Court Opinion

ID: 9727298
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:29:55.397003+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:36.094127
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Woodside, J.:
I cannot agree with my esteemed colleagues that the facts related in the majority opinion convict the appellant of contributory negligence as a matter of law.
The evidence shows that appellant approached the intersection at 15 miles per hour. After he reached the curb line and committed himself to the intersection he increased his speed to 20 miles an hour, or slightly over. When he reached the curb line and was about to enter the intersection the appellee’s car was 150 to 160 feet away and thus had to travel three or four times as far as the appellant’s car to reach the point of collision.
While traveling slightly over 40 feet, which at his speed took about two- seconds, the appellant looked to the right three times, seeing the appellee’s car each time. The last time he looked to the right the front of his car was four or- five feet beyond the center of the intersection. The appellee’s car was even then about 30 to 40 feet away.
For us to say that appellant was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law because the last time he looked to the right the front of his car *511was a “little bit” beyond the center of the intersection, and he was thus four or five feet or less than one-fifth of a second too late, is, in my opinion, drawing the line too fine. In the first place no witness can be depended upon to recreate an automobile accident with such minute accuracy. In the second place, it is unrealistic for us to lay down a rule as to the exact instant when, and the exact spot where, a motorist must look in a particular direction, and then apply such rule without any deviation to meet the facts of a particular case. Street intersections vary in size and in many other ways. In crossing a city street intersection a motorist must be alert to (1) pedestrians entering the roadway from any one of four sidewalk corners; (2) traffic ahead; (3) traffic to the right; (4) traffic to the left; (5) the road bed; (6) traffic signs and stop lights. The exact instant and spot the motorist should look in any particular direction cannot be minutely determined by inflexible rules pronounced by an appellate court.
Where the appellant looked three times to the right, once when 20 feet from the intersection, once when at the curb line and once when the front of his car was about one-third of its length beyond the middle of the intersection, in my opinion, it is for the jury to say whether it was negligence to enter the intersection when the other car was 150 to 160 feet away, and whether it was negligence not to have looked for the third time, a fifth of a second sooner. This having been resolved by the jury in favor of the appellant I would abide by the verdict.
The appellant, and not the appellee, had the right of way. When he entered the intersection the appellee’s car was 150 to 160 feet away. Under Section 1013(b) of The Vehicle Code, Act of May 1, 1929, as amended, 75 PS 572(b) the driver of a vehicle “ap*512proaching but not having entered an intersection” must yield the right of way to a vehicle within such intersection. Not only did appellant have the right of way but he also had a right to assume appellee would obey the law and yield the right of way to him. Habel v. Longenecker, 169 Pa. Superior Ct. 146, 82 A. 2d 714 (1951); Rhinehart v. Jordan, 313 Pa. 197, 169 A. 151 (1933); Barton v. Franklin, 309 Pa. 243, 163 A. 521 (1932).
The motorist to the right does not have the right of way when one car has entered the intersection and the other is approaching, and the Legislature has specifically and definitely so stated in Section 1013(b) supra. It very wisely did not attempt to make it an “exact spot rule”, and thus provided in Clause (a) that the motorist to the right has the right of way when the two enter the intersection, or approach it, at approximately the same time; but certainly Clause (b) and not Clause (a) applies when one motorist is 150 to 160 feet away when the other car enters the intersection. Krasnoff et al. v. Koopitman, 115 Pa. Superior Ct. 475, 175 A. 711 (1934); Weber v. Greenebaum, 270 Pa. 382, 113 A. 413 (1921); Barton v. Franklin supra.
If, in this case, contributory negligence “is so clearly revealed that any reasonable person could not disagree to its existence,” my colleagues must classify me, as well as the jury, among the “unreasonable.”
I would reverse the lower court and reinstate the verdict of the twelve jurors, who after hearing all the testimony, were in my opinion, neither unfair nor unreasonable in determining that the appellant was free of contributory negligence.
Ross, J. joins .in this dissent.