Superior Court Rules That Seat Belt Evidence Can't Be Considered Where Plaintiff Took Seat Belt Off Just Before Accident

In a non-precedential decision in the case of Lucykanish v. Flurer, No. 541 EDA 2024 (Pa. Super. Aug. 30, 2024 Murray, J., Lane, J. and Stabile, J.)(Op. by Murray, J.)(Stabile, J., concurring, the Superior Court noted that it felt compelled to reverse the entry of summary judgment in a motor vehicle accident case in which the Plaintiff alleged negligence on the part of the driver for stopping quickly at a point in time after the Plaintiff had removed a seat belt to retrieve a cell phone from the floor of the vehicle.

The court ruled that Pennsylvania’s seat belt law 75 Pa. C.S.A. §4581(e) generally prohibits evidence of seat belt non-use as being used to show contributory negligence on the part of an injured party.

After reviewing the trial court's decision in which summary judgment was granted on the basis, in part, that no negligence on the part of the defendant-driver was shown to be the cause of the Plaintiff's alleged injuries where the Plaintiff had taken their seat belt off before the Defendant driver had stopped short due to a situation on the roadway ahead, the Superior Court noted that the trial court's reliance on the fact that the Plaintiff was not seat belted was an improper consideration.  The Court noted that reference to that evidence should have been excluded from the analysis.

Anyone wishing to review a copy of this non-precedential decision may click this LINK.

I send thanks to Attorney James M. Beck of the Philadelphia office of the Reed Smith law firm for bringing this case to my attention.

Source of image:  Photo by Ryo Kawasaki on www.unsplash.com.