Toenges v. Schleihauf
Toenges v. Schleihauf
Dissenting Opinion
Dissenting Opinion by
In affirming the judgment n.o.v. for the defendant, this court has viewed the evidence in the light most favorable to the defendant contrary to what Mr. Justice Linn appropriately referred to as “the familiar rule” which “requires that the court consider the evidence
Of the witnesses produced by the plaintiff, only one was a witness to the happening of the accident in suit, namely, the guest passenger who was sitting on the front seat of the automobile beside Mrs. Toenges, the plaintiff’s decedent, who was driving. Mrs. Toenges died from her injuries shortly after the accident without having regained consciousness. Even at the risk of some repetition, it is important first to isolate .the evidence appearing in the plaintiff’s case.
About 4:15 P.M. on a bright, clear day in early March, the defendant’s tractor-trailer was parked in the center of the right-hand (westbound) paved lane of a divided traffic highway, the general direction of which was east and west. The truck was parked just over the crest of a hill, the highway in that locality curving to the left (looking westward) as it lay up over the hill and down the other side. A short distance west of the brow of the hill, the highway was intersected on its north side by a road named Keenan Drive. The parked truck was heavily laden with lumber which protruded about four feet over the rear end which, in turn, was approximately at the middle of the entrance to Keenan Drive. The paved portion of the highway was ten feet in width; it was not possible for a car to pass around the parked truck without going up over the
There was no evidence in the plaintiff’s case of any distance at which, it could be arbitrarily said, the truck was visible to an observant driver approaching from the east sufficiently long to avoid an accident; no measurements were given; and there is no evidence that Mrs. Toenges was not looking ahead. Having been killed in the accident, she is presumed to have been exercising due care for her own and others’ safety as she drove her automobile along the public highway. Nor is there anything in the plaintiff’s case destroying the presumption. Whether Mrs. Toenges saw or should
The majority does, however, build a case of contributory negligence, as a matter of law, out of oral testimony adduced in the defendant’s case from an engineering witness who made measurements at the scene six months after the accident. Not only was the credibility of this witness’ testimony for the jury, but the measurements to which he testified cannot rightly be deemed to have established incontrovertible facts. Actually, the measurements were not taken with reference to the fixed location of the truck at the time of the accident; and, in a number of instances, the witness gave relative^ indefinite and confused answers concerning his noting of the distances and locations. Nonetheless, the majority takes it as legally incontrovertible that the truck was parked 170 feet beyond the crest of the hill, that the top of the truck was visible from a point 350 feet eastward and that, at a distance of 200 feet eastward, the entire body of the truck could be seen. For the purpose of taking the measurements, a truck was placed at the entrance to Keenan Drive and pictures were taken from various distances measured from a point marked, for convenience, “zero”. The
The majority further conclude that, since the guest was blinded for two seconds, the deceased driver was not blinded for any longer period. From that conclusively assumed inference, the majority deduce that, at thirty miles per hour, the car covered “less than 100 feet” in two seconds and that, inasmuch as a car-length (about 15 feet) remained between emergence from the blind spot and the rear end of the truck, the Toenges car was about a hundred feet from the truck when the blinding sun struck it. Consequently, as the majority reason, in the first hundred feet of the two-hundred-foot distance during which the entire body of the truck was visible according to the defendant’s witness, the deceased could have and should have seen the truck.
To accept these mathematical calculations as conclusive overlooks a number of important factors, not to mention the above-cited discrepancy in the engineer’s testimony. Merely to have seen part of the truck or even nearly all of it over the brow of a hill, on a curve and headed away can hardly be said to have put the driver on notice of impending danger. Could she know that the truck was parked? Might it not be moving? If standing still, might it not be on the berm? And, was Mrs. Toenges blinded by the sun for no greater length of time than her passenger had been which, as
To take away summarily the plaintiff-executor’s right in the circumstances to go to the jury on the question of his deceased’s contributory negligence requires evidence so clear, direct and positive as to preclude any difference in the minds of fair and reasonable men as to the decedent’s guilt: Scholl v. Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company, 356 Pa. 217, 224, 51 A. 2d 732. No such evidence is in this case.
I would enter judgments on the verdict 'for the plaintiffs.
See The Vehicle Code of May 1, 1929, See. 824 (a) and (b), as amended, 75 PS §432 (a) and (b).
The truck weighed in excess of 11,000 pounds.
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
As the court below correctly decided, the contributory negligence of the decedent bars the right of the executor of her estate to recover damages in this action because of her death.
At about 4:15 o’clock the decedent, Mrs. Toenges, was driving her husband’s automobile in a westerly direction on Curry Hollow Eoad. She was accompanied by a maid whom she employed one day a week for housework and domestic service and whom she was taking home after the day’s work. She came up to the crest of the hill, proceeded from there down the slight incline on the other side, and crashed into the parked truck, the lumber on which, extending out several feet beyond the rear of the truck, went through the windshield of her automobile, killing Mrs. Toenges and seriously injuring the maid. Mrs. Toenges’ husband, executor of her estate, brought suit to recover damages
The driver of defendant’s truck claimed that he could not safely take it off the paved highway because the berm at that point was soft, but plaintiff produced evidence to show that it could readily have been drifted a short distance further down the incline to a point where the berm was more solid. The jury, under proper instructions of the court, found that the driver was guilty of negligence in leaving the truck standing upon the paved portion of the highway when it was practicable to park it otherwise, and without red flags or other warning signals, in violation of the applicable provisions of The Vehicle Code (Act of May 1, 1929, P. L. 905, art. VIII, section 824, and art. X, section 1019) as amended.
The principal question in the case is that of decedent’s contributory negligence. The maid, who was seated on the front seat of the automobile next to Mrs. Toenges, testified that as they neared the top of the hill the sunshine blinded her; she was looking straight ahead at the time and noticed that Mrs. Toenges was also looking straight ahead. The blinding continued for about two seconds. The car had been moving at the rate of about 30 miles per hour; it slowed down “the least bit” during the passage through the area of blindness, but it came out of that area, according to the
As far as the $900 verdict for the damages to the husband’s car is concerned, it is urged by defendant that in driving her maid home Mrs. Toenges was acting not only for herself but also for her husband, on the theory that both of them were interested in the domestic management of their household. But no relation of master and servant or principal and agent as between
The judgments are affirmed.
Farley v. Ventresco, 307 Pa. 441, 161 A. 534; Nelson v. Damus Bros., Co., Inc., 340 Pa. 49, 16 A. 2d 18; Buohl v. Lockport Brew
Reference
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- Toenges, Appellant, v. Schleihauf, Appellant
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