Opinion ID: 1999761
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Crosswalk

Text: Sec. 346.52, Stats., prohibits any person from stopping a vehicle, even temporarily, on a crosswalk. [6] The evidence indicates that defendants' truck was stopped on the crosswalk for a short time. Plaintiffs assign as error the trial court's failure to instruct the jury that by violating this statute, Moths was negligent as a matter of law. This court has frequently held violations of safety statutes as negligence per se. [7] However, this court has not adopted, as the standard of conduct of a reasonable man, the requirements of a legislative enactment where the purpose of the statute is to protect a class of persons other than the party seeking to invoke its protection. [8] In Schroeder v. Northern States Power Co. (1970), 46 Wis. 2d 637, 646, 176 N. W. 2d 336, this court stated: While this court has frequently found that the violation of a safety ordinance is negligence per se, we have consistently avoided a broad construction of these statutes and have declined to extend the legislative ambit of protection afforded by them unless the legislature's intention so to do was clear. The question which a court must decide, even when it is clear the ordinance is a safety ordinance, is whether the purpose of the ordinance was to protect the party seeking to invoke it, i.e., was he within the class of persons that the legislature plainly intended to protect. This court has frequently stated that statutes are not to be extended so as to impose any duty beyond that imposed by the common law unless such statute clearly and beyond any reasonable doubt expresses such a purpose by language that is clear, unambiguous, and peremptory. Burke v. Milwaukee & Suburban Transport Corp. (1968), 39 Wis. 2d 682, 690, 159 N. W. 2d 700; Delaney v. Supreme Investment Co. (1947), 251 Wis. 374, 380, 29 N. W. 2d 754. The undisputed evidence in the instant case establishes that Randall followed the defendants' truck down Birch Drive and onto Birch Court. Randall was not attempting to use the cross walk for the purpose for which it was designed. In Blanchard v. Terpstra (1967), 37 Wis. 2d 292, 297, 155 N. W. 2d 156, this court held that sec. 346.52 (1) (d), Stats., [9] was enacted for the protection and convenience of pedestrians on the sidewalk. Sec. 346.52 (1) (b) was enacted for the protection and convenience of pedestrians seeking to cross a roadway. Randall was not a member of the class of persons that sec. 346.52 (1) (b) protects. Although Moths violated the statute, such a violation in reference to Randall and the plaintiffs was not negligence per se, and the instruction was properly refused. By the Court. Judgment affirmed.