Opinion
No. 2224 C.D. 2012
12-30-2013
Ryan Stahon, Appellant v. Harborcreek Township and Bambi Denning
BEFORE: HONORABLE DAN PELLEGRINI, President Judge HONORABLE MARY HANNAH LEAVITT, Judge HONORABLE ROCHELLE S. FRIEDMAN, Senior Judge
OPINION NOT REPORTED
MEMORANDUM OPINION BY SENIOR JUDGE FRIEDMAN
Ryan Stahon appeals from the July 31, 2012, order of the Court of Common Pleas of Erie County (trial court), which granted Harborcreek Township's (Harborcreek) motion for summary judgment and dismissed the matter with prejudice. We affirm.
On April 30, 2004, Bambi Denning provided alcohol to her daughter and her daughter's friends at her home in Wesleyville Township. Nineteen-year-old Stahon was one of the friends to whom Denning provided alcohol. After 1:00 a.m. on May 1, 2004, Stahon, admittedly intoxicated, left the Denning home in his car to travel home. Stahon was traveling northbound on Saltsman Road in Harborcreek when he lost control of his vehicle while negotiating a curve near the intersection of Saltsman and Cumberland Roads. Stahon ultimately crashed into a tree and sustained severe injuries. Stahon has no memory of the accident apart from recalling that the road was wet due to rain. (Trial Ct. Op. at 1.)
On April 27, 2006, Stahon filed an action against Harborcreek and Denning (collectively, Defendants), alleging that Defendants' negligence caused his automobile accident on May 1, 2004, resulting in Stahon suffering severe head and spinal cord injuries. Stahon alleged that Harborcreek carelessly and negligently failed to design or maintain its roadway in a safe condition, failed to correct a dangerous condition, failed to post warning signs, failed to design and construct a proper shoulder along the roadway, and failed to construct and maintain a proper storm sewer along the roadway.
After discovery, Harborcreek moved for summary judgment based on Stahon's failure to set forth a genuine issue of material fact pertaining to causation. The trial court found that Stahon could not identify a specific dangerous condition that caused or contributed to his accident. Therefore, the trial court determined that no genuine issue of material fact relating to causation existed and dismissed Stahon's case against Harborcreek with prejudice. Stahon appealed to this court.
Our review of an order granting a motion for summary judgment is limited to determining whether the trial court erred as a matter of law or abused its discretion. Fagan v. Department of Transportation, 946 A.2d 1123, 1125 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2008). "The evidence shall be viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, and all doubts as to the existence of a genuine issue of material fact must be resolved against the moving party." Id. --------
Stahon contends that the trial court erred in granting Harborcreek's motion for summary judgment because material facts were in dispute. Specifically, Stahon argues that there is an issue of material fact as to whether the warning signs, including placement of the signs, and other driver information on Saltsman Road were adequate and in compliance with established safety guidelines. We disagree.
In order to state a cause of action in negligence, the plaintiff must set forth the following elements:
(1) a duty on the part of the defendant to conform to a certain standard of conduct relative to the plaintiff; (2) defendant's failure to so conform; and (3) a reasonably close causal connection between the defendant's conduct and some resulting injury to the plaintiff. Further, the . . . court [in Caldwell v. Department of Transportation, 548 A.2d 1284, 1286 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1988)] held that where insufficient evidence exists to justify an inference of negligence and causation, the trial court may properly grant summary judgment in favor of the party against whom liability is sought.Saylor v. Green, 645 A.2d 318, 320 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1994).
Harborcreek concedes that it has an obligation under the law "to construct and maintain its streets so that they will be in a condition 'reasonably' safe for the use of the public . . . ." Burton v. Terry, 592 A.2d 1380, 1383 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1991). A township's obligation to construct and maintain its streets in a reasonably safe condition is not without limit. The law imposes no duty or obligation on a township "'to construct and maintain its streets in a manner that would insure the safety of all drivers.'" Id. at 1384 (citation omitted). However, we need not address whether Harborcreek breached its duty because Stahon failed to identify any cause of the accident. This court has addressed similar factual situations in the past with uniformity.
In Saylor, David Saylor suffered injuries when the motorcycle he was operating left the roadway and struck a fencepost. 645 A.2d at 319. Saylor filed suit against the Department of Transportation (DOT) and a private landowner seeking recovery for his injuries. Id. Saylor testified that he did not know why he lost control of his motorcycle. Id. at 329. The trial court granted DOT's motion for summary judgment, and we affirmed, finding that Saylor failed to prove that any ascertainable defect in the roadway caused his accident. Id. at 319-20.
In Fritz v. Glen Mills School, 894 A.2d 172, 173 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2006), Vance Fritz's vehicle left the roadway and struck a tree on school district property. Fritz had no memory of what actually caused his vehicle to leave the roadway. Id. at 177. The trial court determined that there was insufficient evidence to justify an inference that any particular defective condition of the roadway caused Fritz's accident. Id. Therefore, summary judgment was proper. Id.
In Fagan v. Department of Transportation, 946 A.2d 1123, 1124 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2008), the estate of a deceased driver filed an action against DOT, seeking recovery for DOT's alleged failure to design and maintain crashworthy guardrails and proper roadway shoulders and berms. The decedent's vehicle had left the roadway for unknown reasons. Id. This court stated:
The failure to prove why the vehicle left its intended place on the paved portion of the highway results in a gap in the chain of causation between [the] intended use of the highway and contact with a []DOT instrumentality.
* * *
Our Supreme Court's view of proximate cause, like its view of duty, is necessarily rooted in public policy considerations, that is, ideas of history, morals, justice and society in general in determining where the loss should fall. Courts faced with a causation question in leaving-the-pavement cases may resolve the issue with different language, but recent results are consistent: the loss tends to fall on the party with some responsibility for the vehicle leaving the pavement and not on an owner of land or objects nearby.946 A.2d at 1128-29 (citations omitted). Thus, this court affirmed the trial court's granting of summary judgment.
Here, Stahon alleges in his amended complaint that "[w]hile operating his car on Saltsman Road . . . [he] lost control of his car and allowed it to collide with a tree beside the road causing multiple and severe injuries." (Am. Compl. at 2.) When asked how the accident occurred, Stahon testified: "[a]ll I can remember is being at an intersection and, like, just kind of like everything kind of started to spin, and then just nothing." (Stahon Dep., 1/19/11, at 58-59.) He further testified, "I have no memory of the accident or, like, preparing - like before the accident all I remember is rainy, really dark, really wet, like - I mean, like torrential rain, and then just nothing." (Id. at 61.) Stahon stated that he did not know what caused his vehicle to leave the road. (Id. at 62.)
Stahon could not provide a reason why his vehicle left the roadway and, therefore, could not show an inference of causation. It is pure speculation as to what caused this unfortunate accident. The trial court properly granted summary judgment after finding that no genuine issue of material fact existed regarding causation.
Accordingly, we affirm.
/s/_________
ROCHELLE S. FRIEDMAN, Senior Judge
ORDER
AND NOW, this 30th day of December, 2013, we hereby affirm the July 31, 2012, order of the Court of Common Pleas of Erie County in the above-captioned matter.
/s/_________
ROCHELLE S. FRIEDMAN, Senior Judge