Case Name: James H. STURCKE v. Bessie S. CLARK, The Hanover Insurance Company
Court: Louisiana Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1971-11-08
Citations: 261 So. 2d 717
Docket Number: No. 4461
Parties: James H. STURCKE v. Bessie S. CLARK, The Hanover Insurance Company.
Judges: Before CHASEZ, REDMANN and LEMMON, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 261
Pages: 717–721

Head Matter:
James H. STURCKE v. Bessie S. CLARK, The Hanover Insurance Company.
No. 4461.
Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit.
Nov. 8, 1971.
On Rehearing April 18, 1972.
Rehearings Denied May 16, 1972.
Writs Refused June 22, 1972.
Bienvenu & Culver, Hugh M. Glenn, Jr., New Orleans, for defendant-appellee and third-party plaintiff-appellant.
Lawrence A. Wheeler, New Orleans, for defendants-appellees.
Donahue & Willmott, Richard M. Donahue, Metairie, and Peter J. Vernaci, New Orleans, for plaintiff-appellant.
Before CHASEZ, REDMANN and LEMMON, JJ.

Opinion:
REDMANN, Judge.
Plaintiff appeals from the dismissal on the merits of his suit for automobile collision damages against another driver and her husband and plaintiff's uninsured motorist insurer. The last defendant protectively appeals from the dismissal of its third-party claim against the first two defendants and the insurance agency allegedly responsible for their not in fact having been issued a policy of insurance.
The principal issue is the basically factual one of plaintiff's negligence. Because we affirm on that issue we discuss no others.
The accident occurred one block after plaintiff had turned off Earhart Blvd. in New Orleans, heading uptown on South Claiborne Avenue. Defendant was crossing from his left on Clio Street. On the Claiborne neutral ground are overpass un-derstructures which, plaintiff agrees, do not significantly block vision from a car on Claiborne of an automobile on Clio in the neutral ground area. A trailer-truck stopped in plaintiff's right lane with left turn indicator blinking attracted attention of both drivers; hand motioning by him was apparently interpreted by each as an indication to continue across the intersection.
Plaintiff's was the favored street. This fact lends support to plaintiff's position and establishes defendant's primary negligence. But plaintiff's own testimony is that he never saw defendant driver until he struck the right rear side of her station wagon. She was driving slowly (as was he); her car stopped near the far curb of the intersection, a few feet from impact (and his stopped near impact). Physical damage was not severe, confirming the moderate speeds involved.
Plaintiff has sympathy for his position that his failure to see cannot by itself make itself a cause of the accident. Failure to see what one should see may be negligence, but its only immediate result is that one must be treated as if had seen. The test for causation remains whether the seeing driver could have reacted and stopped in time to avoid the accident. Had plaintiff then been travelling at the lawful speed of 35 mph, he could not have stopped if he had seen defendant, and thus failure to see would not have caused the collision.
The circumstances, however, of plaintiff's slow speed, increasing from a speed of five to ten mph as he passed the truck, and of defendant's slow speed suggest that, as was apparently the trial judge's view, plaintiff could have stopped in the time it took defendant to move her car almost entirely past plaintiff's lane of travel.
Plaintiff's failure to see defendant was negligence, at least from the moment at which he should reasonably have determined he could safely pass the truck and thus should have returned his attention to the general roadway ahead of him. That determination should reasonably have been made when plaintiff was towards the rear of the truck, i. e., before he placed himself in too adjacent a position to avoid injury should the truck begin the left turn its lights were signalling. Perhaps prior to that reasonable determination it could be said the reasonable man's attention would be concentrated almost exclusively on the truck, and his failure to see a car in de fendant's position might have been an excusable or inculpable failure, a "very slight fault for which no responsibility is incurred", C.C. art. 3SS6 subd. 13. But the truck circumstances cannot excuse plaintiff's failure after that determination. It is perhaps a close question, but we are unwilling to reverse the trial judge's determination merely because the evidence, although supportive, does not conclusively establish contributory negligence. A reasonable preponderance suffices, and we believe the slow speeds reasonably show that plaintiff still had time to stop when he was alongside the truck's trailer, and at that point we believe his failure to return his attention to the roadway was negligence which did contribute to the accident. See Suhre v. National Union Indem. Co. of Pa., 244 La. 455, 152 So.2d 558 (1963); see also discussion in Martin v. Moore, 210 So.2d 607 (La.App. 1968).
The judgment is affirmed.