Court Opinion

ID: 9700757
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:48:14.267923+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:00:27.751828
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Musmanno:
The plaintiffs in this case went to view a fireworks display and came away with wounds which could mark them as survivors of the Battle of Gettysburg. One of the plaintiffs described the bombardment as follows: “This large one (bomb) busted right — either busted in between us or right on our feet, and it throwed us down to the earth, and the impact, we couldn’t see, we couldn’t hear, we were blind, we thought our eyes were shot out and everything and we couldn’t even get up off the ground, that’s how stunned we were. That’s the impact from the one that hit us. As I got a little bit of senses together I noticed her leg was all mangled and I hollered to my one brother-in-law . . . ‘Jim, get Sarah, she’s hit, and I’m hit too,’ and he came back and got hold of her. He was in the process of running when they started exploding around us . . .”
The injured plaintiffs brought an action in trespass against James Lotito, the producer of the fireworks exhibition, and the lower court entered a nonsuit on the ground that they had not proved that the man who shot the fireworks was guilty of negligence. This Court has refused to lift the nonsuit.
In affirming the nonsuit this Court has imposed on the plaintiffs requirements of proof which are not justified by law. A pedestrian on the sidewalk who is knocked down by an automobile climbing the curb does not have to prove that the operator of the car was intoxicated or asleep or purposely ran him down. The *529fact that the automobile was where it absolutely had no right to be is enough to place upon the motorist the burden of explaining how and why he was where he was. This salutary rule of law has been stated many times by this Court: “When the thing which causes the injury is shown to be under the management of the defendant, and the accident is such as in the ordinary course of things does not happen if those who have the management use proper care, it affords reasonable evidence, in the absence of explanation by the defendants, that the accident arose from a want of care.” (Kotal v. Goldberg, 375 Pa. 397).
The Majority Opinion says: “The accident was not of such a nature that it can be confidently be assumed, in the absence of proof, to have been due to defendant’s negligence. Consistent with the record in this case, it could we feel, just as reasonably be concluded that the unfortunate occurrence is owing to latent defects in the fireworks themselves, a situation for which the defendant would not be legally answerable.”
Yes, there could have been latent defects in the fireworks but it was up to the defendant to exculpate himself from responsibility by showing that he exercised proper care under the circumstances.
It appears that at one point in the exhibition the bombs began to explode on the ground instead of in the air. Brunnet testified: “Well, as I said, as they sent these big ones up we seen some of them starting to fall short and they started dropping lower and lower and young James made the remark, ‘Run,’ he says, ‘they are going to hit the ground,’ and me and Sarah never got the chance to run, they hit that fast. Q. Did I understand you to say — I believe you said they were falling short, that they were exploding closer to the ground than you felt they should have been? A. Yes, they were coming down where they should have gone away up high, exploded up there in the air and throw*530ing those big fancy stars, etc., ont. Q. And you saw several of them — A. Some of them already hit in front of us on the ground and people were hollering and crying and screaming.”
When the bombs began to fall short, why didn’t Lotito stop the firing and elevate the trajectory of the missiles? Why didn’t he notify the spectators of the danger? What did Lotito do to avoid injuring the people who had every reason to assume that they would not be used as targets for the fiery assault?
A person who is invited to a pyrotechnical performance has the right to expect that he will not be shot at with Roman candles, that sky rockets will not drop on his head, that aerial bombs will not explode under his feet and that pin wheels will not roll to his immediate vicinity and there revolve to his disaster.
The Majority Opinion says that it is up to those who are injured to show that the cannoneer was negligent, but there can be no such burden on the plaintiff “where the evidence of the cause of the accident is not equally available to both parties but is peculiarly or exclusively accessible to and within the possession of the defendant.” (Mitchell v. Scharf, 179 Pa. Superior Ct. 220).
A person who is injured while watching a fireworks display has no more facility of ascertaining what fault caused his injuries than a passenger on a railroad train can explain what precipitated the wreck which disabled him.
I believe that the nonsuit in this case should be lifted and the defendant held accountable under the following rules of law: “It is negligence in those responsible for the display of fireworks to fire or propel bombs or explosives into the air at such an angle that they will fall on a spectator standing where he is expected to stand to view the display, . . . .” 22 Am. Jur., Explosions and Explosives, §63. “It is action*531able negligence so to fire bombs that they will fall on a spectator standing where he is expected to stand to view a display of fireworks.” 35 C.J.S., Explosives, §10.