Opinion ID: 2608427
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: negligence of defendants larson and jensen

Text: On the day of the accident, June 3, 1964, defendant Larson, who was working for Jensen, doing business under the trade name and style of the Wheatley and Jensen Texaco Station, picked up a 1960 Buick automobile owned by Newell J. Neibaur and brought it back to the station which is located at the corner of Cedar and Yellowstone Streets in Pocatello. After the car was serviced, defendant Larson then parked it on a slight incline next to the north side of the building, facing toward the west. The Buick had an automatic transmission with a park setting. Larson testified that he had turned the key off and shifted the gear into reverse, not park, but that he had neither set the hand brake nor turned the wheels away from the traffic. He did not actually see the Buick roll out into the street, but estimated that a time of fifteen minutes had elapsed before the car was involved in the accident. It is well settled in Idaho that violation of a statutory inhibition is negligence per se. State ex rel. McKinney v. Richardson, 76 Idaho 9, 277 P.2d 272 (1954). I.C. § 49-759, dealing with the operation of motor vehicles  rules of the road  provides: Unattended motor vehicle  No person driving or in charge of a motor vehicle shall permit it to stand unattended without first stopping the engine, locking the ignition, removing the key, and effectively setting the brake thereon and, when standing upon any grade, turning the front wheels to the curb or side of the highways. It is evident that the purpose of this statute is to provide against a motor vehicle becoming a derelict on the road and the dangers attendant thereon. Failure on the part of one to comply with the statutory requirement of setting the brake and turning the wheels away from traffic renders that person prima facie liable for the consequences which the statute was intended to prevent. The undisputed evidence here shows that the Neibaur automobile did become a derelict and a menace to traffic. See Rozner v. Harrell Drilling Company, Tex.Civ.App., 261 S.W. 2d 190 (1953). Moreover, under a similar statute, the court in McCoy v. Courtney, 25 Wash.2d 956, 172 P.2d 596, 170 A.L.R. 603 (1946), noted that such a statute does not require the operator to put the car in gear, nor does such a precaution meet the requirements of the statute. Appellants stress the fact that since the Buick was held in place for some fifteen minutes, there must have been some outside force or other agency that acted upon the vehicle to jar it from its stationary position. They rely on the case of Hughes v. Jolliffe, 50 Wash.2d 554, 313 P.2d 678 (1957), in which a car was parked on a slight incline for over an hour with the automatic gearshift locked in park before it began to roll backwards. After the accident, the gearshift lever was found to be in neutral. The court there rejected the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur as the basis for negligence on the grounds that the car had remained in position for a substantial length of time and that no evidence was adduced as to who or what shifted the gears into neutral. While the length of time in which the car remained parked before starting is an element not to be ignored (see cases cited in 16 A.L.R.2d 979, at 993), we are not impressed that under the circumstances of this case it is conclusive in appellants' favor. In the first place, the time lapse of fifteen minutes was only an approximation and not definite; but in any event we take the view that fifteen minutes is not so substantial a length of time that, as a matter of law, this court is compelled to hold defendants' initial negligence no longer could serve as the proximate cause for the Buick's rolling onto the thoroughfare and causing the accident. Secondly, defendant Larson admitted that he did not put the automatic gearshift into the park position, nor was there any proof offered to show that the gearshift had not at all times remained in the reverse setting. Thirdly, the Neibaur car being parked upon a grade from the service station, the defendant Larson should have turned the front wheels of the car away from the oncoming traffic as prescribed by the statute. It was the duty of defendant Larson to set the hand brake and turn the wheels away from traffic so that this sort of accident would not happen. Under these circumstances, we cannot say that the trial court's finding of proximate cause from the occurrence of the accident was unwarranted where no other evidence was offered to explain the cause of the collision. See Pelland v. D'Allesandro, 321 Mass. 387, 73 N.E.2d 590 (1947); Hasselman v. Zimmerman, 2 Wis.2d 345, 86 N.W.2d 418 (1957).