Hudson v. Grace

• Decision Date: 22 November 1943
• Docket Number: 186,184,185
• Citation: 348 Pa. 175,34 A.2d 498
• Parties: Hudson, Admrx., v. Grace (et al., Appellant)
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

34 A.2d 498

348 Pa. 175

Hudson, Admrx., v. Grace (et al., Appellant)

Nos. 184, 185, 186

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

November 22, 1943

Argued October 1, 1943.

Appeals, Nos. 184-186, March T., 1943, from judgments of C.P Allegheny Co., July T., 1943, Nos. 2319, 2320, in cases of Helen M. Hudson, Admrx., v. Frank Grace et al. and Mary R. Lavelle v. Same. Judgments (Appeals Nos. 184, 185) affirmed; judgment (Appeal No. 186) modified and affirmed.

Actions in trespass. Before SMITH, J.

Verdicts against additional defendant, in favor of plaintiff, Hudson administratrix, in sum of $15,000, for plaintiff Hudson, administratrix, for benefit of herself as widow, $13,000, and for plaintiff Lavelle, in sum of $17,000, and judgments thereon. Additional defendant appealed.

The judgments in favor of Helen M. Hudson, administratrix of the estate of Arthur F. Hudson, deceased, are affirmed; the judgment in favor of Mary R. Lavelle is reduced to $12,500, and as thus modified is affirmed.

John M. Reed, for appellant.

John E. Evans, Jr., with him John E. Evans, Sr., of Evans, Evans & Spinelli, for appellees.

Before MAXEY, C.J., DREW, LINN, STERN, PATTERSON and STEARNE, JJ.

OPINION

MR. JUSTICE HORACE STERN:

While no case is reported in Pennsylvania with the same factual situation as that which gave rise to the present litigation, there is not involved here the application of any new doctrine in the law of negligence. Human life is so complex that the circumstances attending the happening of different accidents are correspondingly varied, but the principle which determines the imposition of liability is simple and constant, being based on the proposition that one who, by sub-standard conduct, causes injury to another is legally responsible therefor if the harmful consequences of such conduct could reasonably have been foreseen. When that principle is applied to the present facts, however unusual they may be, there can be no doubt of the liability of the Crucible Steel Company of America to plaintiffs in this action.

The Thirty-first Street Bridge, running in a northwesterly-southeasterly direction across the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh, intersects East Ohio Street at its northerly and Penn Avenue at its southerly end. As one travels south on the bridge the roadway bends toward the right at the point where it passes the southerly bank of the river, and from there descends on a rather steep incline to Penn Avenue. Below, close to each side of the line of the bridge, and extending between the river and the tracks of the Allegheny Valley Railroad, are the buildings of the Crucible Steel Company. One of these, on the westerly side, is the boiler house, from the roof of which project several safety-valve exhaust pipes, and also a 20-inch vent for the escape of the steam not utilized in the water heater. All these outlets are approximately on the level of the roadway. The 20-inch vent is situated at a distance of from 100 to 150 feet from the bridge, and from it there is said to emerge a constant stream of vapor during practically the entire time the plant is in operation.

Plaintiffs produced several witnesses -- a worker in the neighborhood, a trucker, automobilists, and traffic policemen -- who testified that, for at least several years previous to the accident, clouds of steam, in the nature of a heavy fog, would frequently sweep from the roof of the boiler house directly across the roadway of the bridge at or near its bend when, as was usually the case, the wind was from the west. The steam would blow over and envelop passing automobiles, and destroy, or at least seriously impair, visibility. This condition must, or certainly should, have been known to the Crucible Steel Company, and, according to the testimony, could have been remedied either by increasing the height of the vent so that more of the steam would thereby be condensed and the rest, when it blew across the bridge, would do so above the tops of vehicles, or by installing a closed instead of a vented water heater; the expense involved in the first method would have been negligible, and in the other would allegedly have been neutralized by the economy effected in utilizing the energy of the escaping steam instead of wasting it.

Between five-thirty and six P.M., eastern war time, on March 9, 1942 an automobile driven by defendant Frank Grace, in which plaintiff Mary R. Lavelle and decedent Arthur F. Hudson were passengers, was traveling southward across the bridge, and, on reaching a point at or near the bend of the roadway above the southerly bank of the river, collided head-on with an automobile driven by defendant George A. Ficht, which was crossing the bridge from the south and approaching the top of the ramp. It was the left fronts of the vehicles which came in contact with one another. According to some of the witnesses, the Grace car was entirely on its right, or westerly, side of the road and the Ficht car had improperly come over there while engaged in passing another northbound car. According to Miss Lavelle, the Grace car had "missed the curve," that is, instead of following the roadway to the right had kept straight on and in that way gone slightly to its left of the white line marking the center of the roadway, and the Ficht car also had partly crossed to its left of that line. According to Ficht, his car approached close to, but never went over, the center line, but the Grace car did. But whichever of these versions be the correct one, all of the witnesses to the accident agree that, immediately preceding the collision and as one of its principal casual factors, a cloud of steam swept across the roadway and enveloped the two cars. Grace and Miss Lavelle testified that, as their car approached the turn in the road, the steam -- of course unexpectedly -- blew across in front of and around them so that they could not see ahead at all, and when, after two or three seconds, the vapor lifted, the Ficht car was at too short a distance, only ten or fifteen feet, to enable either driver to avoid the collision. Ficht testified that the gust of steam came over his car and into its open window, steaming the windshield and his own glasses, and the crash followed in a couple of seconds. Other witnesses, entirely disinterested, likewise testified that just as the two cars neared one another at the curve the steam came across between them and the collision occurred almost instantly thereafter. Grace said that the steam came from the "exhaust pipe" on the roof of the boiler house (the 20-inch vent was admittedly the only one then emitting steam), and the testimony of the other witnesses placed its origin at approximately that point. As the visibility at the time and place of the accident was...