Frank Chapman v. Jerry Chaon , 619 F. App'x 185 ( 2015 )

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
_____________
No. 14-4082
_____________
FRANK CHAPMAN,
Appellant
v.
JERRY CHAON;
TEREX CORPORATION
__________________________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. Civil No. 3-13-cv-00885)
District Judge: Honorable Richard P. Conaboy
__________________________
Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)
June 5, 2015
Before: RENDELL, HARDIMAN, and VANASKIE, Circuit Judges
(Filed: August 13, 2015)
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OPINION*
_____________
VANASKIE, Circuit Judge.
*
This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7
does not constitute binding precedent.
This personal injury suit turns on whether Appellant Frank Chapman, who
suffered injuries in a workplace accident when an employee of Appellee Terex
Corporation fell from a high ladder onto him, may rely on the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur
to permit a jury finding in his favor on the issue of negligence. The District Court
granted summary judgment in favor of Terex. Because we agree that Chapman was not
entitled to rely on res ipsa loquitur on these facts, we will affirm.
I.
Since 1994, Chapman has been employed as an operating engineer for Fahs
Construction. In April 2011, Chapman was assigned to a bridge-repair jobsite in
Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania. Among the construction equipment at the site was a Bid-
Well 3600 Automatic Roller Paver, which Fahs Construction had recently purchased
from Terex. To access the control console of the Paver, the operator must climb a ladder,
between eight and nine feet in height, mounted on the side of the Paver. On April 11,
2011, Terex sent Jerry Chaon, a service engineer, to the jobsite to train Fahs
Construction’s employees on the use of the Paver.1
During Chaon’s tutorial, Chapman inquired whether the Paver had a specific kind
of auxiliary power hookup. Chaon recalled that the control panel in the operator’s
compartment had such a hookup, but to confirm that, he decided to ascend the Paver’s
ladder and personally check. Chapman, who had planned to follow Chaon up into the
1
Chaon was initially named as a defendant in this lawsuit, but was dismissed by
stipulation in April 2014.
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operator’s compartment, waited at the bottom of the ladder for Chaon to complete his
climb. As Chaon approached the top rung of the ladder, however, he lost his grip and
fell. Chaon landed on Chapman, who suffered a back injury that caused him to miss
several months of work.
The record is devoid of evidence as to what caused Chaon to fall. It is undisputed
that Chaon had no grease or oil on his hands; that he was in good physical health and had
not felt dizzy or faint that day; and that the ladder itself was stable, securely attached to
the Paver, and not defective in any apparent way. Chaon’s own description of the fall
was as follows:
My hands slipped off of—as I remember it, you know, as I
was climbing up there getting ready to reach for the next
[rung], my hand came off from there. I’m sitting with both
hands in the air and my fanny taking me the other direction.
App. 84.
In April 2013, Chapman filed a complaint in the Middle District of Pennsylvania
in which he alleged that the negligence of Terex and Chaon, its employee, had caused
him to suffer in excess of $75,000 in damages.2 In June 2014, Terex filed a motion for
summary judgment. In a Memorandum and Order filed September 9, 2014, the District
Court granted Terex’s motion. Chapman timely appealed.
2
Chapman is a resident of Pennsylvania. Terex is incorporated in Delaware and
its principal place of business is Connecticut. Chaon is a resident of South Dakota.
Because this case arises under diversity jurisdiction, we will apply the substantive law of
the forum state, Pennsylvania. See Erie R.R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 78 (1938).
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II.
The District Court had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a). We have appellate
jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Our review of the District Court’s order granting
summary judgment is plenary. Trinity Indus., Inc. v. Chi. Bridge & Iron Co., 735 F.3d
131, 134 (3d Cir. 2013). We view the evidence “‘in the light most favorable to the
nonmoving party.’” Id. at 134–35 (quoting Kurns v. A.W. Chesterton Inc., 620 F.3d 392,
395 (3d Cir. 2010)). Summary judgment is appropriate where the movant establishes
“that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to
judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a).
III.
To succeed on a cause of action based on negligence under Pennsylvania law, “the
plaintiff must show that the defendant had a duty to conform to a certain standard of
conduct; that the defendant breached that duty; that such breach caused the injury in
question; and actual loss or damage.” Phillips v. Cricket Lighters, 841 A.2d 1000, 1008
(Pa. 2003) (internal quotation marks omitted). Res ipsa loquitur “is a rule that provides
that a plaintiff may satisfy his burden of producing evidence of a defendant’s negligence
by proving that he has been injured by a casualty of a sort that normally would not have
occurred in the absence of the defendant’s negligence.” Quinby v. Plumsteadville Family
Practice, Inc., 907 A.2d 1061, 1071 (Pa. 2006). Pennsylvania has adopted § 328D of the
Restatement (Second) of Torts, see id., which states that the doctrine applies when:
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(a) the event is of a kind which ordinarily does not occur in
the absence of negligence;
(b) other responsible causes, including the conduct of the
plaintiff and third persons, are sufficiently eliminated by the
evidence; and
(c) the indicated negligence is within the scope of the
defendant’s duty to the plaintiff.
Restatement (Second) of Torts § 328D(1).
To satisfy the first prong—which is the focal point of the case before us—the
plaintiff “must produce evidence which would permit the conclusion that it was more
probable than not the injuries were caused by [the defendant’s] negligence.” Micciche v.
E. Elevator Co., 645 A.2d 278, 281 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1994). This is consistent with the
general rule in Pennsylvania, which is that “the mere happening of an accident or an
injury does not establish negligence nor raise an inference or a presumption of negligence
nor make out a prima facie case of negligence.” Amon v. Shemaka, 214 A.2d 238, 239
(Pa. 1965).
Here, the District Court concluded that a reasonable jury could not find, based on
the fact of the fall alone, that it was more likely than not that Chaon or Terex acted
negligently. Although we are aware of no Pennsylvania cases directly on point, we agree
with the District Court’s assessment. Courts across the country have concluded, on
similar facts, that a fall or misstep, without more, is not sufficient to warrant an inference
of negligence under res ipsa loquitur. A Massachusetts state court aptly described the
principle as follows:
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A person’s fall down a flight of stairs, or any fall, is a familiar
phenomenon in human experience attributable to losing one’s
balance, tripping or a myriad of other common causes not
involving tortious conduct. Such occurrence is dissimilar to
the events in the res ipsa loquitur cases cited by the plaintiff
which involve the unexplained fall of objects or material
debris.
Aceto v. Legg, 1990 Mass. App. Div. 191, at *2 (Mass. Dist. Ct. 1990). See also Smith v.
City of N.Y., 936 N.Y.S.2d 178, 179 (N.Y. App. Div. 2012) (finding res ipsa loquitur
inapplicable “because it is not uncommon for trips and falls to occur without negligence
where there is a misstep or loss of balance”); Thomas v. Bradley, 987 So. 2d 1020, 1026
(Miss. Ct. App. 2008) (“[The plaintiff] would have us apply res ipsa loquitor [sic] with no
more proof save that [the defendant] slipped. We are not prepared to find that one who
slips and falls on a roof would never do so but for a lack of reasonable care.”); Cie. Des.
Messageries Maritimes v. Tawes, 205 F.2d 5, 8 (5th Cir. 1953) (finding res ipsa loquitur
inapplicable after plaintiff fell from ladder because “the cause of the accident and the
relation of the appellant to it were matters of mere speculation and conjecture”).3
The commentary to the Restatement, too, illustrates the same point:
There are many types of accidents which commonly occur
without the fault of anyone. The fact that a tire blows out, or
that a man falls down stairs is not, in the absence of anything
3
These cases stand in stark contrast to those in which Pennsylvania courts have
permitted an inference of negligence. See, e.g., Quinby, 907 A.2d at 1072–73 (plaintiff
entitled to inference where quadriplegic patient fell from examination table to floor, and
could not have done so of his own volition); D’Ardenne v. Strawbridge & Clothier, Inc.,
712 A.2d 318, 325 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1998) (plaintiff entitled to inference where foot
became stuck in escalator); Gilbert v. Korvette, Inc., 327 A.2d 94, 102–03 (Pa. 1974)
(same).
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more, enough to permit the conclusion that there was
negligence in inspecting the tire, or in the construction of the
stairs, because it is common human experience that such
events all too frequently occur without such negligence.
Restatement (Second) of Torts § 328D cmt. c.
Chapman directs us to two other cases, Clark v. Darden Restaurants, Inc., No. 14-
2810, 2015 WL 3396807 (3d Cir. May 27, 2015), and Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S.
46 (1948). Both are distinguishable. In Clark, a waiter dropped a “slippery” and
“greasy” plate onto a customer’s table, causing an eye injury, 2015 WL 3396807, at *1,
while in Johnson, a seaman dropped a heavy block onto the head of a shipmate. Both
cases involved accidents that were extremely unlikely to have occurred with the exercise
of reasonable care. See Clark, 2015 WL 3396807, at *2 (“[N]o reasonable, similarly
situated server should have handled the plate as the server did here.”); Johnson, 333 U.S.
at 50 (“[H]uman experience tells us that careful men do not customarily do such an act.”).
Here, by contrast, Chaon fell from a ladder in a manner equally as attributable to fluke
happenstance as to carelessness. The District Court was correct to conclude that there is
simply no basis on which a jury might infer that the accident was caused by one as
opposed to the other.
Because we agree that Chapman has not come forward with evidence that would
permit a jury to find in his favor on the issue of negligence, and because the jury would
not be permitted to make such a finding on the basis of res ipsa loquitur, we will affirm
the District Court’s grant of summary judgment on Count One of the Complaint.
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IV.
For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the District Court’s judgment of
September 9, 2014.
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