Opinion ID: 2468034
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The unavoidable accident instruction.

Text: In Sloan v. Iverson, Ky., 385 S.W.2d 178, 179 (1964), we expressed serious doubt whether an `unavoidable accident' instruction should ever be given in an automobile collision case. Proof that an accident was unavoidable is neither more nor less than proof of non-negligence. It does not call for any modification or qualification of the duties applicable under the circumstances of the case. The instruction here under attack reads as follows: If the jury believe from the evidence that the defendant, Sechrest, while operating his automobile in a careful and prudent manner within the meaning of these instructions, lost control of his automobile as a result of suddenly coming upon ice on the highway which he did not see and could not in the exercise of reasonable care have seen in sufficient time, and therefore lost control of his automobile so that he did not and could not with reasonable care have regained control of same in time to have avoided the accident then and in that event the law is for the defendant Sechrest and the jury should so find. The propriety of this instruction must be determined in relation to the preceding instruction, which enumerated the specific duties embraced within Sechrest's general duty of ordinary care in the operation of his automobile. One of these specific duties was to have his automobile under reasonable control and not to operate it at a greater speed than was reasonable, considering the condition and use of the highway, insofar as the condition of the highway was known to him or should have been known to him in the exercise of reasonable care. This was appropriate to the circumstances of the case in conditioning Sechrest's duties upon what he should have known with respect to the existing condition of the highway. Cf. Tirey v. Tirey, Ky., 420 S.W.2d 564, 566 (1967). The next following duty, which was to operate his automobile on the right-hand side of the highway and not to pass over the center medium [sic] at the point where the accident herein occurred, was not modified so as to allow for an unanticipated emergency which, without fault on his part, may have prevented his so doing. As given in this instruction the duty was absolute, hence in the absence of some qualifying language appearing elsewhere in the instructions it would have amounted to a directed verdict against Sechrest, because obviously he did cross over the center line of the highway on the way toward striking the two pedestrians. The separate instruction quoted above had the effect of providing the essential qualification of this specific duty imposed upon Sechrest. It told the jury in effect that if without negligence Sechrest was confronted with a sudden emergency which prevented his avoiding the accident by the exercise of reasonable care he was not liable. It is therefore our opinion that the instruction was not improper, though in the event of a new trial it is recommended that the sudden emergency principle be cast in the form of a qualification immediately following the enumeration of the specific duties of ordinary care and as part of the same instruction, along the following lines: . . . all of the foregoing duties being subject however, to this qualification: that if immediately before the accident the defendant was suddenly and unexpectedly confronted with an emergency by the presence of ice on the surface of the highway and such emergency was not brought about by any failure on his part to perform the duties above set forth, he was required thereafter to exercise only such care as an ordinarily prudent person would exercise under the same conditions and circumstances. The appellants evidently feel that our opinions in Jones v. Carr, Ky., 382 S.W.2d 853 (1964), and Sloan v. Iverson, Ky., 385 S.W.2d 178, 179 (1964), and possibly Hettrick v. Willis, Ky., 439 S.W.2d 942, 944 (1969), have eroded the effect of Hall v. Ratliff, Ky., 312 S.W.2d 473 (1958), in which the defendant's vehicle had struck a patch of ice and slid off the road and this court held he was entitled to a sudden emergency instruction. Perhaps a good deal of confusion on this subject has arisen from a failure to distinguish between the theories of sudden emergency and unavoidable accident, and also from a tendency to pay too much regard to the label instead of the basic theory. As we have indicated, that an accident was unavoidable merely negates the existence of negligence as a causative factor. As such, it does not require an instruction, and the giving of one has the possible prejudicial effect of placing undue emphasis on the defendant's evidence tending to explain why he was not negligent. But when a defendant is confronted with a condition he has had no reason to anticipate and has not brought on by his own fault, but which alters the duties he would otherwise have been bound to observe, then the effect of that circumstance upon these duties must be covered by the instructions. It is not a matter of defense which must be pleaded (though in fact it was pleaded in Hall v. Ratliff), but a matter of what his duties were under each state of facts inferable from the evidence, and it is of course the plaintiff's burden to persuade the jury as to which of those factual states existed. To summarize this phase of the discussion, whether the instruction on a motorist's duties should be qualified by a proviso such as the sudden emergency theory does not depend upon whether the particular circumstance might be characterized in common parlance as a sudden emergency, but whether it changes or modifies the duties that would have been incumbent upon him in the absence of that circumstance. In this case the qualification was made necessary because by not remaining on the right side of the road Sechrest violated a specific duty unless the exceptional circumstance of the ice on the road had the effect of relieving him from it. Had the accident taken place in his own lane of travel, or on the right side of the highway, it would not have been necessary, because then the unexpected presence of the ice would have amounted to no more than a condition bearing upon the question of whether the accident resulted from a failure on his part to comply with the more generalized duties of ordinary care. The proper criterion is whether any of the specific duties set forth in the instruction would be subject to exception by reason of the claimed emergency. We do not accede to the appellants' argument that under the cases above cited the presence of ice on a highway cannot be the occasion for inclusion of the sudden emergency theory in the instructions.