Court Opinion

ID: 9753610
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:20:09.135855+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:39.056491
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
WILNER, J.,
which BELL, C.J., and HARRRELL, J., Join.'
ALAN M. WILNER, Judge (Retired, specially assigned), dissenting, which BELL, C.J., and HARRELL, J., Join.
But for an admission by the defendant, this would be a more difficult case, because it would expose the tension between maintaining the certainty provided by boulevard rule, as this Court has fashioned it, and the dilemma faced by an unfavored driver when presented with an obstruction that blocks a clear line of sight with respect to traffic on the boulevard. Because of that admission, however, unmentioned and therefore not accounted for by the Court, that dilemma may not really be presented here. Mr. Brown admitted in his testimony that he both saw and heard Mr. Grady proceeding down Falkirk Road, proceeding toward the alley and about two car-lengths away, before he “inched” into the roadway where the collision occurred. This was not a case, then, of his sensory perception, including vision, being actually blocked by the parked truck.
The Court seems to think, nonetheless, that, so long as Brown did not proceed beyond the width of the parked truck, as he testified, there was no violation of the boulevard rule, and, simply because he stopped temporarily further back, he was entitled move forward and to encroach on that part of the roadway without liability, whether or not he was aware of Grady’s vehicle. I believe that the Court is wrong in that view, and, with respect, I therefore dissent.1
*200The Court restates, and seems to confirm, the nature and contour of the boulevard rule as set forth in Creaser v. Owens, 267 Md. 238, 239-45, 297 A.2d 235, 236-39 (1972):
“[A] driver upon approaching a ‘through highway’ from an unfavored road must stop and yield the right of way to all traffic already in or which may enter the intersection during the entire time the unfavored driver encroaches upon the *201right of way; [and] this duty continues as long as he is in the intersection and until he becomes a part of the flow of favored travelers or successfully traverses the boulevard.” (Emphasis added).
* * * *
“In none [of the more than fifty opinions of the Court that have considered the boulevard rule] has there been any suggestion that the topography of an area which limits an unfavored driver’s view of travelers on the favored highway would relieve him of the heavy responsibility placed on him, by the stringent requirements of this law.” (Emphasis added).
* * * *
“The essence of [this Court’s] decisions, when distilled to their purest form, leaves no doubt that the duty of the unfavored driver to yield the right of way extends to traffic on the whole of the favored road and the driver on the favored highway has a right to assume that he will do so.” (Emphasis added).
# * ❖ *
“In order to make crystal clear our holding here, we emphasize that if an unfavored driver is involved in an accident with a favored driver under circumstances where the boulevard law is applicable then in a suit based on that collision the unfavored driver is deemed to be negligent as a matter of law.”
Having stated that rule, which the Court agrees is “firmly embedded in Maryland law,” the Court, in the guise of applying it “with a modicum of common sense,” proceeds to dismantle it by permitting the unfavored driver, after stopping, to “ineh[ ] up” to “the traveled portion of the roadway, in order to get a view of the traffic on the highway.” But for the laws of physics that might be a workable solution.
*202The problem is that most passenger ears and many trucks, at least at present, are designed so that the driver is sitting several feet behind the front of the vehicle. In order for the driver to advance far enough see around the corner, if there is an obstruction, the front of the vehicle will ordinarily be well into the traveled portion of the roadway, thereby encroaching on the favored driver’s right of unimpeded passage. If, as we held in Creaser, a limitation of the unfavored driver’s view of traffic on the highway caused by the topography of the area does not relieve that driver of the stringent requirements of the law, surely a parked vehicle on the highway will not provide that relief.
There is a dilemma if, in fact, the unfavored driver’s line of sight is obstructed, thereby impeding his or her ability to know whether traffic is approaching on the favored highway. It is not one that would require the unfavored driver “to remain at the curb line of the alley ad infinitum,” however, as the Court supposes, but rather one that simply calls for allocating rights and duties. If the law, for good reason, gives the favored driver the right to proceed, secure in the knowledge that unfavored drivers will yield the right of way and not encroach on a traveled portion of the highway, then unfavored drivers must, in fact, yield the right of way and not encroach on a traveled portion of the highway. If they fail to yield and do encroach, they will ordinarily be held to have violated the law and, subject to any proper defense they may have, such as contributory negligence, assumption of the risk, or last clear chance, they will ordinarily be responsible for any harm they cause. If this seems somehow unfair to the unfavored driver, the rule adopted by the Court today is going to be at least equally unfair to the favored driver, who will no longer be able to assume that the bumpers and hoods of unfavored vehicles will not suddenly and without warning protrude into their lane of travel.
This is not, as the Court indicates, one of those “rare instances in which the conduct of the favored driver was properly subject to a jury’s determination of its reasonableness and prudence under the circumstances.” Situations of *203this kind occur every day throughout the State, especially in urban and suburban areas where obstructions of one kind or another at or near intersections are commonplace. What the Court has done is to drive a huge wedge through a clear rule that is indeed “firmly embedded in Maryland law” and that ought to remain so.
Mr. Brown may well have done what he thought, and what many people might think, was reasonable under the circumstances. Negligence is a matter of duty, however, and the law imposed a duty on him not to encroach on to Falkirk Road until he was certain that there was no oncoming traffic on that road. Under either version of what occurred, the accident happened because he did encroach on the traveled portion of that road. He was on the roadway itself, not a shoulder, and he had no right to be there. I would therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals and remand with instructions to reverse the judgment of the Circuit Court.
I am authorized to state that Chief Judge BELL and Judge HARRELL join in this dissent.

. The Court accuses me of reading a proscription into the boulevard rule "that does not exist in the plain language of the Md.Code.” The problem is that it does exist in the plain language of the Code. Section 2 l-403(b) of the Transportation Article requires drivers approaching a through highway to stop "at the entrance to the through highway” and *200to “yield the right-of-way to any other vehicle approaching on the through highway.” To appreciate the meaning of that command, one must resort to the relevant definitions, some of which the Court omits even to mention.
Section 11-127 defines “highway," in relevant part, as "the entire width between the boundary lines of any way or thoroughfare of which any part is used by the public for vehicular traffic ...” (Emphasis added). Section 21-101(x) defines "through highway” as “a highway or part of a highway on which vehicular traffic is given the right-of-way” and at "the entrances to which vehicular traffic from intersecting highways is required by law to yield the right-of-way to vehicles on that highway or part of a highway, in obedience to either a stop sign or yield sign placed as provided in the Maryland vehicle law.” Section 21-101(1) defines "intersection,” in relevant part, as “the area within the prolongation or connection of the lateral curb lines or, in the absence of curbs, the lateral boundary lines of the roadways of two highways that join at or approximately at right angles.” The term "roadway” is defined in § 11-151 as "that part of a highway that is improved, designed, or ordinarily used for vehicular traffic, other than the shoulder." (Emphasis added). "Shoulder” is defined in § 21-101 (v) as "that portion of a highway contiguous with the roadway for the accommodation of stopped vehicles, for emergency use, and for the lateral support of the base and surface courses of the roadway.”
As I interpret these various definitions, the area where the collision in this case occurred was not a shoulder, but was part of the roadway, and therefore was within the “intersection.” It was also within the boundary lines of Falkirk Road, and thus part of that highway, and was within the prolongation of curb lines or the lateral boundaiy lines of Falkirk Road and, for that reason as well, was within the intersection. Brown had a duty not to enter that intersection or the roadway until assured that it was safe to do so, and that included the area in front of the parked truck.
The Court seems to believe that any portion of a highway on which parking is allowed is not "improved, designed, or ordinarily used for vehicular travel,” and that simply is not so. For one thing, parked cars must normally travel some distance in the very lane reserved for parking in order to park and to get back into the flow of traffic. That space is necessarily part of the roadway and the highway, as defined in the statute. Had Grady intended to turn into the alley, he would have *201had to pass through that part of the roadway to do so. With respect, it is the Court that misconstrues the statute.