Court Opinion

ID: 9642726
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 18:07:51.305038+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:51.836409
License: Public Domain

*498Henderson, C. J.,
filed the following dissenting opinion.
I agree that the evidence shows that the unfavored driver of the tractor-trailer was negligent as a matter of law in failing to yield the right of way at a boulevard. I do not agree that the question of contributory negligence on the part of the driver of the favored automobile is one for the jury. Certainly there is nothing in the testimony of the driver of the tractor-trailer to show negligence on the part of the favored driver. The former did not see the automobile (although it had entered the boulevard 300 feet from the intersection where the collision occurred) until the very moment of impact. Obviously, he could throw no light on the crucial question as to whether the favored driver could have avoided the accident. The favored driver testified that he saw the tractor-trailer approaching and assumed that its driver would stop and yield the right of way. When he realized that the other driver was not going to do so, he made every effort to stop, but could not do so before striking the trailer. I see no evidence of contributory negligence here.
The majority opinion seems to rest entirely upon an inference of negligence from the physical fact that the automobile struck the trailer, rather than the tractor. This, of course, may have been due to the braking effect of the favored driver’s effort to' make an emergency stop. Surely the mere fact of striking the trailer does not show that the favored driver could have avoided striking it, or that he was inattentive. In this connection I may point out in Sun Cab v. Hall, 199 Md. 461, and Harper v. Higgs, 225 Md. 24, the two cases principally relied on, there was positive evidence of inattention. In Hall a passenger testified that the favored driver had his head turned talking to another passenger in the rear seat when the unfavored vehicle entered the boulevard one hundred feet away. In Harper, the driver was talking to another passenger, who called her attention to the other vehicle that had stalled in the intersection. That case was held to be properly submitted to the jury on the theory that had the favored driver been keeping a proper lookout she would have seen the stalled vehicle in time to have avoided striking it. That these cases did not purport to modify *499the statement in other cases that the favored driver had a right to assume that the unfavored vehicle will yield, is made clear in Dunnill v. Bloomberg, 228 Md. 230, 234, where the authorities were exhaustively reviewed by Chief Judge Brune. I think there should have been a directed verdict under the circumstances.