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Gordon v. Garner11/18/1997
on the truck driven by Garner; he did not talk to Garner regarding the accident (all the information he obtained about the accident he gained from the accident report and the officer called to the scene); he did not make any calculations as to the extent to which the extra two tons of sand contributed to Garner's inability to slow down his truck; and he did not calculate into his analysis the actual point at which Garner began to apply his breaks before colliding with Ms. Gordon's vehicle. Given these circumstances, and the fact that the engineer never testified to any degree of scientific certainty that the overloaded condition of Garner's truck was a cause without which the Gordons' injuries would not have occurred, we cannot consider his opinion as to the cause of the November 11 accident to be anything other than mere speculation and conjecture. As our Supreme Court explained in Lockwood v. McCaskill,
expert may express the opinion that a particular cause "could" or "might" have produced the result indicating that the result is capable of proceeding from the particular cause as a scientific fact, i.e., reasonable probability in the particular scientific field;
The Court further pointed out that, however:
If it is not reasonably probable, as a scientific fact, that a particular effect is capable of production by a given cause, and the witness so indicates, the evidence is not sufficient to establish prima facie the causal relation.
The engineer in this case was not in possession of such facts as would have enabled him to express a reasonably accurate Conclusion as to the cause of the accident. Therefore, any opinion he did express as to what "may" not have happened if Garner's truck had not been overloaded lacked factual foundation and is therefore deemed insufficient to raise a genuine issue of material fact on the question of proximate cause. Accordingly, we hold that the trial court properly granted summary judgment in favor of G.S. Materials on the issue of whether it was independently negligent in allowing Garner to leave the company pits with an overloaded truck.
B. Negligent Method of Compensation
Finally, we reach the Gordons' assertion that a jury should have been allowed to determine whether the compensation system which G.S. Materials had in effect contributed to the accident in question. The Gordons contend that G.S. Materials is independently negligent for paying Garner and other truckers in its employ by the ton for the sand that they hauled, as opposed to by the day, week or year that they worked. This method, they contend, encouraged Garner and other truckers to disobey highway safety rules and regulations for the sake of making more money. In asserting this contention, however, the Gordons brought forth no evidence tending to show that G.S. Materials was somehow negligent in paying its truckers by this method of compensation. The law in this State is that a plaintiff should not be allowed to get a particular issue to the jury in the absence of evidence, direct or circumstantial, that a defendant actually was negligent. There being no evidence here of that nature, the issue of whether G.S. Materials' method of compensating its truckers was in fact the cause of the Gordons' injuries must be left in the realm of speculation and conjecture.
Conclusion
We hold that the trial court properly granted summary judgment in favor of G.S. Materials and Aggregate Carriers on all of the Gordons' claims against them. Accordingly, the order below is,
Affirmed.
Judges GREENE and MARTIN, Mark D. concur.
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