Court Opinion

ID: 9719700
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:00:17.638453+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:09.158112
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing
BURKE, Judge.
Plaintiff has filed a petition for rehearing in this case, in which it is urged that the decision in the case of Attleson v. Boomgarden, N.D., 73 N.W.2d 448, 450, cited by the court in the opinion filed, was erroneously considered as authority for the propo*224sition that proof of the violation of a speed limit was evidence of negligence and not negligence per se. In the petition it is pointed out that the decision in Attleson v. Boomgarden construed Section 39-0902, NDRC 1943, which provided: “It shall be prima facie unlawful * * * to exceed any * * * speed limitations”, while the statute in force at the time of the accident in the instant case (Chapt. 254, Laws of N.D.1955) provided: “It shall be unlawful * * * to exceed any * * * speed limitations.” Since the decision in Attleson v. Boomgarden laid stress upon the words “prima facie” in holding that proof of a speed which was prima facie unlawful was only evidence of negligence and not negligence per se, the criticism is well taken in so far as the state statute is concerned.
In this case, however, error was also specified upon the trial judge’s instruction that the defendant would be guilty of negligence if he exceeded the speed limit fixed by the city ordinance. This ordinance provided :
“8-0304. * * * It shall be prima facie lawful for the driver of a vehicle to drive the same at a speed not to exceed twenty miles an hour and unlawful to drive at a speed in excess of twenty miles an hour.”
A reasonable construction of this ordinance requires us to say that the words “it shall be prima facie” must be supplied before the word unlawful in the latter part of the ordinance. In other words this ordinance provides that it shall be prima facie unlawful for a driver to exceed a speed of 20 miles an hour.
It follows that the rule announced in Attleson v. Boomgarden, supra, is applicable to the instruction under the city ordinance. The petition for rehearing is therefore denied.
SATHRE, C. J., and MORRIS, J., concur.