Williams v. Van Camp
| Decision Date | 08 November 1954 |
| Parties | , 47 A.L.R.2d 800 Alice Johnston WILLIAMS, Appellant, v. Willard VAN CAMP and Bette Heckman, now known as Elizabeth F. Fulghum. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
John A. Metz, Jr., Henry E. Rea, Jr., Metz, McClure, Hanna & MacAlister, Pittsburgh, for appellant.
Meyer W. Gordon, Pittsburgh, for appellees.
As the result of an automobile accident which occurred in Crawford County, Alice Johnston Williams sued Willard Van Camp and Bette Heckman in trespass in the Court of Common Pleas of that county. Neither defendant entering an appearance, the case was tried ex parte and the jury returned the following verdict:
'We, the jurors empannelled in the above entitled case, find Willard Van Camp guilty of negligence in operating the car owned by Bette Heckman and award the lump sum of $6,000.00 to the plaintiff Alice Johnston Williams.'
After an exemplification of the reocrd had been filed in Allegheny County, the defendant Bette Heckman moved to quash a writ of scire facias issued on petition of the plaintiff. It was held by this Court, Williams v. Van Kemp, 370 Pa. 359, 88 A.2d 49, that the exemplification filed in Allegheny County was incomplete, and in due time the record was properly amended and completed.
The plaintiff then filed a statement of claim and a praecipe for a writ of scire facias to revive judgment. The defendant Bette Heckman moved to quash the writ and to strike from the record the exemplification of the record as it applied to her. The lower Court held that the verdict as entered did not support a judgment against Bette Heckman and therefore granted the motion to quash the writ of scire facias.
The question before this Court, therefore, is whether the quoted verdict does authorize the entering of a judgment against Bette Heckman. The lawsuit was against Willard Van Camp and Bette Heckman. Unless there is something in the history of the case to show that one or the other of the defendants was excluded by operation of law, the verdict would necessarily be against both defendants. The record shows no such exclusion. To argue that Bette Heckman is not liable because the verdict does not state she is liable would be to say that Van Camp is also not liable because the verdict does not declare that he is liable. It does say that Van Camp was guilty of negligence, but that of itself would not make Van Camp responsible in money damages because it is within the range of possibility that the jury could have found the plaintiff guilty of contributory negligence in which event Van Camp would not be answerable monetarily even though guilty of negligence.
However, since we cannot read into the verdict what is not there, we cannot speculate on a possibility that the plaintiff committed contributory negligence and we cannot speculate on a possibility that the jury exculpated Bette Heckman from the charge of negligence. We do know that the jury awarded to the plaintiff the sum of $6,000. Had the jury merely said: 'We find for the plaintiff in the sum of $6,000,' there could be no question that the verdict would be against both Van Camp and Heckman.
It is to be assumed that the trial was properly conducted and that the jury correctly instructed on its duties. Given the nature of the action, it would be inevitable that the Court would instruct the jury that in...
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