Court Opinion

ID: 9456467
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:54:01.318069+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:59.429406
License: Public Domain

J. SKELLY WRIGHT, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
A trial court should, of course, grant a motion for a directed verdict whenever under the evidence there are no controverted issues of fact upon which reasonable men could differ. In making this determination, the evidence must be construed most favorably in behalf of the defendant in the motion who must also be given the benefit of all reasonable inferences therefrom.1 With deference, on the basis of these familiar principles I believe this case should have been allowed to go to the jury.
We have here a typical situation in which a child runs from a position of safety into the path of an oncoming car. Rule 54 of the Traffic Rules and Regulations of the District of Columbia speaks to just such a case:
“Notwithstanding the provisions of this Article and of Article III, Sec. II every driver of a vehicle shall exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian upon any roadway and shall give warning by sounding the horn when necessary and shall exercise proper precaution upon observing any child or any confused or incapacitated person upon a roadway.”
(Emphasis added.) According to his own testimony, appellee saw the Austin child standing on the curb at the intersection when his car was 100 feet away; at 50 to 60 feet the child darted out into the street looking away from, appellee’s car. Yet there is no indication that appellee at any time blew his horn to alert the child as required by Rule 54. Violation of this traffic rule, of course, is itself negligence sufficient to take the case to the jury.
But there is more. The police officer who investigated the accident testified that the speed limit in the area was 25 miles per hour, and that a car going 25 miles per hour could be brought to a complete stop in 57 feet. Yet appellee told the officer at the scene of the accident that his car was moving at 10 miles per hour when the child was hit. Obviously on the basis of the officer’s testimony, taken with appellee’s testimony that he was 50 to 60 feet away when he saw the child run into the intersection, the jury could have concluded that appellee was exceeding the speed limit of 25 miles per hour when the emergency arose. Indeed, appellee admitted that he did not know whether his speed at the time was greater than 25 miles per hour.2 Excessive speed also is negligence sufficient to take the case to the jury if proximate to the accident. And inability to stop in time was certainly at least one of the proximate causes of this accident.
The trial court realized that the above testimony, if credited, would result in a jury verdict for appellant. Rather than send the case to the jury, the court decided to judge the credibility of the witnesses itself on the crucial factual issues in this case — the issues of time and *707distance 3 — and direct the verdict for the defendant-appellee. In giving its reasons for directing the verdict, the trial court stated:
“The Court has found long ago that most people’s estimate [s] of distances and time are something that just do not mean anything. I have had people come in here and testify that they stopped and were waiting at the light three minutes when I think about the longest cycle of light in the District is about 55 seconds. And the distance between 100 feet and 200 feet, they haven’t any more idea of that than flying to the moon when they estimate.”
The trial court further stated: “Normal people just simply can’t judge distances and judge times in that fashion.” I assume that includes judges. At least the normal people here were on the scene of this accident. They provide the best evidence available as to what took place. And under our law it is the function of the jury to judge their credibility.
I respectfully dissent.

. Tho majority apparently finds as a fact that the child ran into the side of appellee’s car. Appellee so testified. But the physical evidence showed that, at one point at least, the child’s body struck the windshield. On the basis of this evidence, the jury might well have found that the child was struck initially not by the side, but by the front, of the car.

. Appellee’s testimony reads:
Q. Your speed, could it have been higher than 25?
A. I really don’t know.

. In this connection it is interesting that the only witnesses who testified on the issues of time and distance were appellee and the investigating officer.