Court Opinion

ID: 9638714
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:51:46.664157+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:09.097362
License: Public Domain

SEILER, Judge,
concurring.
I find no complaint by plaintiff in his motion for new trial or brief that the phrase “left a place of safety” used in instruction No. 5 is argumentative. The complaint plaintiff makes is that “left a place of safety” is included within “failed to keep a careful lookout”, so that there was a double submission of the same issue. Plaintiff argued that his contributory negligence, if any, “must be based upon his failure either to keep a careful lookout or his leaving a place of safety and moving into the immediate path of defendant’s vehicle, but not both.”
There was evidence in the case that defendant’s vehicle was approaching from the west, eastbound on Lindell, proceeding in the lane next to the curb. There was also evidence that plaintiff was on or near the curb, not in the street, and that he took two steps backward from the curb into the street and was struck, that he backed off the curb, that he stepped back into defendant’s path of travel and she was unable to stop before striking him.
Under these facts, the “leaving a place of safety” part of the instruction is the equivalent of saying plaintiff “left the curb and walked into the immediate path” of defendant’s vehicle. If the evidence on which defendant relied for the alternative submission of “left a place of safety and walked into the immediate path of Defendant’s vehicle” had been that the collision occurred not close to the curb, but instead 25 or 30 feet out into the street, it could well be that the “left a place of safety” language was argumentative. I think use of the phrase is risky. The risk is that it sounds bad and focuses attention on leaving the place of safety when that may not be the critical factor at all. As said in the dissent of Chief Justice Bardgett, in any case where a pedestrian is struck by an automobile, it is *453likely at some point the pedestrian was in a place of safety. I would not be in favor of permitting a defense instruction to submit a conceded and non-causative fact of plaintiff’s having left a remote place of safety as though it were part of the defense. That would be a straw man to be knocked down for effect.
But in the case before us, the leaving the place of safety and the impact occurred in rapid succession. Under these circumstances I do not believe the instruction is unfair, and, further, as said at the outset, plaintiff does not contend it is argumentative, anyway.
I therefore concur in the principal opinion.