Evans v. Johns Hopkins University

• Citation: 167 A.2d 591,224 Md. 234
• Decision Date: 07 February 1961
• Docket Number: No. 119,119
• Parties: David Robert EVANS v. JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.
• Court: Court of Appeals of Maryland

Page 234

224 Md. 234

167 A.2d 591

David Robert EVANS v. JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.

No. 119

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

Feb. 7, 1961.

Richard Whittington Whitlock, Baltimore (Harry Goldman, Jr., Baltimore, on the brief), for appellant.

John H. Blogiano, Baltimore (Clater W. Smith, Smith, Somerville & Case, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

Before BRUNE, C. J., and HENDERSON, HAMMOND, PRESCOTT and HORNEY, JJ.

BRUNE, Chief Judge.

David Robert Evans (the plaintiff-appellant), while a graduate student at the Johns Hopkins University (the defendant-appellee) working towards the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, was burned over various parts of his body as a result of an explosion which occurred while he was synthesizing glucose and acetone, an extremely volatile substance, to produce monoacetone glucose, in one of the appellee's biology laboratories. He brought suit for damages against the University based upon its alleged negligence. The trial court, Warnken, J., granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment on the grounds that, as a matter of law, the plaintiff had assumed the risk of the accident which occurred and had been injured as a result of his own negligence.

On appeal from the resulting judgment for the defendant University, the plaintiff contends (a) that Judge Warnken erred in granting the defendant's motion for summary judgment, since he claims that this is not a proper case for the application of Maryland Rule 610(a)(d), in that there is present a genuine dispute as to material facts, and (b) that Judge Niles, who had previously ruled on the interrogatories, erred in not sustaining the plaintiff's exceptions to the defendant's refusal to answer certain of his interrogatories, specifically those numbered 8 through 13 and 16, which are referred to below.

The theory of the plaintiff's case is not that the defendant University was guilty of any negligence which caused the explosion and fire--indeed he says that the cause of the explosion is unknown--but that the University was negligent in not supplying the particular laboratory in which the plaintiff was working with 'any ordinary or reasonable safety measures or precautions or devices necessary and proper for the purpose of quenching, controlling and extinguishing chemical explosions and fires,' and that the plaintiff's injuries were proximately caused by this negligence. The plaintiff's theory of the defendant's negligence seems to be very broad--a subject to which we shall return in considering his interrogatories. However, insofar as the motion for summary judgment is concerned, despite doubt as to primary negligence, we may assume, though we do not decide, that the University was negligent in not furnishing some safety device or devices, such as a hood or a personnel shower, in the laboratory where the plaintiff usually did his work, to protect against the consequences of a possible explosion and fire resulting from the experiment or operation in which he was there engaged.

The clear and undisputed facts upon which this suit is based are stated in the plaintiff's deposition, which was taken by the defendant and which was filed in support of the latter's motion for summary judgment. The plaintiff did not file any affidavits in opposition to that motion, though a hearing was adjourned to give him an opportunity to do so. Instead, he thereafter filed an answer to the motion which alleged in general terms, without specification, that there was a dispute as to material facts, and which otherwise consisted primarily of argument as to the meaning and effect of some of his testimony set forth in his deposition which had been filed by the defendant in support of its motion.

The essential facts which appear in the plaintiff's deposition may be rather briefly stated. The appellant, who, far from being newly initiated in laboratory work, was quite experienced therein, having worked in such laboratories both at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, knew what devices were necessary adequately to protect himself from the effects of a laboratory explosion and fire, if any should occur. He was also cognizant of the fact that such devices were present in certain laboratories in the building in which he was working and that these laboratories were, or could be made, available to him. The appellant knew that the laboratory in which he was working did not have any safety devices, he knew that acetone is highly explosive and he chose to perform this synthesizing operation in his usual laboratory using a method which he thought would avoid an explosion and would so compensate for the lack of such equipment. His knowledge with respect to each of these factors is undisputed, as is his course of conduct in the face of that knowledge. He chose to perform this experiment or operation in his usual laboratory as a matter of his own convenience. Even in his answer to the appellee's motion for summary judgment the appellant failed to state any fact which would indicate that his claim was not subject to the defense of assumption of risk as a matter of law.

The appellant's bald general assertion in his answer to the appellee's motion for summary judgment, that '[t]here is a genuine dispute as to material facts, and the Defendant is not entitled to judgment as a matter of law,' is insufficient to establish such a dispute and to prevent the granting of a motion for summary judgment. Frush v. Brooks, 204 Md. 315, 321, 104 A.2d 624, 626. As was there said, '* * * mere formal denials or...