## Facts

- Robert Semet, an electrician’s employee, was sent to a residential construction site owned by Andorra Nurseries, Inc. to string a temporary electrical line from a basement service box to a chimney and onward to poles serving the job site.
- At Semet’s request, an Andorra employee positioned Andorra’s 34-foot aluminum extension ladder against the left side of the chimney and used it without incident.
- Semet checked that the ladder appeared straight and stable, climbed to the top section, and began handling wire.
- While Semet was on the upper portion, the ladder slipped downward and the upper section telescoped into the lower section, causing Semet to fall and suffer severe injuries.
- Semet claimed the ladder’s locking device (intended to prevent telescoping) was defective, relying primarily on post-accident observations and on proposed expert testimony and photographs of a ladder examined 52 days after the accident.
- The trial court entered a compulsory nonsuit at the close of Semet’s case and later declined to remove the nonsuit.

## Issues

1. Whether Semet presented sufficient, competent evidence to allow a jury to find that a ladder locking-device defect existed before the accident and caused the fall.
2. Whether expert testimony and photographs based on inspection of a ladder 52 days after the accident were admissible without adequate proof that it was the same ladder and in substantially the same condition.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the refusal to remove the compulsory nonsuit.
- The court held the defect-and-causation theory required speculation because the evidence did not reliably show the locking device was defective at the time of the fall.
- The court upheld exclusion of the expert testimony and photographs because Semet failed to establish an adequate foundation that the later-inspected ladder was the accident ladder and that its condition had not materially changed.

## Legal Principles

- A compulsory nonsuit is proper only in clear cases; on review, the plaintiff receives the benefit of favorable evidence and reasonable inferences, with conflicts resolved for the plaintiff.
- Negligence and causation cannot rest on conjecture; proof must support a reasonable inference that the alleged defect existed at the time of the accident and caused the injury.
- Evidence and expert opinions based on later inspection of a physical object are inadmissible absent a sufficient showing that the object is the same one involved and that it is in substantially the same condition as at the relevant time.
- The mere occurrence of an accident, without competent proof of a specific defect or negligent act attributable to the defendant, does not permit an inference of negligence.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed a compulsory nonsuit because the plaintiff’s proof of a defective ladder locking mechanism depended on speculative inference, and his later-inspection evidence lacked the foundational showing needed to connect the examined ladder and its condition to the accident.


Semet v. Andorra Nurseries, Inc., 421 Pa. 484, 219 A.2d 357 (Pa. 1966)