Opinion ID: 2061056
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Exercise of care by Fern's driver.

Text: Negligence is the failure to exercise due care. Fern's was a common carrier, engaged in the transportation of the three Plaintiffs for hire at the time of the accident. While Fern's driver, like all drivers of motor vehicles, owed a duty to exercise due care in order not to injure either his passengers or other persons on the highway, a particularly high quality of vigilance was required to meet the standard of due care to his passengers. A common carrier's duty to its passengers is to exercise the highest degree of care compatible with the practical operation of the machine in which the conveyance was undertaken. Roberts v. Yellow Cab Co., Me., 240 A.2d 733 (1968). We must test the jury's conclusion that Fern's driver was guilty of no causal negligence as to the Plaintiffs by measuring his record of conduct against this standard. The Presiding Justice submitted to the jury the issue of Fern's care with complete and proper instructions including an explanation as to the conduct to be expected of a driver who finds himself faced with an emergency which has been created by the negligence of another, no prior negligence of his own having contributed to produce the emergency. Conduct in such a situation of emergency is expected to be not less than that which a person of ordinary prudence would have used under the same circumstances. Hoch v. Doughty, Me., 224 A.2d 54 (1966). The jury found no causal negligence on the part of Fern's driver. On appeal the evidence with all proper inferences drawn from it must be taken in the light most favorable to the jury's findings. The verdict is not to be set aside unless it was manifestly wrong. Morneault v. Inhabitants of Town of Hampden, 145 Me. 212, 74 A. 455 (1950). The fact that Fern's driver had the right to way does not in itself determine the issue of his due care. Fern's driver was on a through way and was entitled to expect (until the contrary was apparent) that a vehicle approaching the intersection from Bartlett Street would observe the law and stop and yield the right of way to a vehicle on Walnut Street which was approaching the intersection so closely as to constitute an immediate hazard. 29 M.R.S.A. § 948; Crockett v. Staples, 148 Me. 55, 89 A.2d 737; Davis v. Simpson, 138 Me. 137, 23 A.2d 320 (1942). In Crockett we closely examined the situation as to care of a Plaintiff who, driving on a through way, collided with a Defendant who entered from an intersection, failing to yield the right of way to the Plaintiff. Each driver had an unobstructed view of the other. We held then that it was the prerogative of the jury to determine at what point the Plaintiff should have known the Defendant was not going to yield the right of way and whether, at that point, Plaintiff could reasonably have avoided the collision. While our present case differs from Crockett in that here the drivers' views were not unobstructed, there were several factual issues to be decided which the jury could have found to weigh heavily in their determination of either care or causation. There were in evidence photographs of the scene of the accident and of the vehicles. The jury could have found that the taxi was travelling at a rate of 20 miles per hour. Whether this was a proper speed in which to approach this intersection under the existing circumstances was a proper jury question. The jury also had to resolve the factual issues of whether Mrs. Whitten had brought her vehicle to a stop before entering Walnut Street, at what speed she had proceeded into the intersection and at what point the driver of the taxi would have had a view down Bartlett Street depending, in part, no doubt, on what the jury found to have been the precise location of the Coca-Cola truck. The jury may have found that Fern's driver was not negligent or that, if he was negligent, his negligence was not a proximate cause of his passenger's injuries. Taking the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury's findings, we cannot say that the findings were manifestly wrong.