Title: Milam v. GULF, MOBILE AND OHIO RAILROAD COMPANY

State: mississippi

Issuer: Mississippi Supreme Court

Document:

284 So. 2d 309 (1973) Mrs. Corine MILAM v. GULF, MOBILE AND OHIO RAILROAD COMPANY. No. 47183. Supreme Court of Mississippi. October 1, 1973. Rehearing Denied November 12, 1973. Maxey, Clark & Casey, Laurel, Walter M. O'Barr, Okolona, for appellant. Gibbes, Graves, Mullins & Bullock, Laurel, for appellee. *310 ROBERTSON, Justice: Mrs. Corine Milam, for herself and the other heirs at law of Harold Milam, deceased, sued Gulf, Mobile & Ohio Railroad Company (GM&O) and Elliott H. Stokes in the Circuit Court of the First Judicial District of Jones County, Mississippi, for the wrongful death of her 17 year old son, Harold Milam. Stokes paid Mrs. Milam $5500.00 and she took a nonsuit as to him. She then filed an amended declaration against GM&O alone. At the close of the plaintiff's case, GM&O moved for a directed verdict, and the Court sustained the motion. Hence this appeal. About 6 P.M., Sunday afternoon, April 16, 1967, a clear day, Harold Milam was riding as a passenger on the right front seat of the 1963, F-85, Oldsmobile owned and operated by his 19-year old brother, Wayne Milam. On the back seat were Mrs. Louise Ivey and her minor daughter Evelyn. The Milam brothers had spent the weekend in North Mississippi and were returning to Pascagoula from Okolona where they had picked up Mrs. Ivey and her daughter. After passing through the Town of Neshoba, and on a straightaway section of Mississippi Highway No. 15, Wayne Milam, driving in a southerly direction, blew his horn when about two car lengths back of Elliott Stokes' automobile, shifted into passing gear, pulled into the left or passing lane and attempted to pass Stokes' automobile and a pickup truck immediately in front of the Stokes' car. Milam estimated that he was about 200 to 300 feet from the GM&O railroad crossing when he began his passing maneuver and was going about 50 to 60 miles per hour when he drew abreast of the Stokes car. Milam testified that at that time, without a signal of any kind, Stokes suddenly drove to the left of the center line in an attempt to pass the pickup truck in front of him. Stokes' car hit the right side of the Milam car and caused it to go out of control. Milam's car crossed the railroad tracks with the right front wheel of his car leaving skidmarks in about the middle of the left lane and the left front wheel leaving tire marks on the extreme eastern edge of the timbers flanking the rails, just outside of the paved portion of the highway. On the wrong side of the roadway and with the left wheels off of the paved portion, the Milam car proceeded southerly at about 50 miles per hour and hit the western tip of the guard rail just south of the railroad crossing signal light, which signal light was located several feet south of the railroad crossing and a few feet east of the paved portion of highway 15. The 3" x 12" guard rail broke and lodged up underneath the Milam car. The timber pinned Wayne Milam's legs to the floor and the car continued out of control until it hit a creek bank south of the railroad crossing. Harold Milam was killed instantly. The plaintiff's theory of liability as to GM&O was that the railroad company had negligently placed the guard rail too close to the paved portion of Highway 15, that this constituted an unlawful obstruction of the highway, and that this negligence of GM&O, together with the negligence of Stokes, constituted the proximate causes of the fatal accident. The defenses of GM&O were that the signal light and guard rail were placed in the exact location designated by the Mississippi State Highway Commission, that the Highway Commission under Mississippi law had the duty and responsibility of selecting the location, had paid the railroad for the installation of the signal light and the guardrail, and that the railroad was not guilty of any negligence, and, even if the railroad were negligent, there were not one but two efficient, independent intervening causes of the accident: (1) the negligence of Wayne Milam in illegally attempting to pass two cars within 100 feet of a railroad crossing at a speed of 50 miles per hour, and (2) the unlawful act of Elliott Stokes in attempting to pass a pickup truck within 100 feet of a railroad crossing, in pulling into the passing lane *311 without a signal of any kind, and in hitting the right side of the Milam car, causing it to go out of control on the wrong side of Highway 15, hit the guardrail from the rear, and continue on in unbroken sequence to its fatal collision with the creek bank. Motorists do not have the unlimited right to use every foot of a highway right-of-way and the Highway Commission is under no duty to furnish broad shoulders along every stretch of highway for the use of the motoring public. The Legislature long ago very wisely placed the duty and responsibility on the State Highway Commission: The Legislature intended to and did vest in the State Highway Commission full and general authority and supervision over all of the State highway system, and granted the Commission full power to enforce all rules and regulations promulgated by it. The signal light and guardrail on each side of the GM&O grade crossing on State Highway 15 have been in the same location for over 30 years. Besides protecting the single black post supporting the signal *312 light, the guardrail on each side of the grade crossing also serves the useful purpose of guiding and limiting motorists to the paved portion of Highway 15 at the level grade crossing, thus keeping motorists from wrecking their automobiles on the naked steel rails extending 6 inches above the roadbed on each side of the paved highway. For the protection of motorists, the Commission itself has constructed guardrails in close proximity to the paved portion of state highways on hills to be climbed, curves to be rounded, creeks and streams to be crossed, and elevated portions of state highways to be traversed. For the guidance of the motoring public, the Commission has numbered the state highways and has erected signs bearing the number of each state highway near the paved portion. An infinite variety of signs all in close proximity to the paved portion of state highways has been erected by the Commission itself to alert motorists to the fact that they are approaching a crossroad, winding road, hill, dangerous curve or even a deer crossing. These markers and signs would be absolutely useless if they were not placed close to the traveled portion of the highway where the driver of a motor vehicle can read and heed without taking his eyes off of the highway. There is no evidence in the record that the Highway Commission considered this guardrail a hazard or an interference in any way with ordinary travel on the highway. § 8038(f). The plaintiff offered no rule or regulation or order of the Commission for the removal of this guardrail as an obstruction, even though the Commission was given specific authority in 1930: "To make proper and reasonable rules and regulations for the removal from the public rights-of-way of any form of obstruction, ..." Section 16, Chapter 47, General Laws of Mississippi 1930; Section 8038(k), Mississippi Code 1942. We are of the opinion that the GM&O was not negligent in placing the signal warning lights and the guardrails near the railroad grade crossing of State Highway 15. There is still another reason why the trial court was right in directing a verdict for the defendant at the close of plaintiff's case. There were not one, but two, efficient, independent intervening proximate causes of this tragic accident. The wrongful and illegal act of Wayne Milam, the driver of the car in which his 17 year old brother was killed, in driving at a speed of at least 50 miles per hour in a vain attempt to pass two cars within 100 feet of a railroad crossing, combined with the wrongful and illegal act of Elliott Stokes when, without warning, he drove his car to the left of the center line in an attempt to pass the pickup truck in front of him and hit the right side of the Milam car, causing it to go out of control on the wrong side of the highway and hit the guardrail from the back, thence proceed in an unbroken sequence to its fatal collision with the creek bank, were the proximate causes of the tragic accident. Section 8185(b)2, Mississippi Code 1942 Annotated (1956) provides: Milam and Stokes both violated this law and their negligence intervened and constituted the sole proximate causes of this accident. Elliott Stokes also violated the law requiring the giving of a signal before pulling out of a regular lane into a passing lane. Section 8192(a). *313 Even if the railroad company were negligent, the negligence of Milam and Stokes intervened to cause the fatal accident. In Mississippi City Lines, Inc. v. Bullock, 194 Miss. 630, 13 So. 2d 34 (1943), this Court said: See, also, Stewart v. Kroger Grocery, 198 Miss. 371, 21 So. 2d 912 (1945) and Permenter v. Milner Chevrolet Co., 229 Miss. 385, 91 So. 2d 243 (1956). In Vines v. Southwestern Mississippi Electric Power Assn., 241 Miss. 120, 129 So. 2d 396 (1961), Richard Vines, a guest passenger in an automobile operated by John Parsons, was killed when the automobile in a slight curve to the left, left the traveled portion of the road and collided with a power line pole maintained by the appellee. The pole was 3 1/2 to 4 feet from the traveled portion of the highway. The impact of the collision broke the power line pole and caused the power line to fall into the road. The driver got out of the automobile first, followed by the deceased who ran from the car, went up the embankment and into the power lines. The deceased was killed almost instantly from electrocution. The trial court directed a verdict for the defendant and this Court, in affirming, said: In Hoke v. W.L. Holcomb & Associates, Inc., 186 So. 2d 474 (1966), this Court said: In Robison v. McDowell, 247 So. 2d 686 (Miss. 1971), the operator of a tractor was proceeding in a northerly direction on a concrete bridge with the discs attached to his tractor illegally extending three to four feet into the southbound lane of the bridge. McDowell stopped his pickup truck on the right shoulder north of the bridge awaiting Robison's crossing of the bridge. Johnson, in his pickup truck, drove into the rear of McDowell's stopped truck. This Court, in *314 reversing a jury verdict for the plaintiff against Robison, said: To the same effect is Pargas of Taylorsville, Inc. v. Craft, 249 So. 2d 403 (Miss. 1971). The judgment of the circuit court in directing a verdict for the defendant, Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad Company, is affirmed. Affirmed. GILLESPIE, C.J., and PATTERSON, INZER, SMITH and SUGG, JJ., concur. RODGERS, P.J., and WALKER and BROOM, JJ., dissent. RODGERS, Presiding Justice (dissenting). I concur in Judge Walker's dissenting opinion. It appears to me that what this Court is doing in this case is simply trying the case in this Court so as to say there was an intervening cause of negligence sufficient to insulate the negligence of the railroad in building a hazardous barricade up to and near the edge of the pavement. It has been said that "... [A]n intervening cause is material in determining legal cause only in so far as it supersedes a prior wrong as the proximate cause of an injury, by breaking the sequence between the prior wrong and the injury. Accordingly, a superseding intervening cause is one which operates, in succession to a prior wrong, as the proximate cause of an injury. If the so-called intervening cause is not a superseding cause, negligence may be actionable, notwithstanding the intervening cause contributed to the injury, upon the theory that the negligence was a concurring cause." 38 Am.Jur. Negligence § 67, at 721-22 (1941). The agents of the railroad company certainly anticipated that people would leave the paved portion of the highway at this point, because they erected the barricade to stop vehicles which left the pavement from striking the signal device. I think the court should have submitted the negligence issue to the jury. WALKER, Justice (dissenting): I must respectfully dissent from the holding of the majority. When the evidence in this case is considered most favorably to the plaintiff, which we are required to do in ruling upon defendant's motion for a directed verdict, there is no question but that the plaintiff made out a prima facie case. The established rule in Mississippi in determining whether a party is entitled to a directed verdict or a peremptory instruction is that the Court must look solely to the testimony on behalf of *315 the party against whom the directed verdict is requested and must take the testimony as absolutely true, along with all reasonable inferences which could be drawn therefrom, favorable to such party. Meaut v. Langlinais, 240 Miss. 242, 125 So. 2d 866 (1961). When this rule is applied, the testimony of Wayne Milam alone is sufficient to establish a prima facie case on behalf of the plaintiff that would withstand any attack by way of a directed verdict. The pertinent parts of that testimony are as follows: He later testified while being examined with reference to a picture in evidence and in response to a question about the location of the barricade that "To the best of my ability the barricade looked like it was in the edge of the road here. (Indicating). Q. When you say `road' what part of the road? A. The paved portion of the road. The above testimony when considered and weighed in a light most favorable to the plaintiff and in conformity to the above rule shows: (1) the driver of the Milam car was lawfully attempting to and could have completed passing the Stokes' vehicle when more than 100 feet from the railroad crossing; (2) that he was forced from the highway while lawfully using said highway; (3) that he had his automobile under lawful control when he collided with the railroad guardrail; (4) that the guardrail was so negligently constructed by the defendant that it protruded into the paved travelled portion of the highway; and (5) that the negligence of Stokes in pulling out of his lane of traffic and colliding with the Milam automobile was a concurring contributing proximate cause of the death of Harold Milam and not such an efficient intervening cause as to relieve the defendant railroad from liability. The above testimony makes a jury issue on the questions of negligence, foreseeability and proximate cause. This Court has held in a long line of cases that even where the evidence is such that a judgment for the adverse party would have to be set aside as being contrary to the overwhelming weight of the evidence, it does not necessarily follow that a party is entitled to a directed verdict. Buntyn v. Robinson, 233 Miss. 360, 102 So. 2d 126 (1958). In my opinion, the lower court erred in granting defendant's motion for a directed verdict and this case should be reversed and remanded for a new trial. RODGERS, P.J., and BROOM, J., join in this dissent.