Giorgianni v. DiSanzo

140 A.2d 802, 392 Pa. 350, 1958 Pa. LEXIS 463
CourtSupreme Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedMay 2, 1958
DocketAppeal, 2
StatusPublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 140 A.2d 802 (Giorgianni v. DiSanzo) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Giorgianni v. DiSanzo, 140 A.2d 802, 392 Pa. 350, 1958 Pa. LEXIS 463 (Pa. 1958).

Opinions

Opinion by

Mr. Justice Ohidsey :

In this action in trespass there was a jury verdict for the defendant. Following denial of plaintiff’s motion for a new trial, judgment was entered on the verdict, and plaintiff has appealed therefrom, assigning error in the court’s charge to the jury.

The plaintiff, Miss Giorgianni, a Miss Garbin and a Miss Zajackowski, young women residing in and employed in the City of Pittsburgh, arranged with the defendant, Miss DiSanzo,1 who resided in the Borough of Freedom, Beaver County, to spend the week-end together. . The first three mentioned members of the party left Pittsburgh by train at about 7:30 P.M. on .Saturday evening, October 24, 1953 and arrived about an hour later at Rochester, Pennsylvania where they were met by the defendant, Miss DiSanzo, who owned and was operating her automobile. After stopping at [352]*352a hotel in Rochester where some of them had dinner, they drove to the Sons of Italy Club in Elwood City, arriving there about 10:45 P.M., where they danced and had some drinks and some pizza pie. They left this club at about 2:30 A.M. (October 25th) and proceeded to the Moose Club where they stayed about a half hour. Defendant, Miss DiSanzo, entered this club but after a few minutes returned to her car and listened to the radio. After leaving the Moose Club at about 3 A.M., the three members of the party joined Miss DiSanzo in her car and all proceeded toward Beaver Falls where it was their intention to spend the night at the Broad-head Hotel. The plaintiff was seated in the rear seat back of Miss DiSanzo, the driver. Miss Zajackowski sat in the rear to plaintiff’s right, and Miss Harbin sat in the front seat beside the driver. On the journey to Beaver Falls their route passed through the Borough of Koppel. Before reaching Koppel they had been travelling on a curving two-lane highway. There was a car in front of them occupied by a couple, which was moving from one side of the road to the other. After crossing a toll bridge and entering Koppel they reached a four-lane paved highway, known as Fifth Avenue. There was no other traffic on the street in Koppel at that hour in the morning and the defendant drove past the car which had been in front of them, before reaching an intersecting highway known as Walnut Street. At this intersection there were two depressions in the paving extending across Fifth Avenue at approximately the curb lines of Walnut Street. These rounded depressions were apparently for drainage purposes, and there was testimony by an investigator employed by plaintiff’s counsel that the bottom of each depression varied in depth from 8 inches in the middle of Fifth Avenue to 5 inches toward the boundaries of the avenue. When the car which the defendant was driving [353]*353and in which the other three persons were passengers went over each of these depressions there was a bump which caused the head of the plaintiff to strike the top of the car and, according to her testimony, she was thrown to the floor. Miss Zajackowski called to the defendant to stop, and the latter drove her car to a stop on the right-hand side of the street. Plaintiff complained of pain but resumed her seat and the car continued its journey to Beaver Falls where the party spent the remainder of the night. In the morning they attended church and in the afternoon the defendant drove the others to her home in Freedom and later took them to the train for Pittsburgh. Upon plaintiff’s return to Pittsburgh X-rays revealed that she had suffered a fracture of the first lumbar vertebra, causing damages which the plaintiff sought to recover in this suit.

Appellant’s contentions are: (1) that the court’s charge as to negligence was inadequate; and (2) that the court emphasized and wrongfully submitted an issue of contributory negligence which did not exist. We find no merit in either contention.

As to the issue of negligence, the trial judge charged as follows: “Now, the plaintiff in this case is charging the defendant, Miss DiSanzo or Mrs. Denney, with negligence. She says that Miss DiSanzo — we’ll call her that because that is what she was known to us throughout most of the case — did not operate her automobile on this occasion in as careful a manner as a reasonably, prudent person should have operated that automobile, under all of the circumstances that existed here. If Miss DiSanzo did operate her automobile as a reasonably, prudent person would have been expected to do under these circumstances, then there is no right of action here. There is no case for the plaintiff and your verdict should be for the defendant.

[354]*354“We then go into the evidence to inquire as to what is the main question here, and practically the only question on liability is whether Miss DiSanzo Avas operating her automobile as a reasonably, prudent person would have been expected to do at this time and under all of the conditions that prevailed. That is the issue for you to determine and as I said, the charge, here is that there was negligence; that that was the immediate cause of this action. If there was no negligence, then there is no case here.”

Thereafter the judge reviewed at considerable length the testimony of all of the witnesses, referring to the testimony as to the speed at which the defend: ant was driving, the depressions in the street, the visibility and other conditions surrounding the happening ; and again toward the conclusion of his. charge said: “Was then Miss DiSanzo driving her car as a reasonably, prudent person would? There was no collision here with anybody else, according to the testimony. There was no other car in sight but the car that they had just passed, and which we have described. Did she or should she have seen these bumps which were in the street? The car was at all times, as I understand it, on a public thoroughfare in this, village. It didn’t get off the street or the paved part of the street, but there was a drainage depression or two drainage depressions which a Avitness has described here, he said he went and measured them later on as to what their depth really was. Miss DiSanzo said that she didn’t see those bumps on this night. It had been raining, the roads were wet and as I say, it was three a.m. There were street-lights that were lit or. shining in the town at that time and the headlights of the automobile were on.”

There was testimony to the effect that glare from the street lighting prevented the depressions.from.be[355]*355ing seen on the wet road. The defendant testified that the appearance of the street was deceptive and she didn’t see the bumps before the car went over them. As to speed defendant testified that the car she was following on the narrow portion of the route was trav-elling only 15 or 20 miles per hour and that when she passed it in the borough and entered the intersection she was travelling between 25 and 30 miles per hour. Miss Garbin, called by the plaintiff, estimated the defendant’s speed at 45 or 50 miles per hour when they entered the intersection and 35 miles per hour prior thereto. This was one of the few points in dispute on the question of liability and the verdict establishes that the jury accepted the defendant’s version. Appellant does not contend that the verdict was against the evidence or weight of the evidence.

Appellant cites The Vehicle Oode, Act of May 1, 1929, P. L. 905, Article 10, §1002, as amended, 75 PS §501, which places a speed limit of 20 miles per hour on all vehicles when approaching within 50 feet and in traversing an intersection of highways within a business or residence district

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Giorgianni v. DiSanzo
140 A.2d 802 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1958)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
140 A.2d 802, 392 Pa. 350, 1958 Pa. LEXIS 463, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/giorgianni-v-disanzo-pa-1958.