Court Opinion

ID: 9728943
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:19:31.036473+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:53.200970
License: Public Domain

FERREN, Associate Judge,
concurring:
There was only one piece of evidence that the District’s driver had a last clear chance to avoid the accident: the plaintiffs testimony that, before reaching into his car, he had seen cars coming toward him from a distance of one-half to three-quarters of a block down the street. According to the plaintiff — and to the trial court — this testimony permitted the jury to infer that, if the plaintiff had seen cars that far away, then the District’s driver also could have seen the plaintiff from virtually the same distance away, i.e., from far enough away to have avoided the collision.
The problem with such an inference, however, is that the plaintiff had seen several “cars,” implying at best for the plaintiff that there had been several vehicles down the block, with the District’s truck somewhere in line — but not in front (no “truck” was mentioned). Accordingly, the evidence was simply too sparse for the jury to have reasonably inferred that the District’s truck driver could have seen past the other vehicles in time to “have avoided injuring the plaintiff after he became aware of, or reasonably should have become aware of, the danger and the plaintiffs inability to extricate himself from it.” Robinson v. District of Columbia, 580 A.2d 1255, 1258-59 (D.C.1990) (Robinson I) (interpreting Felton v. Wagner, 512 A.2d 291, 296 (D.C.1986)). Even though the testimony indicates that the traffic was coming no faster than ten to twelve miles per hour, there was no expert testimony or any other record basis for the jury reasonably to have found that the driver could have seen the plaintiff and stopped in time, even though other vehicles in front may have blocked his view for awhile before impact.
No one questions the jury’s finding that the District’s driver (as well as the plaintiff) was negligent; the driver should have been cautious enough to avoid this type of collision even if his vision was limited. But, I am satisfied that the proof of the driver’s last clear chance to avoid the injury is too thin on this record to permit our sustaining the jury’s verdict. Thus, plaintiffs contributory negligence bars recovery. See Phillips v. D.C. Transit Systems, Inc., 198 A.2d 740, 742 (D.C.1964).
This case is not very complicated on the facts; recently, we have had much more difficult cases applying the last clear chance doctrine. See, e.g., District of Columbia v. Robinson, 644 A.2d 1004 (D.C.1994) (Robinson II). Every time I see such cases, I am reminded of why I wrote twelve years ago:
[T]he facts here, manifesting negligence by the drivers of both vehicles, provide a classic illustration of why legislatures or courts — in 36 jurisdictions to date — have adopted the doctrine of comparative negligence. See Alvis v. Ribar, 85 Ill.2d 1, 11-14, 52 Ill.Dec. 23, 28-33, 421 N.E.2d 886, 891-95 (1981). See generally R.E. Kee-*1328ton, Venturing To Do Justice 45-53, 85-89 (1969).
Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority v. Jones, 443 A.2d 45, 53 (D.C.1982) (en bane) (Ferren, J., concurring).
FARRELL, Associate Judge,
concurring:
I join the lead opinion and Judge Ferren’s concurrence. Like Judge Ferren, the more I participate in decisions applying the doctrines of negligence, contributory negligence and last clear chance, the more I am persuaded that serious thought should be given to adopting some form of comparative negligence in this jurisdiction. This case only illustrates the confusion attending the intersection of the prevailing doctrines.
As Judge Ferren points out, “[n]o one questions the jury’s finding that the District’s driver (as well as plaintiff) was negligent; the driver should have been cautious enough to avoid this type of collision even if his vision was limited.” Ante, at 1327. But the fourth element of the last clear chance doctrine brings within it an antecedently negligent defendant who, “with means available to him, could have avoided injuring the [contrib-utorily negligent] plaintiff after he became aware of, or reasonably should have become aware of, the danger and the plaintiffs inability to extricate himself from it.” Robinson v. District of Columbia, 580 A.2d 1255, 1258-59 (D.C.1990) (Robinson I) (emphasis added); see also District of Columbia v. Robinson, 644 A.2d 1004, 1005 n. 2 (D.C.1994) (Robinson II). If indeed the truck driver should have been cautious enough to avoid this type of collision even though his vision was limited by ears ahead of him, then one is hard pressed to say why he could not have avoided the accident after he “reasonably should have become aware of’ the plaintiffs vulnerable position. The same caution by which he could have avoided the accident— i.e., keeping a careful lookout on a street narrowed by cars parked on both sides— reasonably should have made him aware of the plaintiffs presence in the street in time to stop. But to recognize this fact is, practically speaking, to say that there is no difference between primary negligence of the defendant and his liability (for unreasonably failing to “become aware”) under last clear chance. Our reversal in this case is in the nature of a rear guard action against the obliteration of that distinction.
The “should have become aware” element of our last clear chance doctrine is only one of its complicating features. Another was pointed out recently by the federal court of appeals (applying local law) in Belton v. WMATA, 305 U.S.App.D.C. 333, 20 F.3d 1197 (1994).1 Still another is presented by an argument which the District of Columbia makes in this case, but which we do not reach, just as we were spared having to reach it (for a different reason) in Robinson II, supra: namely, whether in addition to the four elements that already make up last clear chance, it includes a fifth requirement (or perhaps a general precondition or a corollary to another element) that the plaintiffs contributory negligence not have itself continued until the last moment of the injury. See Robinson II, 644 A.2d at 1005-07 (so-called “concurrent negligence” of plaintiff as defeating last clear chance).
The complexity and top-heaviness of our doctrinal scheme on which juries are instructed in these vehicular accident cases (negligence, followed by contributory negligence, followed by a four-or-more-pronged last clear chance) suggests to me that serious thought should be given to a change. Ideally, that examination — including evaluation of the experience in the many jurisdictions that have adopted one form or another of comparative fault — would be done by a body akin to our now-defunct District of Columbia Law Revision Commission, if not by the Council of the District of Columbia itself. Assuming this does not take place, then the judges of this court should take a hard look at whether there are not more rational principles by which to resolve these cases in which so often the fault of both parties is obvious to judges as well as juries.

. There the court explained the “puzzl[ingl" nature of the requirement that, as one element of last clear chance, the plaintiff show "antecedent negligence" of the defendant. 305 U.S.App.D.C. at 337, 20 F.3d at 1201.