Court Opinion

ID: 9740542
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:37:00.533221+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:18.754092
License: Public Domain

Currie, C. J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent from the opinion of the court.
First, I am one of the minority mentioned therein who would hold Pintar negligent as a matter of law in failing to make any adequate observation to calculate the speed of the Laufenberg car before entering upon the arterial highway.
Secondly, absent any pleading or finding of racing on the part of Avina and Laufenberg, there is no basis for finding Avina guilty of the same percentage of causal negligence as Laufenberg. I join Mr. Justice Gordon and Mr. Justice Heffernan in disagreeing with the basis upon which the majority opinion grounds its af-firmance of the trial court’s finding in this respect. If this basis as well as that of racing is eliminated, there is no credible evidence to sustain the trial court’s finding of causal negligence on the part of Avina which contributed to the death of Mrs. Ogle. This is because the contact between the Avina and Ackerman cars was minimal with only a scraping of paint.
I agree that, if two motor vehicles successively collide with a third vehicle in close proximity of time and someone is injured or killed in the latter vehicle, and either *137collision standing alone would be sufficient to cause the injury or death, negligence of the drivers of the first two vehicles should be held causal in a situation where it is impossible to determine which collision caused the injury or death. However, that is not the case here because there was insufficient contact between the Avina and Ackerman cars to bring this rule into play.