Wermeling v. Shattuck
Wermeling v. Shattuck
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
As a result of a collision between tbe plaintiff’s sedan and a pickup truck owned by tbe defendant company and operated by defendant Sbattuck on tbe company’s business, tbe plaintiff brought tbis suit against tbe owner and driver of tbe truck, jointly, to recover damages for tbe personal injuries which he sustained in tbe accident. Tbe jury returned a money verdict for the plaintiff. Tbe defendants filed motions for a new trial and for judgment n.o.v. Tbe court below, being of tbe opinion that tbe plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law, entered judgment for tbe defendants n.o.v. from which tbe plaintiff has appealed. The court made no disposition, however, of the motion for a new trial.
Taking the evidence in tbe case and tbe reasonable inferences deducible therefrom in the light most favorable to tbe verdict, tbe following are the material facts attending tbe accident. Tbe collision occurred about ten o’clock on a morning in May about six miles west of tbe City of Erie on U.S. Route 20 which is a two-lane main artery of vehicular travel, running generally east and west in tbe particular locality. Tbe weather was clear and visibility good, but the black-top asphalt surface of Route 20 was wet from rain earlier that morning. At tbe place of tbe accident, which was in open country, Route 20 is intersected from tbe south by a dirt road known as McKee Road. Tbe intersection is a T-intersection and not a crossing of Route 20. Tbe dirt road is some twenty to twenty-five feet in width and consists of a “beaten track” whose boundaries are indistinguishable. On tbe one corner of tbe intersection there was a candy shop and on the other corner a “little grocery store”. There was, at tbe time of tbe accident, a stop sign on McKee Road intended to control vehicles thereon approaching Route 20. There is no evidence, however, that that sign was at all visible
The learned court below concluded that the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law on the grounds that the physical evidences of the collision at the scene indicated that the plaintiff was travelling at an excessive rate of speed at the time of the collision and that he was also attempting to pass the defendant’s truck at an intersection in violation
The violation of a mandatory provision of The Vehicle Code has been held to be negligence and, therefore, actionable without more if it happens to be the proximate cause of the injury in suit: see Jinks v. Currie, 324 Pa. 532, 537-538, 188 A. 356; Landis v. Conestoga Transportation Company, 349 Pa. 97, 100, 36 A. 2d 465; and Fisher v. Hill, 362 Pa. 286, 289, 66 A. 2d 275. But, whether such a violation in any given instance constitutes the want of care in the circumstances requisite to the imposition of. civil liability therefor may depend upon attendant factors. Due care presupposes one’s exercise of judgment which necessarily requires relevant knowledge. Thus, where a driver of a vehicle overtakes or passes another vehicle, travelling in the same direction, at a highway intersection, it is essential to his liability civilly for any resultant injury that he had knowledge, or reasonable cause to know, of the presence of the intersection in time to avoid violating the statute.
The appellee argues that Jinks v. Currie, supra, held otherwise. But, we do not so understand. In that case, Mr. Justice Schaffer, speaking for this court, expressly noted (p. 535) that “Mrs. Currie [the driver of the passing vehicle] knew about the intersecting road, having frequently passed it” (Emphasis supplied). Again at p. 536, it was pointed out that “So far as Mrs. Currie is concerned, she knew the intersecting road was there and when the truck pulled off to the side, it would have been prudent for her to have taken into account that it might be the intention of the driver to turn into the road and accordingly to have either stopped her car or slowed it down sufficiently to see just what the truck driver intended to do.” It cannot reasonably be said, therefore, that Jinks v. Currie is authority for the proposition that knowledge, or reasonable cause to know, of
Of course, the term “knowledge” includes not only what a driver actually knows but what he has reasonable cause to know; and, he “must drive so that he sees street intersections or crossing places reasonably obvious” : Lowers v. Zuker, 102 Pa. Superior Ct. 581, 585, 157 A. 339. But, all of that involves matters of fact which are for a jury to resolve. It would penalize a reasonably prudent driver of a motor vehicle unduly to mulct him in damages arbitrarily merely because he became involved in an accident while attempting to pass a car ahead of him, travelling in the same direction, when nearing an intersection that he had no reason to know in advance was there. In the instant case, the plaintiff denies having had any knowledge of the presence of the intersecting road and the defendant offered no proof to show that he had reasonable cause to know of it.
Although the court below changed its mind on the question now under consideration when it came to pass upon the defendant’s motion for judgment n.o.v.,
Coming to what tbe court below referred to as “tbe undisputed testimony” which convinced it that tbe plaintiff was driving at tbe time of tbe accident “at sucb a terrific rate of speed” as to to be guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law, we find that tbe court bad in mind, and so accredited, oral testimony for tbe defendant merely because it happened not to have been contradicted. In so doing, tbe court obviously disregarded tbe rule applicable on a motion by a defendant for judgment n.o.v. that “we must accept as true all tbe facts and proper inferences of fact, wherever appearing in the record, if favorable to plaintiffs, and must reject all those favorable to defendant, if depending solely upon testimony”: Rossheim v. Bornot, Inc., 310 Pa. 154, 156, 165 A. 27. There was positive evidence in tbe case that tbe plaintiff was driving at a speed from forty-four to forty-eight miles per hour which was not an unlawful rate in tbe locality. But, tbe lower court reached its independent conclusion from tbe fact that a State policeman bad testified that be measured tbe skid marks made by tbe plaintiff’s car on tbe highway and found them to run continuously for one hundred and sixty-seven feet and from tbe further fact that tbe impact from tbe plaintiff’s car bad broken tbe wooden pole. “No fact
The judgment is reversed and the case remanded for disposition of the motion for new trial and action by the court below thereafter not inconsistent with this opinion.
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