Marathon Corporation v. Pitzner

John Pitzner was an air conditioning repairman who was injured in an unwitnessed accident while working on a building leased by Marathon for use as a motorcycle dealership. Pitzner, who had worked on air conditioners on the roof of the building between twenty-five and fifty times prior to the incident in question, continued to work on the roof of the building after the last Marathon employee left. He was found on the ground, unconscious, approximately two hours later.

Pitzner filed suit asserting premises liability claims against Marathon and others. Before trial, all defendants except Marathon settled. At trial, the jury found that Marathon was 100% liable for Pitzner’s injuries, the trial court rendered judgment for over 7 million dollars. This appeal followed.

The Court addressed only the proximate cause issue, Marathon contending that there was legally insufficient evidence to support the finding that Pitzner’s injuries were caused by premises defects. It was undisputed that the building did not comply with certain Dallas City codes, one relating to work space required in front of air conditioning units and the other relating to power disconnects on the roof. Plaintiff’s experts testified that these violations caused Pitzner to sustain an electrical shock which caused him to trip over a gas line and fall from the roof.

The Court noted that expert opinions must be supported by facts in evidence, not conjecture, and concluded that Pitzner’s experts’ opinions that he sustained an electrical shock and fell from the roof because of premises defects “pile speculation on speculation and inference on inference.” “It is only speculation that Pitzner reached into the access panel, came into contact with a high-voltage wire, was shocked, stumbled back and fell off of the building.”

Quoting one of its prior opinions, the Court concluded, “in cases with only slight circumstantial evidence, something else must be found in the record to corroborate the probability of the fact’s existence or non-existence.’ That ‘something else’ is absent in this case. There is no evidence that the condition of Marathon ’s premises proximately caused Pitzner’s injuries.”