Court Opinion

ID: 9765686
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:14:01.902781+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:13.517569
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Musatanno:
The majority opinion in this case is a masterpiece of confusion, inconsistency and bad law. It cites decisions which it does not follow, it announces principles from cases which are not found therein, and, on the subject involved, it sends the negligence law of Pennsylvania out into a dark sea of incertitude and tempestuous ambiguity, without a compass, quadrant or lamp.
The majority opinion not only misapprehends the relevant law and misapplies established rules of evidence, but it gives little indication of even comprehending the simple and undisputed facts in the case.
The majority has ordered a new trial in a case which was properly tried and which duly proceeded to a just and final judgment. The Bench, Bar and the public justifiably lament the heavy backlog of untried cases in Philadelphia County. This Court does not ameliorate the situation when it throws back on to the smoldering backlog a gigantic timber which has already been hewn and fashioned into the product of justice. Some two weeks will be required to try this case again, lawyers and judges will be compelled to give all their time to a case which has already been adjudicated; and all parties concerned will be subjected *582to renewed tensions, anxiety, and worry — all so extravagantly unnecessary.
It is undisputed and uncontradicted that Wm. R. Forsythe, operator of a subway train for the defendant Philadelphia Transportation Company saw an “object” on the tracks 168 feet ahead of him. It is undisputed and uncontradicted that when Forsythe was 88 feet away from this “object” he recognized the object to be the leg and the foot of a human being, later ascertained to be one Frank J. McFarlane. It is undisputed and uncontradicted that Forsythe’s train was “coasting” or running at a speed of only 10 miles per hour, and it was established at the trial that the motorman could have stopped the train within a distance of 24 to 38 feet, and had he done so McFarlane would have been untouched. However, he did not stop until 65 to 70 feet of the train had passed over the prostrate body, mutilating and mangling it to such an extent that McFarlane died from the effects of the injuries. With McFarlane in full view of Forsythe, what was Forsythe’s duty? Obviously it was to use reasonable care to avoid striking McFarlane. The jury, under proper instructions from the trial judge, found that Forsythe did not use that care.
Why the new trial then?
The majority opinion says that the trial court’s instructions were not “sufficiently clear and definitive in setting forth the defendant’s duty in this situation.” It is difficult to imagine, in spite of the majority opinion’s strictures, what the trial court could have said, in addition to what it did say, in instructing the jury, as will be seen in a moment. The majority cites with approval the decision in Frederick v. Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company, 337 Pa. 136, and says that it is “particularly applicable” to the facts in this case. Thus, the Frederick case could well have been chart, compass and quadrant for this trial — and the trial court so regarded it.
*583In the Frederick case the plaintiff was rnn over by a train when the operator of the train had reason to believe the victim was on the tracks. Chief Justice Horace Stern, speaking for this Court, said: “It is wanton negligence, within the meaning of the law, to fail to use ordinary and reasonable care to avoid injury to a trespasser after his presence has been ascertained.” (Emphasis in original)
Thus, the criterion of responsibility, after the operator of a train learns of the presence of some person on the track, is to use ordinary and reasonable care to avoid injury — and that is what the trial court below charged in this case.
Judge Ullman, the trial judge, went even further, and practically quoted verbatim from the Frederick case. Here is the language in the Frederick case: “It is not necessary to seek an appropriate appellation for plaintiff’s legal status as the result of his accidental fall onto defendant’s track. Since he did not place himself there voluntarily, he was not a trespasser. . . . But, as he was not invited, and his appearance was not to be anticipated, the extent of defendant’s obligation toward him was no greater than if he were a trespasser. Even a trespasser, however, is not a pariah. . . . When the owner or operator is put on guard as to the presence of the trespasser, the latter immediately acquires the right to proper protection under the circumstances. What constitutes sufficient notice of a trespasser’s exposure to a situation of peril necessarily depends upon the facts in each instance.” (Emphasis in original)
Here is the language used by Judge Ullman in charging the jury: “It is not necessary to seek out some appropriate word for plaintiff’s legal status as a result of his being on the railroad track. Since there is no evidence to show that he placed himself there voluntarily, of his own will and desire, he was not a tres*584passer. But as lie was not invited by tbe P.T.C. to go onto tbe tracks, and as bis appearance was not to be anticipated by tbe motorxnan, tbe extent of tbe defendant’s obligation to him is no greater than it would be if be were in fact a trespasser. But even a trespasser is not a pariah. . . . When tbe operator is put on guard as to tbe presence of tbe trespasser, that trespasser, in this case McFarlane, immediately acquires tbe right to proper protection under tbe circumstances. What constitutes sufficient notice of a trespasser’s exposure to a situation of peril necessarily depends upon tbe facts in every separate case.”
How closer could Judge Ullman come to tbe criterion which the majority admits is tbe proper criterion?
Chief Justice Steen said also in tbe Frederick case, which, it must be repeated, tbe majority accepts as authority in this case: “As applied to tbe type of cases of which tbe present is an example, it is not wanton negligence to fail to use care to discover the presence of an unanticipated trespasser, but it is wanton negligence, within the meaning of tbe law, to fail to use ordinary and reasonable care to avoid injury to a trespasser after bis presence has been ascertained.” (Emphasis in original)
This is what Judge Ullman said in tbe case at bar: “As applied to tbe kind of case that we have presently before you, it is not — and I underscore the word ‘not’— wanton negligence to fail to use due care to discover tbe presence of an unanticipated trespasser, but it is— and I underscore ‘is’, it is wanton negligence within tbe meaning of tbe law to fail to use ordinary, reasonable care to avoid injury to a trespasser after bis presence has been ascertained.”
For tbe majority opinion to cite with approval a certain case and then castigate with disapproval a trial judge who uses that very case, in tbe very words of tbe approved decision, is to me an appalling demonstration of appellate absolutism.
*585But that is not all. Chief Justice Steen said in the Frederick case: “ ‘Wanton negligence,’ as distinguished from ordinary negligence, is characterized by a realization on the part of the tortfeasor — or at least what would cause such a realization to a reasonable man— of the probability of injury to another, and by a reckless disregard, nevertheless, of the consequences.”
This is what Judge Ullman said: “Wanton negligence, as distinguished from ordinary negligence, is characterized by a realization on the part of the person alleged to be at fault, or at least would cause such a realization to be a reasonable man of the probability of injury to another and by a reckless disregard nonetheless of the consequences.”
For the majority to approve of the Frederick case and say that it is “particularly applicable” to our case here and then complain when the trial judge practically uses a carbon copy of the language in the Frederick case is a demonstration of juridical irresponsibility that adds no glory to this Court.
It is to be noted here, in addition, that the majority opinion itself declares that it was for the jury to say whether or not Forsythe, the motorman, “acted with a reckless disregard for the safety of anyone who might be endangered.” Yet, although Judge Ullman used that very phrase “reckless disregard” in his instruction to the jury, the majority still finds it to be “not sufficiently clear and definitive”.
Apparently striving for some reason upon which to pin its strange conclusions, the majority opinion says that, while Judge Ullman defined wanton negligence, he “nowhere states that it is the criterion upon which defendant’s liability is to be tested.” Why would Judge Ullman have given a definition of wanton negligence if he did not intend it as an application to the facts in the case at bar? Judge Ullman was not speaking for entertainment, he was not delivering an aea*586demic lecture to law students, he was instructing the jury! I repeat what he said: “As applied to the hind of case that we have presently before you, it is not— and I underscore the word ‘not’ — wanton negligence to fail to use due care to discover the presence of an unanticipated trespasser, but it is — and I underscore (is’, it is wanton negligence within the meowing of the law to fail to use ordinary, reasonable care to avoid injury to trespasser after his presence has been ascertained” (Emphasis supplied)
How more “clear and definitive” could Judge Ullman be in applying the criterion of liability?
How do you apply the criterion of wanton negligence? You simply inform the jury that, even though the injured person is a trespasser, he is entitled to be protected under the standard of “ordinary and reasonable care to avoid injury.”
The majority seems to entertain the idea that there is some kind of care required in wanton negligence cases which is different from the care to be exercised in other cases, that perhaps the trial judge must tell the jury that the defendant must use “wanton care” or some such indescribable thing. The majority opinion in this regard is an enigma and, in the event of a new trial, will convey no information whatsoever to the trial judge as to how and what he is to charge. The vague import of the vague majority opinion seems to be that the judge should tell the jury that the defendant should not exercise wanton negligence, but such an instruction would be like telling the master of a ship he is not to sail east but not indicating whether he should sail north, south or west.
Why does the majority want to be so occult when the law is so clear? The duty of a trial judge, I repeat, is to tell the jury, in a case of this kind, that even if the victim is a trespasser he is still entitled to be protected by the exercise of ordinary and reasonable *587care on the part of the operator of the train. If the operator used that type of care, the verdict shall be for the defendant. If he did not, the verdict shall be for the plaintiff. That is the precise rationale of the Frederick case which the majority holds up as a lantern but somehow fails to see its light.
Not only does Frederick say this, but §336 of the Restatement of Torts proclaims it in even stronger language, namely, “A possessor of land who knows that another is trespassing thereon or from facts known to him should know or believe that another is or may be doing so, is subject to liability for bodily harm thereafter caused to the trespasser by the possessor’s failure to carry on his activities upon the land with reasonable care for the trespasser’s safety.” (Emphasis supplied)
“Reasonable care” is the bell which rings throughout the law of negligence, and it rings in this case, although the majority fails to hear it. Reasonable care is the light which shines in the sky of the law of negligence with the brilliance of the aurora borealis but the majority fails to see it. Reasonable Care vibrates with electric intensity through all the jurisprudence on negligence but the majority apparently fails to feel it. In fact, so arbitrarily or unconcernedly unaware is the majority of what is taking place here that it startlingly declares that “negligence is not at issue in this case, involving the duty owed to a Trespasser’ ”. If negligence is not the issue in this lawsuit why doesn’t the majority disclose to the parties and the Bar in general its closely-guarded secret as to what is the legal problem.
However, in spite of what the majority has said and in spite of what it has failed to say, negligence and nothing else is the issue in this case, and this should be apparent even to a one-month law student.
In Petrowski v. Philadelphia & R. Ry. Co., 263 Pa. 531, a minor trespasser was injured when he fell off *588a railroad car due to the negligence of the train crew. Chief Justice von Moschzisker, speaking for the Court, said: . “When a.child of tender years is observed upon a railroad car, it is the duty of those in charge to see that they do not start the train until the infant trespasser has alighted therefrom. ... If this duty is breached, it is not essential to recovery that there be present any element of recklessness or grossness,— proof of what under ordinary circumstances might be termed ‘mere negligence’ is enough.”
Chief Justice von Moschzisker, as if in anticipatory refutation of the majority opinion’s languge in this case, said that when the railroad crew “negligently acts in such a manner as to injure the trespasser, the conduct of the transgressor is viewed in law. as ‘intentional’, or wilful and ‘wanton.’ ” Thus, and this cannot be emphasized too strongly,, because the majority seems to miss the distinction, the care required is “ordinary and reasonable care,” but the failure to exercise that type of care .where trespassers are involved, is characterized “wanton negligence,” all of which Judge TJllman made- very clear to the jury in the instant case. .
The Pennsylvania annotations . to comment a of §336 of the Restatement, in discussing the PetrowsJci case, said: “The court said further that the ■ terms ‘wantonly and intentionally’ are used in the sense of ‘ordinary negligence,’ and that ‘the test is neither reckless conduct nor gross negligence but lack of care under the circumstances.’ ”
“Lack of care under the circumstances” — that is the criterion -in all negligence cases. To fail to exercise that type of care can be characterized as a “reckless. disregard for the safety” of others, but the care always remains “reasonable and ordinary care.” What was Forsythe required to do when he saw McFarlane on the track? He was not required to stand on his *589head, shout, scream or throw himself off the train. He was required to do what was to be expected of an experienced motorman: use the emergency brakes and bring his train to a stop as quickly as possible, all of which spelled out care under the circumstances. But this he failed to do, and, in failing to do this, he showed what Chief Justice Stern so well called in the case of Kasanovich v. George, 348 Pa. 199, “wanton misconduct.”
In keeping with the rambling looseness of the majority opinion, it is not surprising that it failed to make any reference to the Kasanovich case which, of course, is the very cornerstone of jurisprudence on this subject of “wanton negligence.” In that case the plaintiff’s decedent was walking along a streetcar track facing away from oncoming cars. This Court said that the decedent’s carelessness amounted to contributory negligence as a matter of law: “For decedent to have walked alongside the streetcar track and in close proximity to it, with his back to approaching cars, and without making the necessary observations to protect himself, was so clearly negligence on his part which contributed to the happening of the accident that the court was justified in declaring it to be such as a matter of law.”
However, in spite of this demonstrated, law-declared contributory negligence, this Court held that the plaintiff could recover if the evidence demonstrated that the motorman who ran down the decedent was guilty of wanton misconduct. Chief Justice Stern put it plainly: “Such contributory negligence would not be a bar if the motorman was guilty of wanton misconduct, that is, if he exhibited a reckless disregard for decedent’s safety after observing his perilous position and realizing the danger involved in proceeding at a high rate of speed and without giving warning of his approach.”
*590What this all amounts to is simply this. If the victim of an accident faultily puts himself in a state of danger, someone else may not injure or kill him simply because he is at fault. The operator of the oncoming dangerous instrumentality is required to make an effort (an effort based on reasonable and ordinary care) to avoid the collision, and if he does not do so, and harm results, the operator becomes responsible in damages even though the victim may have been guilty of contributory negligence. Thus wanton negligence or wanton misconduct wipes out the otherwise mortally disabling factor (for the plaintiff) of contributory negligence.
In a word, wanton negligence or wanton misconduct is a cataloguing designation for lawyers and judges, and is not a description of a type of care. Wanton misconduct is simply the failure of the defendant to exercise ordinary care in spite of the assumed contributory negligence of the plaintiff, which, incidentally, does not exist in this case. There is no evidence whatsoever that McFarlane was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law. He was, one could almost say conclusively, not even a trespasser. He had paid for his fare as a prospective passenger and was thus legitimately on the defendant’s property. It is not known how he fell to the tracks. He could have fainted and fell, he could have been pushed and fell. There could be a score of ways for him to have found himself on the tracks without fault on his part but, once there, and once having been seen by the motorman, the motorman had a duty to avoid running his train over him.
That is what Judge Ullman charged. Did Forsythe use the care required of him under the circumstances? And no one reading the record can doubt that he did not. Coming back to the Frederick case, especially since the majority holds this out as a lighthouse of di*591rection, we said there that, when the operator of the train has reason to believe that someone is on the track there fastens “upon defendant the duty of thereafter exercising due care for his safety.” And that is what Judge Ullman charged.
Of course, where the operator of a train does not know of the presence of a trespasser then his duty is different. (Restatement, Torts, §336, comment d Pennsylvania Annotations) but that obviously is not this case. It would appear that the majority cannot distinguish between ignorance of the presence of a trespasser and knowledge of his presence.
In Dumanski v. City of Erie, 348 Pa. 505, this Court stated the rule which the majority constantly cherishes but which has no application to the facts in the case before us,namely, that where the trespasser’s presence is unknown to the landowner (the city of Erie in that case) “its only duty was to refrain from inflicting upon him any wilful or wanton injury.” However, this Court added: “Had his presence been known to the City appellee or reasonably should have been known to it, ordinary and reasonable care to avoid injury would have been required.”
Here again we have the criterion of “ordinary and reasonable care to avoid injury.”
That is all that Forsythe had to exercise, reasonable and ordinary care to bring his train to a stop when he saw the prostrate man on the railroad tracks. And the trial judge so charged, and the jury so obviously understood and it brought in a verdict which is supported by the evidence. And it is an act of sheer appellate arbitrariness to require this case to be retried when the law, as laid down by decisions of this very Court, was followed with painstaking fidelity.
Much is being said today about rights of accused in criminal cases. Extraordinary safeguards and protections are being thrown about persons charged with *592crime, and properly so, in order to avoid that an innocent person should be convicted. But the courts should show that same concern over persons who are victims not of crime but of reckless conduct which kills just as permanently as a gunman’s bullet. The decision of the majority in this case makes a second class citizen of the plaintiff. Nan Evans, administratrix of the estate of Frank J. McFarlane, is being denied the due process guaranteed to her under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, She is being denied property which a court of law had adjudicated to be hers, in accordance with law.
The motorman Forsythe was called by the plaintiff to testify with regard to the manner in which the accident occurred. Forsythe was an employee of the Philadelphia Transportation Company, the defendant, and, of course, was in court during the trial. The defendant could have called Forsythe as a witness if it chose to do so. It did not choose to do so. The trial judge then, in accordance with the time-honored rule, informed the jury that they had the right to draw an inference, because of the failure of the defendant to call Forsythe as its witness, that had he testified in the company’s behalf his testimony would not have been helpful to the company. The majority declares this to have been prejudical and reversible error. Of course, it was not.
The majority cites two cases in assumed support of its ruling. They are utterly inapposite. In Haas v. Kasnot, 377 Pa. 440, one of the cases the majority cites, the presumed potential witness, a Louis Mike, was not called by either side, a situation wholly different from the one at bar, where Forsythe did testify for one side. In Raffaele v. Andrews, 197 Pa. Superior Ct. 368, the other case cited by the majority, the defendant did not put on any witnesses at all, and, therefore, that sitúa*593tion wag also wholly different from the one before us for consideration.
Not only does the majority opinion cite inapposite cases in this arbitrary ordering of a new trial, but it also presumes an omniscience which finds no confirmation in the rest of the opinion. The majority opinion says: “The record shows that the witness [Forsythe] was asked every possible question concerning the occurrence except at what point he applied the brakes to stop the train.”
How does the majority know that the plaintiff asked “every possible question” with one exception? I can think of a dozen questions which plaintiff’s counsel could have asked, but which he did not ask for the simple reason that he was thoroughly aware that he was dealing with a hostile witness by whose answers he could be bound. The majority admits that one question was not asked, namely, when did Forsythe apply the brakes to stop the train. . There were countless others. Plaintiff’s counsel could have asked Forsythe what was the condition of his eyes. He could have asked him how well acquainted he was with the locale where the accident occurred. He could have asked him if he had been drinking alcohol that day. He could have asked him if he had had similar accidents in the past. He could have asked why he didn’t apply his brakes as soon as he saw an obstacle on the track.
It is consonant with the rest of its opinion for the majority to arrogate to itself a supreme knowledge as to what was in the mind of plaintiff’s counsel and what questions could have been put to Forsythe, but the record does not bear out this infinite capacity for mind-reading on the part of the majority.
The majority opinion cites Beers v. Muth, 395 Pa. 624, in assumed buttressing of its position. That case categorically destroys the majority’s position. There, the plaintiff called the defendant for cross-examina*594tion and asked him if he was driving the car which was involved in the fatal collision which was the subject of the lawsuit, if he was capable of gauging the comparative speeds of automobiles and how fast he was traveling just before the collision. The defendant did not take the witness stand in his own behalf. We held that it was error on the part of the trial court to fail to charge the jury that it could draw an unfavorable inference from the defendant’s refusal to take the witness stand in his own defense. This Court said: “Law is the distillation of common sense as drawn from the experience of mankind. And recorded experience through the centuries reveals that unless there is some obvious reason to establish the contrary, the person who fails to offer an explanation, when he is charged with misconduct, runs the risk of having the world believe that he has no satisfactory explanation to produce. Of course, we know that many a blameless person is accused of misbehavior of one character or another, but it still remains true that unless there exists a palpable reason for sealing one’s lips, the world expects speech when the finger is lifted to accuse. We are not here considering the constitutional provision that no person is required to reply to any question which might subject him to criminal prosecution.”
In the case at bar the defendant railway company’s lawyer could have asked Forsythe many questions in an attempt to mitigate the damaging testimony he had given against the railway company when he was questioned by plaintiff’s counsel. Forsythe stated, under examination by plaintiff’s counsel, that he saw a man on the track when he was 88 feet away. Yet he did not stop the train before reaching him, indeed, until he had passed over him with slaughtering effects. The company’s lawyer could have asked Forsythe if there was a failure of brakes, whether the brakes had been inspected, whether the lighting was such that he could *595not distinguish the form of a human being. He could have asked him if he did everything humanly possible to avoid striking the prostrate figure on the tracks. There were innumerable questions defendant’s counsel could have put to Forsythe in attempted mitigation of the testimony he had given when questioned by plaintiff’s counsel.
The jury had the right to infer from the defendant’s failure to call Forsythe as a witness that what he said in his examination by plaintiff’s counsel was true, and that he had no modification to offer against that testimony. The majority admits that the plaintiff did not ask the witness at what point he applied the brakes to stop the train. Why didn’t the defendant’s counsel ask that very pertinent, crucial question? The failure of the defendant to put only that one decisive question was enough to justify the application of the rule under consideration. The only possible inference that can be drawn from the defendant’s counsel failure to ask that extremely pivotal crucial question is that he assumed or knew that the answer would undoubtedly have been damaging to the railway company. Defendant’s counsel was astute in not asking that question or any other question. Forsythe had already revealed, when questioned by plaintiff’s counsel, his ineptness, negligence and lack of care at the time of the accident. Defendant’s counsel did not intend to drive further nails into the coffin lid of the defendant’s case by asking further questions. Any first year law student would see this fundamental strategy on the part of defendant’s counsel. The majority seems to miss it.
But, the law has established rules to circumvent strategy and maneuvering when it aims at concealing the truth. And one of those rules is that a party which fails to put an important witness on the stand takes the chance of an unfavorable inference being drawn against it because of that failure. All this is ABC in *596trial by jury, but it seems to escape the majority. For tbe majority to base an order for a long, expensive new trial on so flimsy and feeble a foundation as the one announced in this reason is to play at sixes and sevens with trial by jury.
The trial of this case began on September 16, 1963, and ended on September 30th. This means that in ordering a new trial two weeks more will be consumed in litigating a controversy already litigated, it will mean adding a mammoth log to the gigantic backlog of untried cases, it will méan the retrial of a case without precise direction as to how the case should be retried, which could mean another appeal, another re-reversal of a verdict, and, therefore another retrial, and' another prolonged, protracted drawing out of a legal controversy which has already been decided. If Hamlet lamented over the “law’s delays,” in 1602, I should like to hear him on the snail’s gallop of the law in 1965, with particular asides on the case of Evans v. Philadelphia Transportation Company! And it would indeed be engrossing also to hear him comment, in iambic pentameter, on self-assumed monarchical usurpation of unwarranted judicial power, all so evident in. this case.
I dissent.