Court Opinion

ID: 9815229
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 00:29:06.421758+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:20.696846
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.

Per Curiam.

Gilbert’s application for rehearing is addressed primarily to the overruling of her third assignment of error. That assignment challenged the charge of the court upon McCoy’s duties in making a left turn.
It is claimed that our opinion is at variance with the statutes, particularly with Section 4511.39, Revised Code, which, in pertinent part, reads as follows:
“No person shall turn a vehicle * * * from a direct course upon a highway until such person has exercised due care to ascertain that the movement can be made with reasonable safety to other users of the highway, and then only * * * after giving an *467appropriate signal in the event any traffic may be affected by such movement.
“A signal of intention to turn right or left shall be given in sufficient time in advance of the movement indicated to give ample warning to other users of the highway who would be affected by such movement. ’ ’
The portion of the charge objected to is as follows:
“Now, ladies and gentlemen, as applied to this case, whether or not the signal to turn left was given by plaintiff McCoy, as he testified, for defendant to have the benefit of the statute she would have had to be in a position on the highway that she could or should have seen it before plaintiff in fact started to make his turn.
“The fact, if it is a fact that defendant Gilbert’s view of the farm tractor, operated by plaintiff McCoy, was hidden until she was passing the freight tractor trailer, a distance of 300 feet as she testified would not reimpose an obligation on plaintiff McCoy to again ascertain if the turn could be made with reasonable safety and again giving a hand signal. Unless he knew or should have known another and different vehicle was approaching, rather than the freight tractor trailer which he had observed as he testified.”
According to our interpretation, the first paragraph quoted from the charge is a statement of the necessity of a causal relationship between any failure by McCoy to give a signal, and the ensuing collision, before any such failure would have ultimate significance in this ease. We intended no overtones of statutory interpretation, or of the rules as to burden of proof in this connection.
The second paragraph quoted from the charge appears to us to leave upon McCoy the duties imposed by the statute, namely, the exercise of ‘ ‘ due care to ascertain that the movement can be made with reasonable safety to other users of the highway, and then only * * * after giving an appropriate signal in the event any traffic may be affected by such movement * * * in sufficient time in advance of the movement indicated to give ample warning to other users of the highway who would be affected by such movement.”
By virtue of the last clause in the second paragraph quoted *468above from the charge, the court explained that these duties were of a continuing nature and that even if they had been performed once, that was not necessarily sufficient. Perhaps the principle could be expressed more clearly and positively, but it' was actually contained in the charge.
Hence, it was not our holding that one signal or one act of exercising due care was necessarily adequate, but rather that in the circumstances of the case McCoy’s entire course of conduct was subject to the jury’s consideration in the light of the statute.
And it does not appear to us that the charge places any greater burden upon Gilbert in overtaking and passing the tractor-trailer than is imposed by Section 4511.27, Revised Code.
Gilbert again urges her sixth assignment of error, claiming that the court should have sustained her motions for directed verdict because of the claimed negligence of McCoy. Counsel cites the second paragraph of the syllabus of Ziebro, Adrnx., v. City of Cleveland, 157 Ohio St., 489, 106 R. E. (2d), 161. After further careful consideration, we continue of the opinion that the conflicting evidence in the present case upon the issue of McCoy’s negligence justified the submission of that issue to the jury.
The application for rehearing is denied.

Application denied.

Wiseman, P. J., Craweord and Kerns, JJ., concur.