Court Opinion

ID: 9702478
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:13:07.489014+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:37.814599
License: Public Domain

Black, J.
(concurring in affirmance). I agree that the defendant driver’s plea of guilt to the criminal charge did not authorize an instruction that *79he was guilty as a matter of law of negligence, causal or otherwise. I agree further that such plea “could be considered as evidence of negligence.” I agree finally that the trial judge did not err in refusing to direct a verdict of liability in favor of the plaintiff burden-bearer.
Legal reasons for this last appear over my signature and that of Chief Justice Kavanagh in Nabozny v. Hamil, 361 Mich 544. Moreover, and quite aside from such legal reasons, the conflicting proof of the separate actions of both drivers, considered in the light of the unusual weather conditions and the effect thereof upon vision, acceleration and deceleration, gave rise to a typical jury question whether the defendant driver was negligent and, if so, whether such negligence was actionable.
I am unable to agree that we should say, or even infer, that the favor accorded by statute (CLS 1956, § 257.649 [Stat Ann 1957 Cum Supp § 9.2349]) to the driver who approaches from the right has application to this right-angled country “T” intersection case. Such a ruling would be an invitation to more intersectional collisions — in right-angle country intersections forming a “T” — and would run counter to popular as well as sensible understanding that the driver proceeding toward the top bar of the “T”, since he must either stop, turn left, or turn right, is supposed to yield the first right of passage to the straightaway traveling motorist.
The question of right-of-way in this case was complicated by the fact that the county snowplow had left a quantity of high banked snow (triangular in shape we gather) in the center of the east-west road where the latter intersected the north-south road.* On that account it was not possible for a *80westbound motorist to approach and enter the north-south road in the conventional way required by statute. He had to “slant out” to right or left, depending on intent of turning north or south, and his duty was governed in part by another statute (CLS 1956, § 257.648, as amended by PA 1958 No 166 [Stat Ann 1960 Rev § 9.2348]) which requires that a driver proposing to turn from a direct line “shall first see that such movement can be made in safety.”
So far as due diligence discloses, it has not as yet been held in our State that a driver proceeding straight ahead on a country road, intersected at right angles by another road ending in the intersection, neither way being otherwise legally favored over the other, must yield first passage to the “vehicle on the right.” The rights and duties of both drivers in such instance are not to be measured in the same way as if they were due to enter a typical right-angled intersection of highways where both ways continue through and beyond the intersection.
It is enough to say, decisionally of this case, that the conflicting testimony authorized the jury to find either that the defendant driver was causally negligent or that he was not. The jury found in negation. Accordingly, and looking at the record through foregoing precepts, I agree that no reversible error has been made to appear and that the circuit court’s judgment should be affirmed.
Kavanagh, C. J., and Adams, J., concurred with Black, J.

 Neither way was favored over the other by a “stop” or “yield” sign. It was established, by preponderance if not beyond dispute, *80that the north-south highway — forming so to speak the top bar of the “T” — was the more heavily traveled way. It was a designated county road (No. 605) and 1 of the alternate highway routes (the shorter) between Rose City and West Branch.