Court Opinion

ID: 9847621
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:03:24.751199+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:23.721994
License: Public Domain

*54On Motion for Rehearing.
PER CURIAM.
In defendant’s petition for rehearing it is said:
‘ * * The complaint clearly alleges that this street was 60 feet wide. In each cause of action in the complaint it is alleged that the defendant had 33 feet within which to turn to the left and avoid and pass around the plaintiff. This clearly means, of course, that the plaintiff was only 3 feet past the center line of the street. The majority has made the assumption ‘he was struck after walking 15 feet past the center line’. On the basis of this computation the Court has estimated the gait in walking and has determined that the automobile must have traveled about 75 feet after plaintiff had stepped into its lane of traffic. These computations and assumptions are entirely improper and incorrect; it appears that at most the plaintiff could have taken only two steps into opposite side of the center of the street. On the basis of traveling 3 feet only past the center line the plaintiff entered a zone of peril too late for the defendant to stop and avoid the injury. Hence, there was no Last Clear Chance available to the defendant to avoid the accident.
“It seems more than strange that the Court would enter into the above computation directly contrary to the allegations of the complaint itself and at the same time state otherwise in the opinion that questions as to the sufficiency of the evidence to warrant a recovery are premature.
“It also seems amazingly strange that the Court would make these computations directly contrary to the complaint and then as to the second cause of action permit an amendment to the effect that ‘had defendant kept a proper lookout she would have discovered from plaintiff’s stooped position and posture that he was unaware of the danger from the approaching automobile in time to avert the accident.’ If the Court will merely look to that portion of the second cause of action in the plaintiff’s complaint, it will find in sub-paragraph (d) of Paragraph 3 (T. 8) the allegation as to the 33 feet to the left which was *55.available for the defendant to drive her car around the plaintiff.
“We respectfully but firmly suggest to the Court that it has entirely disregarded the direct allegations of the plaintiff’s complaint in the foregoing respects and that the matters should be reheard. * * *”
As we interpret the complaint, the 33 feet available to defendant within which to turn to the left and pass around plaintiff existed at a time when defendant was at a point still far •enough away from plaintiff to make the turn and avoid the injury. The 33 feet cannot relate to plaintiff’s location at the time of impact, because it was then too late to make the turn and avoid the injury. Paragraph 3 of the second cause of action by necessary inference, if not directly, shows that the 33 feet available to defendant to turn to the left existed when she was 40 or more feet from plaintiff. That paragraph in part reads:
“That during all of the period of time during which the defendant drove from within approximately 108 feet of the plaintiff to approximately 40 feet of him and during which period she should have seen the plaintiff, defendant was careless and negligent in the following particulars, to-wit: * # #
“(d) She carelessly and negligently failed to drive her car to her left and to the south and around the plaintiff, although approximately 33 feet of said Front Street were available to her.” The allegation in the complaint from which we locate plaintiff at the time of the impact is paragraph 2 of each cause of action, in which it is alleged that defendant “struck him with great force with the center of her car at a point about the middle” of the lane for southwesterly bound traffic. The entire street was alleged to be 60 feet wide. The north half of the street would thus be 30 feet wide. If plaintiff was struck at about the middle of the southwesterly bound lane of traffic, that would be as we have said in the original opinion after he had crossed the center line about 15 feet.
The computations made in the original opinion are not in conflict with, but are based upon, and in entire accord with, a direct allegation in the complaint. And this allegation is not in *56conflict with the allegation respecting the 33 feet. The one located. plaintiff at the time he was struck and the other when the automobile was still forty or more feet from him.
The petition for rehearing is denied.