243 Pa. Super. 227 - Hamil v. Bashline’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

19 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 21 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““(1) proof that a defendant’s conduct increased the risk of harm is not, under § 323, proof that the conduct caused the harm; (2) § 323 does require proof of a causal connection between defendant’s conduct and plaintiff’s harm; (3) in this case, the requisite causal connection was not shown. (243 Pa.Super, at 231, 364 A.2d at 1368 ). “If the only evidence of causation is expert testimony, and if the expert, with all his training and experience, can only conclude that the conduct may have caused the harm, any conclusion as to causation on the part of the jury would necessarily be based on speculation. It must therefore be admitted that a jury cannot be permitted to find causation solely from expert testimony of increased risk. ( 243 Pa.Super. at 233-234 , 364 A.2d 1369 ). “In addition to increasing the risk of harm, the conduct must have caused the harm. Therefore, we must decide whether appellant’s expert testimony sufficiently met the causation requirement of § 323, i. e., whether it stated in sufficiently definite terms that the decedent’s death resulted from appellees’ failure to exercise reasonable care. ( 243 Pa.Super. at 234-235 , 364 A.2d at 1370 ). “In Pennsylvania, expert testimony evidencing a causal link must conform to a standard of certainty. ‘[A]n expert witness [must] testify not that the injury in question which have been or even probably was caused by the alleged negligence, but . . . that in his professional opinion the result in question came from the cause”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 252 Pa. Super. 392 - Gradel v. Inouye

2. “There is no contention in this case, as I understand it, that the cancer, that is, the fibrosarcoma was caused by any conduct of the defendant. However, the plaintiff is entitled to recover damages for all injuries which the defendant’s negligence was a substantial factor in producing. The defendant’s negligence need not be the sole cause of the injuries; other causes may have contributed to producing the final result. The fact that some other factor may have been a contributing cause of an injury does not relieve a defendant of liability, unless you find that such other cause would have produced the injury complained of independently of his negligence. (Emphasis added)”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Gradel v. Inouye

3. ““One who undertakes, gratuitously or for consideration, to render services to another which he should recognize as necessary for the protection of the other’s person or things, is subject to liability to the other for physical harm resulting from his failure to exercise reasonable care to perform his undertaking, if “(a) his failure to exercise such care increases the risk of such harm, or “(b) the harm is suffered because of the other’s reliance upon the undertaking.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 252 Pa. Super. 392 - Gradel v. Inouye