Court Opinion

ID: 9619679
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:31:19.844568+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:45:34.749967
License: Public Domain

WADE, Justice.
I dissent. I agree that the evidence should be viewed in the light most favorable to plaintiff but think the prevailing opinion fails to do that and so reaches a wrong result.
The evidence discloses that the accident occurred about 225 feet southeast of Red Creek Bridge on a dry, clear day. The bridge is in a ravine with the highway sloping toward it from both directions, the jeep approaching from the northwest struck the south abutment of the bridge and floundered out of control, at first on its right-hand side and after about 75 to 100 feet it crossed onto its left-hand side of the highway until it collided with the truck; The truck driver could see the bridge and the road leading to it for 800 feet, and he did see the jeep strike the bridge and go out of control according to his statements *73to witnesses immediately after the accident, but after it had floundered onto his side of the highway he did not see it again until after he felt the impact with his truck. There is no evidence of any brake marks of either vehicle prior to the impact but there were marks of the wheels of the jeep as it floundered between the bridge and the point of impact.
The prevailing opinion admits that the situation was fraught with danger after the jeep hit the bridge but because it remained on its side of the road for 75 to 100 feet thereafter says “it was unlike a situation where the danger is fixed and a reasonable man would immediately and violently apply the brakes as the only course calculated to avoid a collision.” With this I do not agree. If the driver saw the jeep hit the bridge and go out of control when, as I will later demonstrate, it was probably much more than 450 feet away, it would seem that there would be only one appropriate course to take and that would be to get this truck safely stopped before the two vehicles reached each other. When the truck driver knew that the jeep was floundering on the road out of control, to continue on his course because it was temporarily not on his side of the road seems to me to be entirely inappropriate procedure, and I believe that 90% of drivers would think the same way. There was evidence tending to show that this truck could have been brought safely to a stop within 130 feet after the brakes were applied, and that allowing the driver .75 of a second for reaction time would make 180 feet after the jeep struck the bridge. If both cars were traveling 45 miles per hour and continued to maintain that speed up to the impact, 3.43 seconds would elapse between the time the jeep struck the bridge and the impact and if the driver had brought the truck to a stop within 180 feet it would have been 45 feet before the point of impact. The prevailing opinion suggests that there is no evidence of the speed of the jeep and therefore we should use 60 miles per hour for the jeep instead of 45 since that would have been a lawful speed. This seems to be viewing the facts in the light most unfavorable to the plaintiff. I believe that a mind acting reasonably from the evidence, there being some evidence indicating that the jeep was not traveling at an excessive rate of speed, could find that it was traveling not in excess of 45 miles per hour. If that is correct we must not take a view of the evidence which is unfavorable to plaintiff and assume that it was traveling 60 miles per hour.
Further, it is very improbable that the jeep continued to maintain the same rate of speed after it struck the bridge. If the driver was conscious, his natural reaction would be to stop and see if his jeep had been damaged and to enable him to gam control of his vehicle, and whether conscious or not, it seems very improbable that he would continue to feed it gas and main-, tain its speed while floundering for 225 *74feet. The striking of the bridge, the fact that the jeep was floundering out of control while traveling uphill all would tend to reduce its speed and it seems remarkable that it traveled as far as 225 feet. If it was as I suspect practically stopped at the time of the collision, it would take almost twice as long to travel that distance as it would if it maintained the speed it was traveling when it hit the bridge. So instead of 3.43 seconds it would take several seconds more than that even if it was traveling 60 miles per hour as suggested in the prevailing opinion instead of 45, which would put the truck a few hundred feet farther away when the jeep struck the bridge.
Another thing which tends to give more time is the fact that if the truck driver had reduced its speed and stopped it before I it reached the point of impact it would 'have taken approximately twice as long for it to reach that point after applying the brakes as it would if there was no reduction in its speed. Every reduction in the speed of the truck after the jeep struck the bridge would proportionately increase the time which would pass, between the time the jeep struck the bridge and the time of impact and lessen the probability of a collision. Yet according to- the evidence the driver completely lost sight of. the jeep and evidently forgot all about it shortly after it struck the bridge and went out of control, until he felt the impact. I think the evidence, if viewed in the light most favorable to plaintiff, will amply sustain a finding that the driver was negligent and that his negligence proximately caused the accident. Of course I realize that we only 'have plaintiff’s evidence and that defendant’s evidence might change the picture but we cannot now anticipate his defenses.