Opinion ID: 2619978
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: construction of the facts for a directed verdict.

Text: The single issue before this court is whether the plaintiff was, as a matter of law, free of contributory negligence. If he was not, then the trial judge erred in granting plaintiff's motion for a directed verdict on this issue. To avoid being contributorily negligent, plaintiff was required to exercise the same general standard of care the law uniformly requires when determining the existence, or nonexistence, of negligence. He was required to act as a reasonably prudent man would act under the same or similar circumstances. Bauman v. Complita, 66 Wn.2d 496, 403 P.2d 347 (1965); W. Prosser, Torts §§ 36, 64 (3d ed. 1964). One of the circumstances usually pertinent in intersection collision cases is whether a particular driver had the right of way and, consequently, was the favored driver. Massengale v. Svangren, 41 Wn.2d 758, 252 P.2d 317 (1953). The law accords a favored driver, i.e., the plaintiff in the instant case, considerable protection or a degree of immunity from liability for damages, regardless of the actions of others, unless he knew, or in the exercise of due care should have known, that a disfavored driver was not going to yield the right of way. Owens v. Kuro, 56 Wn.2d 564, 354 P.2d 696 (1960); Bellantonio v. Warner, 47 Wn.2d 550, 288 P.2d 459 (1955). Obviously the purpose of this exception is to withhold protection or immunity from liability even as to favored drivers whose conduct creates an unreasonable risk of harm to themselves or others. The issue of contributory negligence generally is for the jury to determine. See Mathers v. Stephens, 22 Wn.2d 364, 156 P.2d 227 (1945). This court has said on numerous occasions that only in rare cases is a trial court justified in withdrawing this issue from the jury. E.g., Bauman v. Complita, supra ; Baxter v. Greyhound Corp., 65 Wn.2d 421, 397 P.2d 857 (1964). However, the majority holds in the instant case that the trial judge was correct in removing the issue of plaintiff's contributory negligence from the jury's determination. I cannot agree. When passing on the correctness of granting a motion for a directed verdict on the issue of contributory negligence, certain rules must be followed. The evidence must be interpreted most favorably to the nonmoving party, defendant here, and no discretion may be exercised as to whether the evidence of contributory negligence was sufficient to take the issue to the jury. Hansen v. Pauley, 67 Wn.2d 345, 407 P.2d 811 (1965); Trautman, Motions Testing the Sufficiency of Evidence, 42 Wash. L. Rev. 787, 797 (1967). The evidence which is most favorable to the nonmoving party must be considered even if it was not introduced by him. This court must review all the evidence to find the portions which are most favorable. Wold v. Jones, 60 Wn.2d 327, 373 P.2d 805 (1962). Under these standards, I am convinced the result reached by the majority is untenable. The majority construe the evidence or facts to be as presented by the defendant, i.e., that defendant stopped at the intersection and then practically crept across the arterial at between 4 and 7 miles per hour. This construction is not the one most favorable to defendant on the issue of plaintiff's contributory negligence. The most favorable construction would seem to be to adopt the view asserted by plaintiff in his deposition and by the investigating officer that plaintiff was proceeding along Elm Street at 10 miles per hour and that defendant ran the stop sign at 30 miles per hour. At 10 miles per hour, plaintiff could have stopped almost instantly. If he had been paying attention to the road ahead, it is arguable plaintiff would have seen defendant rapidly approaching the intersection. If so, he should have concluded, as a reasonably prudent man would have, that defendant would fail to yield the right of way. The fact that plaintiff may not have been looking will not save him. He is charged with seeing what was there to be seen. Owens v. Kuro, supra, at 572, 354 P.2d at 701. Whether this construction of the facts is the most logical or probable one for a jury to reach is unimportant for our purposes in the instant matter. What is important is that proper selection of facts will reveal substantial evidence from which a jury could conclude that plaintiff was contributorily negligent. This being the case, the motion for a directed verdict on this issue should not have been granted. See Golub v. Mantopoli, 65 Wn.2d 361, 397 P.2d 433 (1964). If we assume, as does the majority, that defendant was traveling at between 4 and 7 miles per hour, and plaintiff was traveling at 10 miles per hour, it still does not seem possible to conclude as a matter of law that plaintiff was not contributorily negligent. In footnotes two and three, the majority sets out a computation of the distance defendant and plaintiff traveled after defendant reached the edge of the pavement on Elm Street until the collision. Defendant had by then reached a point at which the majority concludes that plaintiff should have been warned of the danger of collision. Even if we accept as uncontrovertible the assertion that plaintiff could justifiably rely on his status as favored driver up to that point, [5] under the majority's computations as to stopping distances we find that while defendant was traveling the 11 feet from the edge of the pavement to the point of collision, plaintiff, at 10 miles per hour, was traveling 30 feet. The Bendix scale of tested stopping distances, accepted as authoritative in 9C Blashfield, Cyclopedia of Automobile Law & Practice § 6237, at 413 (perm. ed. 1954), indicates that a car under ordinary conditions can stop in 15.5 feet at a speed of 10 miles per hour. This distance allows for an average reaction time of three-fourth seconds, during which time the car travels 11 feet, plus 4.5 feet of required braking distance. Considering the elements of time and distance and the fact that the accident occurred on a dry, paved surface in midafternoon on a day when visibility was excellent, it is indeed difficult to understand why plaintiff traveled nearly twice the distance necessary to stop after he was put on notice that defendant was not going to yield the right of way, unless we conclude that plaintiff was contributorily negligent. It is even more difficult to hypothesize why no jury question is presented.