Opinion ID: 1434913
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Plaintiff's Claim Against the Driver Johnstone

Text: In his brief plaintiff describes this accident: The driver of the car and the child who was struck were screened from each other until the boy had actually reached the traveled portion of the highway. As Christopher Stevens emerged from the jungle-like foliage on his mini-bike, he was struck by an automobile driven by Leonard Ray Johnstone and was seriously and grievously injured. The plaintiff's pleadings also make this statement: That the growth and accumulation of high weeds, grasses and wild grains obscured the visibility of pedestrians using the subject pathway and motorists traveling the subject highway and makes it impossible to motorists and pedestrians to observe one another until upon the subject highway. The basis of the plaintiff's claim of negligence against the defendant Johnstone is his failure to see the plaintiff in time and to stop or control his vehicle in order to avoid the collision. He urges application of the principle that the law requires a driver to see things which are apparent, and also holds him responsible for failing to see what in the ordinary care he should have seen. [1] The soundness of that principle of law is not questioned, but the difficulty here is that it does not fit the plaintiff's case. This is negatived by the plaintiff's own assertion that it was    impossible for motorists and pedestrians to observe one another    at that place. Accepting that allegation as a fact, and considering it in connection with plaintiff's further statement that he was struck   as [he] emerged from the foliage impels the conclusion that the defendant Johnstone had no better opportunity than did the plaintiff to see the danger in time to avoid it. It is urged that because the plaintiff was only 13 years of age he should be held to a lesser degree of care than an adult under similar circumstances. It is true that a child is ordinarily charged with only the degree of care which an ordinary, reasonable and prudent child of the same age would observe. [2] However, we do not see that rule as providing any succor to the plaintiff here. Under the circumstances shown we are not aware that there is any substantial difference between the alertness and caution required of a youth of 13 and that of an adult. This is particularly so when he had taken it upon himself to drive a motorized vehicle upon a public way. [3] Further bearing on this duty of care upon the plaintiff is our statute, Sec. 41-6-17(a) (5), U.C.A. 1953, which requires that the driver (i.e., any driver) of a motor vehicle about to enter or cross a highway from a private road or driveway shall yield the right of way to vehicles traveling upon the highway. From what we have said above it is our conclusion that the trial court was justified in his view that there is no basis upon which it could reasonably conclude that the defendant Johnstone was any more at fault, nor that any lack of care on his part was any more the proximate cause of the mishap, than was the conduct of the plaintiff himself; and that the plaintiff's contributory negligence would bar his recovery. [4]