OPINION
In this diversity case bottomed on Restatement of Torts 2d, § 402(a), the facts are fully and clearly stated in the opinion of the Court of Appeals vacating the judgment and remanding.
Greiner v. Volkswagenwerk Aktiengesellschaft,
“However, we must reluctantly remand for determinations by the Judge, as a matter of law, as to whether or not there was sufficient evidence for the jury to find, if charged, that the lack of warning was unreasonably dangerous and the proximate cause of the accident.” (Emphasis the court’s).
As we read both the court’s direction and established Pennsylvania law, liability can only exist when the factors of “unreasonably dangerous” and “proximate cause” coalesce. The absence of either one is fatal to plaintiff’s cause of action. Cf.
Greiner,
supra;
Berkebile v. Brantly Helicopter Corpo
*497
ration,
Except for the widely varying estimates of the Volkswagen’s speed, the facts of the accident are really not in dispute. Finding herself on her own wrong side of the road facing an oncoming car, the plaintiff’s driver, Nickel, turned to her right. She immediately found herself headed for a concrete bridge railing approximately ten feet away. Her speed was between 30 and 60 miles per hour. To avoid the bridge railing, Nickel turned sharply to the left and the Volkswagen overturned. Under these circumstances, warning or not, there was no conceivable way that an accident could have been avoided. Even giving Nickel the best possible reading of the evidence, at 30 miles per hour, she would cover ten feet in approximately one-fourth of a second. It is simply not within the bounds of human reason to suppose that, had there been a warning, Nickel would have recalled it, considered it and then intentionally crashed head-on into a concrete rail. We do not, however, rest our determination on this conclusion.
It is true that the Restatement of Torts, § 402(a), comment j, states:
“Where warning is given, the seller may reasonably assume that it will be read and heeded; . . (P. 353). 1
Implicit in that comment, however, is the assumption that the warning
could
have been heeded to avoid the peril. Here, it could not. Here, when Nickel found herself ten feet from the railing, a serious accident was inevitable, warning or no warning, and plaintiff made no showing that one would have been less devastating than the other. In
Liney
v.
Chestnut Motors, Inc.,
“It is true that the question of proximate cause is generally for the jury. However, if the relevant facts are not in dispute and the remoteness of the causal connection between the defendant’s negligence and the plaintiff’s injury clearly appears, the question becomes one of law.”
We must conclude as a matter of law, that the causal connection between the lack of warning and plaintiff’s injury is too remote to raise a jury question.
Plaintiff points to several cases where recovery was held allowable absent specific evidence of proximate cause. Their factual patterns may be summarized as follows:
1.
Berkebile
v.
Brantly Helicopter Corp.,
2.
Tomao v. A. P. De Sanno & Son,
3.
Maize, Admr.
v.
Atlantic Refining Company,
*498
4.
Hopkins v. E. I. Du Pont DeNemour & Co.,
Defendant argues that in all of those cases, there was no specific proof that the absence or inadequacy of warning was a causative factor in bringing about the harm. Those cases, however, are distinguishable. In the first place, the nature of the required warning was both specific and easily followed — push the autorotation button immediately on engine failure, do not operate in excess of 6,000 revolutions per minute, use only in well-ventilated area, and do not insert dynamite in freshly drilled hole. It requires no guess or conjecture to determine how the accident could have been avoided by following the warnings. In this case, on the other hand, although the propensity to overturn on sudden maneuvers could be described, whether such description could have avoided this accident would call for pure speculation.
Secondly, in the four cases referred to by plaintiff, it was reasonable to infer from the evidence that the simple, easily understood directions and limitations could and would be followed had they been given. Their omission or inadequacy could thus be found to be a proximate cause of the accident. This logical conclusion finds expression in comment j to § 408(a). That “[wjhere warning is given, the seller may reasonably assume that it will be read and heeded.” No such inference can be made here, because under the circumstances of this case, a warning, even if read, could not have been heeded.
At oral argument, plaintiff’s counsel suggested a more remote causal connection between the failure to warn and the accident: that had the warning been given Nickel might not have bought the car. Such a suggestion, in our opinion, would have invited the jury “to indulge in ‘pure conjecture or guess’ ”.
Greiner v. Volkswagenwerk Aktiengesellschaft,
In
Commonwealth v. Whitman,
“Inference is a process of reasoning by which a fact or proposition sought to be established ... is deduced as a logical consequence from other facts, or a state of facts, already proved or admitted.”
See also
Simon v. Fine,
In
Mitchell v. Machinery Center, Inc.,
“An inference is not a supposition or a conjecture, but is a logical deduction from facts proved and guesswork is not a substitute therefor . . ..”
An inference has also been defined as “a deduction of any ultimate fact from other proved facts, which proved facts, by virtue of the common experience of man, will support but not compel such deduction.”
In re: Dilios’ Will,
There are no proven facts in this record which would lend the dignity of an inference as opposed to a guess, that Nickel would not have purchased the Volkswagen in the face of a warning. Indeed, the impropriety of permitting the jury to make such a finding is intensified by the fact that Nickel testified in plaintiff’s case and was totally silent about the effect such a warning would have had. In the face of available, but unproduced evidence, we think it would have been totally improper to permit the jury to guess what Nickel would have *499 said if asked about the effect of the presence of a warning. 2 As counsel for plaintiff aptly put it (N.T. 10-122):
“MR. BERNSTEIN: In other words, it is the failure to warn that is the defect, and who knows what she would have done had she been alerted to this particular situation.”
Plaintiff also argues that defect means the existence of a characteristic or limitation on the use of a product of which no warning is given, and that causation is proven if a cause and effect relationship between the condition and the harm is established. Plaintiff says: “It is erroneous to consider the non-warning per se as being the causative factor. The question is not whether the warning, if given, would have caused the consumer to act differently.” Plaintiff’s Brief on Remand, p. 11, n. 6. We disagree. We find more persuasive the article of Professor Keeton, Products Liability, 48 Tex.L.Rev. 398, 414 (1970):
“If the basis for recovery under strict liability is inadequacy of warnings or instruction about dangers, then plaintiff would be required to show that an adequate warning or instruction would have prevented the harm.”
For the foregoing reasons, we are convinced that the record would not justify submission to the jury of the proximate cause of the failure to warn. Pursuant to the instructions on remand, we will reinstate the judgment for defendant.