Casualty

Key Points:

• The “jerk and jolt doctrine” is a long-standing tenet of Pennsylvania law that protects common carriers from liability involving the normal “jerks” and “jolts” that are expected in the operation of a vehicle.
• The doctrine requires a plaintiff to establish that the “jerk” or “jolt” or stop of a vehicle was so unusual and extraordinary as to be beyond a passenger’s reasonable anticipation.
• A trial court may permissibly determine whether a vehicle’s movement satisfies the threshold requirements of the “jerk and jolt doctrine” as a matter of law.  

The “jerk and jolt doctrine” is a long-standing tenet of Pennsylvania law that protects common carriers from liability involving normal “jerks” and “jolts” that would be expected in the operation of a vehicle. The doctrine requires a plaintiff to establish that the jerk or stop of a vehicle was so unusual and extraordinary as to be beyond a passenger’s reasonable anticipation. The validity of the doctrine and, more importantly, the standard through which it is applied was discussed in a recent Commonwealth Court decision.

In Grant v. Southeastern Pennsylvania Transport Authority, 2023 WL 352957 (Pa. Cmwlth. Jan. 23, 2023), the Commonwealth Court affirmed a trial court’s entry of summary judgment in favor of a transit authority. The court effectively rejected the plaintiff’s argument that the trial court had improperly substituted its judgment for that of the jury.

In Grant, video evidence demonstrated that shortly after the plaintiff had boarded a trolley, the trolley accelerated forward, causing the plaintiff to fall to the floor and allegedly suffer injury. No other passengers fell or claimed injuries as a result of the trolley’s movement. The plaintiff filed suit against the transit authority, SEPTA, claiming that the sudden movement of the trolley constituted negligence.

To succeed in her claim, the plaintiff needed to satisfy the threshold requirements of the jerk and jolt doctrine. That doctrine requires that a plaintiff establish that the movement (aka the jerk and/or jolt) of the vehicle was “so unusual and extraordinary” that it was beyond reasonable anticipation. The trial court concluded that the plaintiff could not meet these requirements and granted summary judgment in favor of SEPTA.

The plaintiff appealed, contending that the trial court erred because the question of whether the trolley’s movement was “unusual and extraordinary” was a question of fact for the jury. The Commonwealth Court disagreed. It reasoned that, when a video recording demonstrates that neither the character nor the nature of a plaintiff’s fall could leave a factfinder with any basis to reasonably infer that the trolley’s movement was so “violent and extraordinary” as to meet the threshold to establish negligence under the jerk and jolt doctrine, a trial court may rightfully decide the issue as a matter of law.

While the court’s opinion is unpublished and non-precedential, Grant is significant in that it reaffirms the fact that trial courts may review video surveillance of an alleged jerk or jolt and decide the issue as a matter of law.