise of racing; (3) no proof that Hall could have guided his car back into the -right-hand lane behind Root after he became aware of the danger of the oncoming truck.
Nor does the case of Kline v. Moyer and Albert, 325 Pa. 357, 191 Atl. 43 (1937), lend support. Quite to the contrary, both the facts and the law oppose it. The majority omits the pertinent part of the rule cited, at p. 364, the whole of which is as follows: “Where a second actor has become aware of the existence of a potential danger created by the negligence of an original tortfeasor, and thereafter, by an independent act of negligence, brings about an accident, the first tort-feasor is relieved of liability, because the condition created by *585Mm was merely a circumstance of the accident and not its proximate cause. Where, however, the second actor does not become apprised of such danger until his own negligence, added to that of the existing perilous condition, has made the accident inevitable, the negligent acts of the two tort-feasors are contributing causes and proximate factors in the happening of the accident and impose liability upon both of the guilty parties.” The KUne case involved a truck, operated by Albert, which he abandoned on a highway without any lights to warn approaching motorists of the danger. Moyer drove down the highway and upon seeing the truck, failed to reduce Ms speed and went into the lane of oncoming traffic and crashed into Kline. This 'Court said, at p. 363, “It is clear that when an unlighted parked truck is seen by the operator of an approaching vehicle, the fact of its being unlighted becomes thereafter2 of legal inconsequence, because the purpose of a light as warning has been otherwise accomplished. If already at that time, by the negligence of its driver, the moving vehicle is in such a position and under such impetus that an accident cannot be avoided, the negligence of the truck owner is as much a proximate cause of the accident as is the negligence of the driver of the car; the negligence of each has contributed to the result. But if, after seeing the unlighted truck, although he would still have been able to guide his car without accident, the driver proceeds in such negligent manner that an accident results, the original negligence of the truck owner has become a noncausal factor divested of legal significance; as to it the chain of causation is broken, and responsibility remains solely with the operator of the moving car.” Because the evidence was not undisputed that Moyer became aware of the presence of the abandoned truck on the highway in time to *586stop, we stated that the question of causal connection was for the jury and not for the court as a matter of law. In the present case, there wasn’t any evidence that Hall saw the oncoming truck when he pulled out to pass Root. This would have been suicide, against which there is a presumption. II P.L.E. §21. The act of passing was not an “extraordinary negligent” act, but rather a “normal response” to the act of “racing.”3 Furthermore, as Hall pulled out to pass, Root “dropped off” his speed to 90 miles an hour. Such a move probably prevented Hall from getting back into the right-hand lane since he was alongside of Root at the time and to brake the car at that speed would have been fatal to both himself and Root. Moreover, the dangerous condition of which the deceased had to become aware of before the defendant was relieved of his direct causal connection with the ensuing accident, was not the fact that the defendant was driving at an excessive rate of speed along the highway. He knew that when the race began many miles and minutes earlier. The dangerous condition necessary was an awareness of the oncoming truclc and the fact that at the rate of speed Root was traveling he couldn’t safely pass him. This important fact was not shown and, therefore, was a question for the fact-finders and not a question that could be decided as a matter of law.
The majority opinion states, “Legal theory which makes guilt or innocence of criminal homicide depend upon such accidental and fortuitous circumstances as are now embraced by modern tort law’s encompassing concept is . . . too harsh to be just.” If the resulting death had been dependent upon “accidental and fortuitous circumstances” or, as the majority also say, “in circumstances not generally considered to present the likelihood of a resultant death,” we would agree that *587the defendant is not criminally responsible. However, acts should be judged by their tendency under the known circumstances, not by the actual intent which accompanies their performance. Every day of the year, we read that some teen-agers, or young adults, somewhere in this country, have been killed or have killed others, while racing their automobiles. Hair-raising, death-defying, lawbreaking rides, which encompass “racing” are the rule rather than the exception, and endanger not only the participants, but also every motorist and passenger on the road. To call such resulting accidents “accidental and fortuitous,” or unlikely to result in death, is to ignore the cold and harsh reality of everyday occurrences. Root’s actions were as direct a cause of Hall’s death as those in the “shield” cases. Root’s shield was his high speed and any approaching traffic in his quest to prevent Hall from passing, which he knew Hall would undertake to do, the first time he thought he had the least opportunity.
1 Wharton, Criminal Law and Procedure, §68 (1957), speaking of causal connections, says: “A person is only criminally liable for what he has caused, that is, there must be a causal relationship between his act and the harm sustained for which he is prosecuted. It is not essential to the existence of a causal relationship that the ultimate harm which has resulted was foreseen or intended by the actor. It is sufficient that the ultimate harm is one which a reasonable man would foresee as being reasonably related to the acts of the defendant.” Section 295, in speaking about manslaughter, says: “When homicide is predicated upon the negligence of the defendant, it must be shown that his negligence was the proximate cause or a contributing cause of the victim’s death. It must appear that the death was not the result of misadventure, but the natural and probable result of a reckless or culpably negligent act. To render a person criminally liable for neg*588ligent homicide, the duty omitted or improperly performed must have been his personal duty, and the negligent act from which death resulted must have been his personal act, and not the act of another. But he is not excused because the negligence of someone else contributed to the result, when his act was the primary or proximate cause and the negligence of the other did not intervene between his act and the result.”
Professor Joseph Beale, late renowned member of the Harvard Law School faculty, in an article entitled, The Proximate Consequences of an Act, 33 Harv. L. Rev. 633, 646, said, “Though there is an active force intervening after defendant’s act, the result will nevertheless be proximate if the defendant’s act actively caused the intervening force. In such a' ease the defendant’s force is really continuing in active operation by means of the force it stimulated into activity.” Professor Beale, at 658, sums up the requirements of proximity of result in this manner: “1. The defendant must have acted (or failed to act in violation of a duty). 2. The force thus created must (a) have remained active itself or created another force which remained active until it directly caused the result; or (b) have created a new active risk of being acted upon by the active force that caused the result.” 2 Bishop, New Criminal Law §424 (19T3), says: “He whose act causes in any way, directly or indirectly, the death of another, hills him, within the meaning of felonious homicide. It is a rule of both reason and the law that whenever one’s will contributes to impel a physical force, whether another’s, his own, or a combined force, proceeding from whatever different sources, he is responsible for the result, the same as though his hand, unaided, had produced it.”
But, says the majority opinion, these are principles of tort law and should not in these days be applied to the criminal law. But such has been the case since the *589time of Blackstone. These same principles have always been germane to both crimes and tort. See, Beale, Recovery for Consequences of an Act, 9 Harv, L. Rev. 80; Green, Rationale of Proximate Cause, 132-133 (1927); Frederick C. Moesel, Jr., A Survey of Felony Murder, 28 Temp. L. Q. 453, 459-466. They have .been repeatedly so applied throughout the years and were employed in a criminal case in Pennsylvania as long as one hundred and seventeen years ago. See, Commonwealth v. Hare, 2 Clark 467 (1844). In that case, two separate bands of men were fighting each other with firearms in a public street and, as a result, an innocent citizen was shot and killed. The person firing the fatal shot could not be ascertained. Hare, one of the rioters, was convicted of homicide and the judgment was affirmed. Can anyone question the logic or correctness of this decision? Under the rationale of the majority opinion, what would be the result in the Hare case? Certainly, under its reasoning, if the truck driver met death under the circumstances the case at hand presents, the defendant would not be legally responsible. Again with this conclusion, I cannot agree.
While the victim’s foolhardiness in this case contributed to his own death, he was not the only one responsible and it is not he alone with whom we are concerned. It is the people of the Commonwealth who are harmed by the kind of conduct the defendant pursued. Their interests must be kept in mind.
I, therefore, dissent and would accordingly affirm the judgment of conviction.

 Emphasis throughout, ours.

 Original emphasis.

 See: Kline v. Moyer and Albert, supra, at 364, footnote*.