Opinion ID: 1834135
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Duty to Avoid Oncoming Vehicle in Wrong Lane

Text: Sonneks argue that Instruction No. 10 on proper lookout, as given by the court, is fatally defective because it omitted a proposition of Iowa law which they were entitled to have the jury consider. They claim that as part of the duty of proper lookout a motor vehicle driver must try to avoid a collision with a vehicle traveling or positioned on the wrong side of the road. To omit this from the instruction, they assert, scuttled their case because that was the essence of the claim that defendant Warren was negligent. The claimed negligence of Warren was in not turning to the right or onto the dirt shoulder of the road in order to avoid a collision. We have considered aspects of this argument in prior cases involving contributory negligence. In Buzick v. Todman, 179 Iowa 1019, 1020, 162 N.W. 259, 260 (1917), plaintiff claimed damages to his horse and buggy when a collision occurred at an intersection with defendant's auto. In analyzing the sufficiency of the evidence to support a plaintiff's verdict we said: The automobile, then, must have been a little more than 50 feet east of the horse when plaintiff's son first observed it approaching, and little less than that when he observed it begin veering to the south. Though fully aware that it was moving toward him, plaintiff's son made no effort to avoid it. He neither stopped his horse nor turned to the right or left, but allowed his horse to walk on until its leg was broken by coming in contact with the front spring of the automobile. We are of the opinion that, though defendant may have been negligent, plaintiff's son also failed to exercise any care to obviate the collision, and because of this was guilty of contributory negligence. Buzick, 179 Iowa at 1025, 162 N.W. at 261. We reversed and ordered a new trial. Carruthers v. Campbell, 195 Iowa 390, 391, 192 N.W. 138, 138 (1923), involved a two-car intersection accident where both vehicles were making right angle turns. On the issue of respective duties of the drivers we said: It appears that the beaten path at this point is on or near the east margin of the graded space between the ditches on either side of the road, and that between the beaten path and the west ditch there was a clear space of ten feet or more, over which a car coming from the north could turn out, if met by another vehicle. Under such circumstances, if proved, it cannot be said, as a matter of law, that a driver moving south is free from negligence simply because he keeps to the beaten path on the east side, to the injury of another car rightfully going north. In this case, the jury could properly find that plaintiff was on the right side of the road. This would not, of course, justify him in failing to use reasonable care to avoid a collision with defendant, even though the latter were on the wrong side; but whether he was negligent in this respect was quite clearly a jury question. Carruthers, 195 Iowa at 392, 192 N.W. at 139. The jury verdict awarding plaintiff damages was affirmed. In Ehrhardt v. Ruan Transport Corp., 245 Iowa 193, 195, 61 N.W.2d 696, 697 (1953), two trucks collided on a narrow highway. The evidence was inconclusive as to which driver was encroaching on the other driver's half of the road. Id., 245 Iowa at 200, 61 N.W.2d at 700. Regarding the plaintiff's attempt to avoid a collision by pulling to the right we said: However, here it must be quite clear that the only testimony tending to prove that plaintiff had lost control of his vehicle was that he had attempted to turn to the right and get over onto the right shoulder of the highway when meeting the other vehicle. This is the very thing required of one when meeting another on the public highway and especially so when there is danger of a collision. Failure to do so could result in a finding that one is guilty of contributory negligence. In plaintiff's effort here we find no substantial element of negligence, and certainly none that would justify its submission to the jury on the issue of lack of control. Ehrhardt, 245 Iowa at 199, 61 N.W.2d at 699-700. The trial court gave the uniform instruction on proper lookout in instruction No. 10. Regarding the duties of defendant Warren the court also instructed as follows: A driver must have her vehicle under control. It is under control when the driver can guide and direct its movement, control its speed and stop it reasonably fast. The court gave the following instruction concerning negligence: Negligence means failure to use ordinary care. Ordinary care is the care which a reasonably careful person would use under similar circumstances. Negligence is doing something a reasonably careful person would not do under similar circumstances, or failing to do something a reasonably careful person would do under similar circumstances. Concerning road conditions, the following instruction was given: Road conditions may be such that speed should be less than the legal limit. Traffic laws call for the minimum of care and not the maximum. A driver should not operate a vehicle up to the legal speed limit of 35 miles per hour if the circumstances are such that ordinary care requires a lesser speed. A violation of this law is negligence. The instruction requested by plaintiffs Sonnek sought to add an action-oriented duty to the proper lookout instruction approved as a uniform instruction by our court and given by the trial court. As such, we find that it departed from the concept of proper lookout adopted in the uniform instruction and by our cases. In defining proper lookout, we said in Coker, 491 N.W.2d at 151, Maintaining a proper lookout encompasses the duty to be careful of the movements of one's self in relation to things seen and that could have been discerned or seen in the exercise of due care. In Diehl v. Diehl, 421 N.W.2d 884, 887 (Iowa 1988), we described it as follows: The duty to maintain a proper lookout includes being watchful of the movements of one's own vehicle as well as other things seen or seeable. . . . . The common-law duty of control requires the operator of a motor vehicle to proceed with such care and with the vehicle under such control as existing conditions known or which should be known may require. In Diehl we cited Matuska v. Bryant, 260 Iowa 726, 733-34, 150 N.W.2d 716, 721 (1967), for this proposition. Matuska considered and rejected the claim that the plaintiff was not keeping a proper lookout and was negligent as a matter of law in not seeing defendant's car until it was too late to take evasive action. As bearing on this, Matuska approved the statement made in Menke v. Peterschmidt, 246 Iowa 722, 730, 69 N.W.2d 65, 71 (1955), that: A good deal of time was used on the trial and considerable space is taken up in the printed arguments concerning whether she saw or could have seen appellee approaching from a greater distance than she admitted. The matter is not material. Whether she saw him at 75 feet, 150 feet, or 600 feet, she was not bound to apprehend at any of those distances that he would not stop, or at least take some steps to yield the right-of-way in accordance with law. Similarly, in Appleby v. Cass, 211 Iowa 1145, 1150, 234 N.W. 477, 479 (1931), we approved as part of an instruction the statement: In the use of the highway, the driver of an automobile is not called upon to anticipate negligence upon the part of the driver of another automobile while using such public highway. In a proper case, the requirement argued by plaintiffs Sonnek as a defendant's responsibility may be supported by enough evidence to support a separate instruction. However, in the case at bar, the concept offered by plaintiffs as a part of the proper lookout instruction is not compatible with that instruction and was correctly rejected by the trial court.