Court Opinion

ID: 9545130
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:06:42.089232+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:14:07.906945
License: Public Domain

TONGUE, J.,
dissenting opinion.
I most respectfully dissent from the opinion by the majority. According to that opinion, the accident not only occurred on a sharp blind curve, but there was a steep bank on plaintiff’s side, a cliff on defendant’s side of the curve and the roadway was so narrow that two vehicles could not pass unless “everybody would stop and take their time.” While it is true that plaintiff offered testimony to that effect, photographs of the scene of the accident make it appear that there was no sharp drop-off or cliff on defendant’s side of the curve and that the roadway at that point was of ample width for two vehicles to pass, without first stopping.
In addition plaintiff’s testimony, based upon actual measurements, was that the roadway was 20 feet wide and even defendant’s witnesses testified, based upon estimates, that it was between 16 and 18 feet wide. Plaintiff’s pickup truck was 6 feet 9 inches wide and defendant’s logging truck was 8 feet wide. There was also testimony that after the accident defendant’s truck proceeded to pass the plaintiff’s pickup truck and that other vehicles, including a tow truck, also were able to do so.
Defendant’s truck driver also admitted that as he came around the curve the left side of his truck was *240between 4 and 6 feet from the left side of the road; that he made no attempt to swerve to the right, but applied his brakes and proceeded straight ahead until his truck collided with plaintiff’s pickup, with the left front wheel of his truck striking the pickup inside its left front wheel. He also made no claim that the roadway was not wide enough to pass, but only that “if I had been over much I’d be right on the edge of the cliff side which could have gave way and the whole truck and me and all would have gone over.” Thus, it appears that his concern was not whether the road was wide enough to pass, but whether the edge of the road was strong enough to hold a loaded logging truck.
Assuming, however, that defendant was not negligent as a matter of law and that it may still have been a proper question for submission to the jury whether or not defendant was negligent in coming around a blind curve at a speed such that he was unable to slow down sufficiently to pass plaintiff’s pickup truck, it would nevertheless appear from the record that there was no evidence from which the jury could properly find that the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence in any respect.
Defendant’s driver admitted that plaintiff had pulled his pickup truck as far to his right as possible without running into the ditch and that he had “practically stopped” at the time of the collision. Defendant’s other witnesses testified that the rear wheel of plaintiff’s pickup truck had been in the ditch for several feet prior to the point of the accident and had left marks along the bank on its right side of the road. There was no evidence that any part of plaintiff’s pickup truck extended over the center of the roadway. Thus, it is clear that plaintiff left at least half, if not *241more than half of the 16 to 20 foot roadway for defendant’s 8 foot wide logging truck to pass. As previously stated, defendant’s truck driver also admitted that at the time of the collision with plaintiff’s pickup truck his logging truck extended in part over the center of the roadway.
One of the grounds of plaintiff’s motion for a new trial was that the trial court erred in refusing to withdraw from the jury the issue whether plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence based on the alleged “trinity” of lookout, control and speed. If that ground for the motion was well taken the order granting a new trial must be affirmed, regardless of whether or not defendant’s driver was negligent as a matter of law. Ditty v. Farley, 219 Or 208, 211, 347 P2d 47 (1959).
To hold otherwise would, in effect, hold that despite plaintiff’s lack of contributory negligence, defendant’s driver was either not negligent, as a matter of law, or that this was an unavoidable accident, as a matter of law. Such a holding would place all ordinary passenger cars and pickup trucks at the peril of loaded logging trucks on all narrow public mountain roads to the same extent as though such roads were private logging roads. In other words, even though on such a road the car or pickup would run one wheel into the ditch and leave more than half of the roadway clear, as in this case, its driver could not recover against the owner of a loaded log truck going at a speed too fast to either stop or slow down to such a speed as to enable it to pass safely, rather than to proceed straight ahead on a collision course, as in this case.
For these reasons, I am of the opinion that it was error for the trial judge to refuse to withdraw from the *242jury the issue of contributory negligence and that upon recognizing that error, if for no other reason, he properly granted plaintiff’s motion for a new trial. Accordingly, I would affirm that order by the trial judge, rather than reverse it.
McAllister, J., joins in this dissent.