Case Name: Flavia Mesich, Formerly Flavia Dire, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Leland M. Austin, Defendant-Appellee
Court: Illinois Appellate Court
Jurisdiction: Illinois
Decision Date: 1966-05-05
Citations: 70 Ill. App. 2d 334
Docket Number: Gen. No. 49,631
Parties: Flavia Mesich, Formerly Flavia Dire, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Leland M. Austin, Defendant-Appellee.
Judges: SULLIVAN, P. J., concurs.
Reporter: Illinois Appellate Court Reports, Second Series
Volume: 70
Pages: 334–357

Head Matter:
Flavia Mesich, Formerly Flavia Dire, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Leland M. Austin, Defendant-Appellee.
Gen. No. 49,631.
First District, Third Division.
May 5, 1966.
John W. Daly, of Chicago, for appellant.
Donald J. O’Brien, of Chicago, for appellee.

Opinion:
MR. JUSTICE DEMPSEY
delivered the opinion of the court.
This is a personal injury case arising from the collision of two automobiles at an intersection. At the close of all the evidence the court held that the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law and directed a verdict for the defendant. The plaintiff appeals from the judgment entered on the verdict of not guilty.
The autos collided about 7 a. m. on a misty morning at the intersection of 31st Street, an east and west street, and First Avenue, a north and south street, in Riverside, Illinois. There were stop and go lights at the four corners. The plaintiff was on her way to work accompanied by a fellow employee. She was driving her car east on 31st Street and the defendant, who was also on his way to work, was driving south on First Avenue. The plaintiff testified that she was driving 25 miles an hour in the inner lane, that the traffic light was green for eastbound traffic and she looked both ways before she proceeded into First Avenue. Her car was struck on the left side near the driver's seat by the defendant's southbound auto. She lost consciousness and was taken to a hospital. She regained consciousness several hours later and remained in the hospital thirty days.
The defendant testified that the light was green for southbound traffic and that he was approximately one-half way across 31st Street when the plaintiff's car suddenly pulled around others that were stopped and entered the street from the lane closest to the curb. He said he turned his auto practically around in an attempt to avoid hitting the plaintiff's car. He further testified that he remained at the scene for half an hour and the light for southbound traffic remained green all this time. He said he talked with the plaintiff's coworker and asked her why they had run the red light and that she replied she didn't know but that they were late for work. The defendant's 13-year-old son was riding in the back seat. He was the only occurrence witness to testify. He was not asked about the light but in other respects he corroborated his father's testimony about the plaintiff's car coming around other cars and entering the intersection from the outer lane.
Two police officers of the Village of Riverside arrived at the scene at 7:15 a. m. and remained there three or four minutes before taking the plaintiff to the hospital. They said that the lights at that time were red for eastbound and green for southbound traffic. One officer testified that they had reported that the lights were stuck on red for eastbound and green for southbound traffic at 3:15 a. m. The other said that a report about the lights not functioning properly had been received at the police station at 11 p. m. the night before and that another report came in around 4 a. m. in the morning. He said that he had informed the State police and the Meade Electric Company (a company that had a contract with the State to maintain the traffic lights) about the lights malfunctioning. The general foreman of the Meade Electric Company, however, who was also a defense witness, said he knew of no call to repair the faulty lights, that there was no such report, and if there had been a report his company would have had a record of it.
The plaintiff sued both Meade Electric and Austin. Her complaint was in two counts. The count against Austin charged him with failing to keep a sufficient lookout, failing to yield the right-of-way and driving at an unreasonable speed. The count against Meade charged the company with negligently maintaining the lights. Meade was dismissed from the case before evidence was heard and we do not know the plaintiff's theory against that defendant. It could have been that the lights were out of order by being fixed at green for both east and southbound traffic at the time of the accident, thus inducing both her and Austin to proceed. The plaintiff's insistence that she had the green light indicates that her counts were not inconsistent, but even if they were she had a clear right to plead them in the alternative (Ill Rev Stats, e 110, §43(2) (1963)) and if they were inconsistent and had gone to trial the sufficiency of the proof to support each count would have had to be judged separately against a motion for a directed verdict. McCormick v. Kopmann, 23 Ill App2d 189, 161 NE2d 720 (1959). The same standard in testing the sufficiency of the proof would have had to be applied whether the counts were consistent or inconsistent. We speak of this because the count against the electric company might have been a factor in the trial court's decision to direct a verdict against the plaintiff despite her unequivocal testimony that she had the green light.
In determining whether the plaintiff was contributorily negligent as a matter of law, the testimony favorable to the plaintiff (and in this case that means her own testimony) must be taken as true. It is obvious that the trial court decided it was untrue. In making this determination the court invaded the province of the jury; the truth or falsity of her testimony was for the jury to determine, not the court. Standing alone her testimony was sufficient to sustain a judgment in her favor. The conflicting evidence made the question of contributory negligence one of fact, not of law. If the court was of the opinion that the weight of the evidence preponderated in favor of the defendant (and we do not dispute that it did) it was not for the court to so rule. The court cannot weigh conflicting evidence in a jury trial. The weight to be given evidence, as well as the credibility to be given witnesses, is for the jury to determine.
In intervening as it did in an adversary proceeding before a jury, the court transgressed three firmly established principles of Illinois law:
(1) the testimony favorable to the plaintiff must be regarded as true in determining whether there is any evidence which tends to prove the material elements of the plaintiff's case;
(2) in a jury trial the credibility of the witnesses and the weight to be given their testimony is for the jury to determine;
(3) there should not be a directed verdict if there is any evidence, or reasonable inferences from the evidence, upon which a jury could base a verdict for the party against whom the motion is directed.
These principles have been restated in a great number of cases. Every judge who has sat in a court of review in this State for any length of time has had occasion to repeat one or all of them in his opinions.
In most cases concerning directed verdicts for defendants the reviewing courts have the problem of deciding whether there is evidence in the record, or reasonable inferences to be drawn therefrom, which taken with intendments most favorable to the plaintiff supports his or her claim; for a party cannot be deprived of his right to a jury trial if he has made out a prima facie case. In the present case this problem does not confront us. The plaintiff's claim is supported by direct evidence: her positive testimony.
That the plaintiff might have been mistaken does not alter the standard by which her testimony is to be tested. And one cannot read her testimony in the record without being impressed with the sincerity of her belief that the light was green when she approached First Avenue. She saw the light turn green when she was a half-block away and she saw other eastbound cars in front of her cross First Avenue. Her speed was steady and she proceeded in a straight line until she was struck broadside without seeing or hearing any pri- or warning. She had the right to assume that it was safe to proceed. In Yelinich v. Capalongo, 38 Ill App2d 199, 186 NE2d 777 (1962), the court stated:
"Control lights are installed to give a preferential right of way to motorists having the green light. Uniform Traffic Act, art m, sec 129, Ill Rev Stats, c 95%, § 129. One purpose of this statute is to prevent injuries. Persons having the green light may assume the intersecting traffic will stop until the light for them turns green."
The only way we could affirm the judgment of the trial court would be to ignore past decisions and attempt to formulate new standards to be applied to motions for directed verdicts, judging the credibility of witnesses and the preliminary proof required in determining whether a plaintiff has proved the material elements of his case. It has been suggested that the Supreme Court opened the door for different standards in the case of Carter v. Winter, 32 Ill2d 275, 204 NE2d 755 (1965). We do not believe this was done. That case concerned a rear-end collision on a heavily traveled four-lane highway between the automobile of the plaintiff and that of the defendant. The question before the court was whether a verdict should have been directed for the defendant who ran into the plaintiff's auto. The court held that it should have been and that the Appellate Court and the trial court were in error in deciding otherwise, because the plaintiff's own testimony proved him guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law. The plaintiff testified that he pulled from a side road onto the highway and into the path of the defendant's auto 30 or 40 yards away which was traveling 75 to 80 miles per hour. Before determining that this was a judicial admission which conclusively barred his claim the court evaluated his entire testimony and the testimony of the other witnesses to the occurrence. The court found that the testimony of the other witnesses was of little assistance to the plaintiff and stated:
"In our judgment, plaintiff's own testimony that he knowingly turned his comparatively slowly moving auto into the lane of traffic occupied by an approaching car then 120 feet or less away and traveling 75 to 80 miles per hour, when viewed in the light of the rest of his testimony and that of the other witnesses, conclusively establishes his guilt of contributory negligence as a matter of law. One cannot knowingly expose himself to danger and subsequently recover damages for an injury which, by the employment of reasonable precaution and circumspection, he might have entirely avoided."
It has been argued that the court in holding that the defendant was entitled to a directed verdict did so despite evidence favorable to the plaintiff and that the court passed upon the credibility of the witnesses. The court did find the testimony of two of the plaintiff's witnesses intrinsically improbable: that the story of one required from the defendant's car a speed of at least 150 miles per hour and that the story of the other also made it travel at an impossible rate of speed. The court, however, appraised the testimony of these and the other witnesses not in relation to the standard for a directed verdict, but to see (under the rule of McCormack v. Haan, 20 Ill2d 75, 169 NE2d 239) if their testimony exculpated the plaintiff from his judicial admission of negligence. Indeed the court, instead of deviating from the standard, reaffirmed it by stating:
"In determining whether defendants' motion for a directed verdict should have been allowed, all of the evidence, when viewed most favorably to plaintiff, must totally fail to establish one or more essential elements of the case."
The same test was applied four months later in the case of Jines v. Greyhound Corp., 33 Ill2d 83, 210 NE2d 562 (1965). The court was again considering a case in which the defendant urged that the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law. The automobile in which the plaintiff was riding stalled on a well-traveled thoroughfare. He and the other occupants got out of the auto, but the plaintiff reentered it. The testimony was in conflict whether the auto's lights were on, whether a flare had been lighted or if anyone was flagging traffic at the time he got back in the auto and while he remained there. The court found that although the plaintiff left a place of comparative safety for one of danger he did so for reasonable purposes, and that it could not be held that his reentry was an act of contributory negligence as a matter of law. In so finding, the court reenunciated the rule of law that:
"In determining whether plaintiff was contributorily negligent as a matter of law, the testimony favorable to the plaintiff must be taken as true."
If the present case had gone to the jury and if the jury had returned a verdict for the plaintiff the trial court certainly would have set it aside as being against the preponderance of the evidence. In view of this it may have seemed useless to the court to take time for arguments, instructions and jury deliberation, but we believe the time necessary to complete the case would have been a small price to pay for following the law. The court had appropriate power to deal with any eventuality, but it had no authority to prematurely intervene at the time and in the manner it did.
There is a temptation in a case such as this, where the evidence weighs heavily in one party's favor, to cut through the restraints imposed by those fundamental principles which protect the right of the opposite party to have a jury pass on his case. This is especially so if one is impatient with the delays the jury process entails. Although it may appear desirable in a particular case to relax the time-honored and hundreds-of-times confirmed principles it cannot be done without undermining them. It is an old, legal truism that "hard cases make bad law." For a reviewing court to relax the long-settled standards of proof in a hard case would encourage further relaxation; it would be an invitation to trial judges to weigh evidence and determine credibility. Instead of the tried, sound, and clear-cut standards that now prevail there would be substituted indefinite and variable ones. This inevitably would lead to more summarily directed verdicts and to more appeals.
We cannot place our approval on the action of the trial court. The judgment will be reversed and the cause remanded.
Reversed and "remanded.
SULLIVAN, P. J., concurs.