Court Opinion

ID: 9626335
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:08:58.60187+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:00:14.656243
License: Public Domain

On the Merits
TOOZE, J.
This is an action for damages for personal injuries claimed to have been suffered as the proximate result of the negligent operation of two motor vehicles, brought by Everett Hicklin, as plaintiff, against William H. Anders and Elbert Gr. Mulkey, administrator of the estate of James Joseph Bannister, deceased, as defendants. The trial resulted in a verdict and judgment in favor of plaintiff and against both defendants in the sum of $15,000.
Defendant William H. Anders moved the court for an order vacating the judgment against him and for judgment in his favor notwithstanding the verdict. As an alternative motion he moved for an order to set aside the verdict and judgment against him and *137to grant a new trial. The trial court entered separate orders sustaining each motion. Plaintiff appeals.
The order allowing the motion for judgment in favor of defendant Anders notwithstanding the verdict is based upon the ground (as stated in the order):
“ * * that there was no proximate causal relationship between the negligence of the defendant William H. Anders and plaintiff’s injury, and that there was no substantial evidence introduced during the trial that the proximate cause of plaintiff’s injury was the negligence of the defendant Anders, and that the injury to the plaintiff was solely and proximately caused by the negligence of the deceased, James Joseph Bannister, and therefore the court should have directed a verdict in favor of the defendant William H. Anders * *
The order granting the motion for a new trial is based upon the alleged error of the trial court in failing to give to the jury one of defendant Anders’ requested instructions.
The accident occurred on the Ross Island bridge in Portland, Oregon, just after midnight on March 7, 1951. Ross Island bridge is divided into four lanes for traffic, two for east-bound traffic and two for west-bound traffic. On the night in question, icy conditions prevailed on the bridge, and a truck belonging to the city of Portland was engaged in sanding operations. The sand truck was traveling east in the inside lane of traffic at a rate of speed from three to five miles per hour. Plaintiff and a co-worker were employed on the rear of the truck shoveling sand onto the two south lanes.
Defendant Anders was traveling east on the said bridge using the inside lane. He negligently collided with the sand truck and also with a taxicab traveling *138east in the outside lane. His automobile came to rest with three or four feet of its rear extending into the outer lane. Shortly thereafter, the automobile negligently operated by Bannister, also traveling east in the inside lane and at a rate of speed of 45 to 50 miles per hour, collided with the Anders car and the truck. Bannister was killed in the accident and, as a result of the second collision, plaintiff suffered the injuries of which he complains.
It is now hornbook law in this state that, in passing upon a motion for a directed verdict in favor of a defendant, the evidence in the record must be viewed in the light most favorable to plaintiff. He is entitled to the benefit of every reasonable inference that can be drawn from the evidence in his favor. Glascock v. Anderson, 198 Or 499, 503, 257 P2d 617.
It also is well established that the question of whether a particular act was a proximate cause of the injury complained of is ordinarily one for decision by the jury, and it is only where the facts are such that all reasonable men must draw the same conclusion from them that the question of proximate cause becomes one of law for the court. Wintersteen v. Semler, 197 Or 601, 620, 250 P2d 420, 255 P2d 138; Kukacka v. Rock, 154 Or 542, 544, 61 P2d 297.
We have carefully examined the record in this case. The evidence is almost conclusive that both Anders and Bannister were negligent in some, if not in all, respects as charged in the complaint. There also is substantial evidence in the record from which the jury might find that the negligence of Anders directly combined and concurred with that of Bannister to proximately cause plaintiff’s injuries. It is clear that the negligence of Anders was not the sole proximate cause, but the jury could well find it to be a concurring *139cause; his negligence had not spent itself at the time of the final impact. The testimony of the investigating police officer as to what Anders told him immediately following the accident as to how the accident happened, although not too definite, was of itself sufficient to make the question of Anders’ liability one of fact for determination by the jury. Moreover, as the result of Anders’ negligence, and after the collision with the truck, his car at least partially blocked the outside east-bound lane, thereby creating a hazard that the jury might find directly contributed to the later collision with the Bannister car, resulting in the injuries to plaintiff. This case is governed by the rules announced in Birks v. East Side Transfer Co., 194 Or 7, 241 P2d 120.
“Negligence” is negligence, whether it be negligence per se because of a violation of a state statute or city ordinance or whether it arises because of the failure to exercise that degree of care and caution that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in like or similar circumstances, such as a failure to maintain proper control or a lookout. Anders’ negligence created a hazardous condition that continued to exist at the time Bannister’s car collided with the Anders car and the truck, just as the tractor-trailer negligently created a continuing hazardous condition in Birks v. East Side Transfer Co., supra.
The trial court erred in setting aside the judgment and entering judgment in favor of defendant Anders notwithstanding the verdict.
The defendant requested the following instruction:
“The evidence in this case shows that there were separate impacts with the truck upon which the plaintiff was working. The first one occurring when the Anders car collided with the truck, and *140another impact occurring when the vehicle of the deceased Bannister struck the Anders car and the truck. In that regard I instruct you that if you should find from the evidence in this case that the negligence, if any, of the deceased Bannister was so unusual and extraordinary as to interrupt the natural sequence of events and were intervening acts of negligence of a nature the occurrence of which could not have been anticipated by the defendant Anders, and without which the plaintiff’s injuries, if any, would not have been sustained, then your verdict must be for the defendant Anders.”
In many prior decisions of this court we have announced the rule that, in considering whether error was committed by the trial court in failing to give a requested instruction, the court’s'entire charge to the jury must be considered; and if the subject matter of the requested instruction has been adequately covered by the court’s own instructions, no error has been committed. For example, see Denton v. Arnstein, 197 Or 28, 54, 250 P2d 407; Phillips v. Colfax Company, Inc., 195 Or 285, 310, 243 P2d 276, 245 P2d 898; Senkirik v. Royce et al., 192 Or 583, 596, 235 P2d 886; Hughes v. Gilsoul, 191 Or 557, 561, 230 P2d 770; Barnes v. Davidson et al., 190 Or 508, 521, 226 P2d 289.
We have carefully considered the instructions given the jury and find that the trial judge fully, fairly and correctly instructed as to the law applicable to all the issues in the case, including substantially the subject matter of the requested instruction. It was not error for the court, in the exercise of its discretion, to refuse the giving of the instruction. However, in what we have said we do not wish to be understood as approving the requested instruction in the form presented. For the purposes of this opinion, we need not *141discuss that phase of the question. The court erred in granting a new trial.
While this appeal was pending, William H. Anders died and Frances E. Anders, as administratrix of the estate of William H. Anders, deceased, has been substituted as party defendant.
The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded with directions to reinstate the judgment in favor of plaintiff.