Ashton v. Castor
Ashton v. Castor
Opinion of the Court
Defendants appeal a judgment based upon a jury verdict awarding damages to plaintiff for personal injuries sustained in a vehicular collision between an automobile operated by plaintiff and a truck operated by defendant.
By her complaint plaintiff alleged that the collision out of which her damages arose was proximately caused by the negligent operation of his truck by defendant. Defendants answered denying negligence and alleging that either the sole proximate or proximate contributing cause of the dam
Plaintiff was traveling westerly on a state highway in Okaloosa County. As she approached a curve to the left, she activated her electric signal indicating a left turn off the highway into an intersecting dirt road leading southward. Upon activating her turn signal at a point between 100 and ISO yards east of the intersecting dirt road, plaintiff looked into her rearview mirror and observed defendant’s following truck traveling in the traffic lane behind her. Plaintiff commenced decreasing the speed of her vehicle preparatory to making her left turn when she observed two children walking along the side of the dirt road near its intersection with the highway. Plaintiff became concerned with the presence of the children near the edge of the road and therefore made a wide turn into the dirt road so as to remain as far away as possible from where the children were walking. Just as plaintiff started into her turn, defendant moved his truck to the left preparatory to passing plaintiff’s vehicle, as a result of which his truck collided with plaintiff’s vehicle as she went into her turn off the highway into the dirt road.
The traffic regulations upon which appellants rely to establish negligence as a matter of law on the part of plaintiff are as follows:
“(1) No person shall turn a vehicle from a direct course upon a highway unless and until such movement can be made with reasonable safety, and then only after giving an appropriate signal in the manner hereinafter provided, in the event any other vehicle may be affected by such movement.”1
“(2) No vehicle shall be driven from a direct course in any lane on any highway until the driver shall have determined that the vehicle is not being approached or passed by any other vehicle in the lane or on the side to which the driver desires to move, that the move can be completely made with safety and without interfering with the safe operation of any vehicle approaching from the same direction.”2
We have carefully reviewed the evidence adduced at the trial and conclude that whether plaintiff acted prudently in determining that defendant was neither approaching nor attempting to pass her, and that she could turn left off the highway into the intersecting dirt road with reasonable safety and without interfering with the safe operation of defendant’s following truck proceeding in the same direction, was essentially a jury question which was submitted to it for decision.
Appellants rely for reversal on this court’s opinion rendered in the case of Parker v. Hofheinz.
In our consideration of the contentions in Parker, this court concluded that the totality of the evidence was such that reasonable men could not differ in concluding that the defendant driver was negligent in the operation of her vehicle, and that such negligence was the proximate cause of the collision. A consideration of the totality of the evidence in the case sub judice leads us to no such conclusion as that reached in Parker. For these reasons it is our view that the evidence, and inferences reasonably deducible therefrom, presented questions as to plaintiff’s negligence which were properly resolvable only by the jury, and that the trial court did not err in denying appellants’ motion for a directed verdict. The judgment appealed is accordingly affirmed.
. Section 317.371(1), Florida Statutes, F.S.A.
. Section 317.291(2), Florida Statutes, F.S.A.
. Parker v. Hofheinz (Fla.App. 1966), 181 So.2d 367.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.