Title: Jensen v. Salem Sand and Gravel Co.

State: oregon

Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court

Document:

Affirmed June 27, 1951.
James Arthur Powers, of Portland, argued the cause for appellant. With him on the brief were Sam *52 Van Vactor, of The Dalles, and James M. Burns, of Portland.
Alan F. Davis, of Portland, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was Kenneth M. Abraham, of Hood River.
Before BRAND, Chief Justice, and ROSSMAN, LATOURETTE, WARNER and TOOZE, Justices.
AFFIRMED.
LATOURETTE, J.
Plaintiff (respondent), a pregnant woman, recovered a $7,500.00 judgment against defendant (appellant) by way of damages arising out of an injury she sustained while crossing a sewer ditch which had been excavated but partially refilled by defendant.
During the course of the trial, defendant moved for an involuntary nonsuit and a directed verdict on grounds that plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law. Both motions were denied. After the verdict was returned, defendant moved for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict on the above grounds, which motion was also denied. Whereupon the present appeal was taken.
Defendant's sole assignment of error is: "The Court erred in denying Defendant-Appellant's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict because Plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law."
Under the above assignment, defendant makes the following point: "Plaintiff was contributory negligent as a matter of law for proceeding in the dark on a street which she knew was under repair and in which a ditch had been excavated."
*53 1. To properly arrive at a decision in this matter, it is necessary to consider the evidence in the light most favorable to plaintiff. The evidence discloses that defendant over a period of several weeks prior to the accident was installing a sewer system on State Street in Hood River, a portion of which extended in front of and parallel to plaintiff's residence and being five to five-and-one-half feet in depth and several feet wide. Before the work was commenced, because of the fact that the garage was too small, the family automobile was customarily parked on the gravel shoulder of the street in front of plaintiff's house. While the work was in progress, she would leave the car at the end of the block quite some distance from the place where she fell and proceed by safe passage to her home. On the day of the accident before going to her doctor's office about 2:30 o'clock in the afternoon, she noticed that the defendant was filling in the ditch on the block in front of her property. A portion of her testimony regarding her observation of this work follows:
Although a portion of State Street to the east had been barricaded by defendant with appropriate lights, residents were permitted to proceed along the street for the purpose of reaching their respective residences. On the day plaintiff had observed the backfilling of the ditch, she, riding with her husband in his automobile, started home between 7:30 and 8:00 o'clock at night, with the car lights burning, from the restaurant where she was employed. As to plaintiff's movements prior to the accident, we have her following testimony:
According to plaintiff's testimony, the accident itself occurred as follows:
The photographs introduced in evidence show that the dirt had been filled in in front of plaintiff's driveway, except that portion where the hole was. Plaintiff's husband placed a mark on a photograph of the scene of the accident and in his testimony said:
and further:
Defendant's witness, Mr. Hobson, the county surveyor, testified in regard to the ditch as follows:
2, 3. Ordinarily, the question of contributory negligence is a jury question, and rarely will courts find that contributory negligence exists as a matter of law. When a given state of facts is such that reasonable men may fairly differ upon the question as to whether a plaintiff is guilty of contributory negligence, the matter becomes a jury question. Whether or not the given act may be negligence or not negligence depends upon the circumstances, for, as said in 1 Beven on Negligence, (3rd ed.) at p. 9, "it is not the act that connotes the negligence, but the circumstances." As quoted by Mr. Justice RAND in Rice v. City of Portland, 141 Or. 205, 213, 7 P. (2d) 989, 17 P. (2d) 562, from Degg v. Midland Ry. Co., 1 H. & N. 781:
The authorities cited in defendant's brief are not helpful in the instant case because they are all founded on a different set of facts and circumstances, and it would do no service for us to analyze all of them, for, *59 after all, it is our duty to take the facts as we have them in the present case and find whether or not the facts are such that but one conclusion can reasonably be drawn from them, keeping in mind all inferences that a jury could justifiably draw from them.
In passing we will consider two Oregon cases cited by defendant, of which defendant in its brief says: "In considering cases which have arisen in this state, mention will be made of those which, it is submitted, adhere to the rule that proceeding in the dark, where a person knows of possibility of danger, is contributory negligence as a matter of law."
The first case is Massey v. Seller, 45 Or. 267, 273, 77 P. 397, in which plaintiff proceeded in the dark looking for a water closet and fell into a shaft without knowledge of its existence. He was unfamiliar with the premises, and we said it was "an act of folly on his part to enter on a cruise of exploration and discovery without stopping to determine whether it was safe to proceed."
In Lewis v. Pacific Greyhound Lines, 147 Or. 588, 34 P. (2d) 616, plaintiff, after alighting from the bus, moved to the rear of it and proceeded to cross the highway without looking for or paying any attention to traffic when he was struck by an oncoming automobile.
We are unable to draw any parallel between the cases cited and the case we are now discussing.
Defendant cites Cerrano v. Portland Ry. L. & P. Co., 62 Or. 421, 126 P. 37, and Sullivan v. Mountain States Power Co., 139 Or. 282, 9 P. (2d) 1038, and takes from the Cerrano case an excerpt which touches on negligence. The statement quoted is a proper exposition of the law, but the facts in those cases are entirely different from the facts here.
*60 In the Cerrano case a child of the age of four-and-one-half years, in darting out into the street, was struck by a streetcar. We held that it was a pure accident.
The Sullivan case was an action of trespass based upon the power company's failure to prevent trees growing near its transmission lines from coming into contact with its wires.
4. Having carefully considered the matter, we are of the opinion that the facts in the case at bar are such that the trial court did not err in submitting the case to the jury.
The important and outstanding feature of this case is the situation which existed during the afternoon of the accident as observed by plaintiff, to-wit: as she was departing from her home she noticed a bulldozer in front of her property pushing dirt to fill in the ditch. Reasonable minds might differ as to whether an ordinarily prudent person would have believed, as plaintiff believed, that on her return home that evening, the ditch would be filled in. As a matter of fact, the evidence shows that the ditch was filled in, excepting for the hole into which plaintiff was precipitated, the same having been left open so that the workmen could connect the sewer pipe which had theretofore been laid. It must be remembered that plaintiff did not step into the hole; she proceeded several steps across the filled ditch and because of the looseness of the soil, her feet sank into the same, thus throwing her sideways into the uncovered hole.
Defendant urges that the piles of dirt should have been a sufficient warning to plaintiff of the presence of holes in the ditch. Plaintiff's answer to this was that she thought that the mounds of dirt were "excess dirt" *61 to be hauled away. The jury could find this to be a reasonable explanation because the evidence shows that the sewer pipe had been laid, which, of necessity, would fill the space formerly occupied by the dirt.
Defendant further argues that plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence because she proceeded in the dark after her husband turned off the car lights, and further, because she did not use the flashlight which her husband had in the car. As to the car lights, there was evidence that as she drove up to the ditch, the lights showed only the filled ditch and not the hole, and as to the flashlight, there is no evidence that she knew of its existence, and had the car lights been left burning, or had she used the flashlight, she would have walked into the soft dirt anyhow, so that it was not a question of a light, in our opinion, but the condition of the soft dirt in the ditch which caused the accident.
Defendant next argues that plaintiff was negligent when she took a dangerous route instead of a safe course, which she had done previously. In the Rice case, supra, on the petition for rehearing, Mr. Justice BELT said, at p. 234:
Therefore, in the instant case we cannot assume, as a matter of law, that plaintiff had reasonable grounds for believing that she was in imminent danger because of the circumstances which we have hereinbefore outlined. Affirmed.