Court Opinion

ID: 9862743
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 02:04:19.113119+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:31:40.637948
License: Public Domain

McWilliams, J.,
filed the following dissenting opinion, in which Marbury, J., and Rains, J., specially assigned, concurred.
I think my brothers of the majority have been bewitched by the hyperbolic use of an ancient cliche. Probably the expression “pitch dark” has been in the English language since the days of Chaucer. The Oxford Dictionary cites its use by Mabbe in 1662. Subsequent usage seems to connote the virtual absence of all light. Disraeli, in one of his early novels, wrote, “The stars prevented it from ever being pitch dark.” (Emphasis supplied.) Dickens spoke of ascending “these pitch-dark stairs.” I think the majority intend a like connotation when they say the appellee “was unable to investigate the full width of the shoulder because it was pitch dark and he [appellee] was afraid of walking into a ditch.” It should be observed that “pitch dark” is the expression used by appellee to justify his leaving the car on the traveled portion of the highway. Although the majority have adopted his language I think the facts disclose a situation which should preclude the use of the expression “pitch dark” to describe the degree of visibility existing at the time of the accident.
That the night was clear is undisputed. The opinion states that “upon his [Corporal Werner of the Anne Arundel County Police] arrival it was a clear night.” Later the opinion goes on to say “he [appellee] realized that his automobile was in a place of danger, but he also realized that it was a clear night.” According to the official weather statistics (not in the record but which I have examined) the sky was clear (no overcast) and the quarter moon was just about overhead. (Moon rise, 11:34 P.M.; moon set, 10:15 A.M.) I agree that in the available light one would not have been able to read a newspaper but I know, as must everyone, that there was enough to determine the width of the shoulder.
*17However, assuming for argument’s sake, the insufficiency of natural light there was, I think, enough artificial light. I quote from the opinion:
“He then stood on the shoulder for about one minute observing northbound traffic to be sure that approaching motorists could see his automobile before he ventured out into the highway to lower and secure the hood. He saw two or three northbound automobiles pass safely on the left of his stopped vehicle but he could not say in which lane they had approached it. He then observed a northbound tractor-trailer approach in the right lane, saw it cut over to the left lane when it was better than 100 yards to the rear of his automobile and pass safely by it.”
The headlamps of those passing vehicles (assuming them to have been legally adequate) must have illuminated the right (and the left) shoulder as they approached the appellee. To see the shoulder all he had to do was look at it. Furthermore, it is undisputed that, during the entire time he was stopped, his engine was running and all of his lights (front and rear) were on. It is my experience that, in these circumstances, there is enough diffused light to enable one to see the shoulder. Judge Raine, who joins in this dissent, has said that his experience supports my own.
Finally, it would have been a simple matter for the appellee to have turned his front wheels to the right and to have moved his car a few feet forward. This would have directed the beam of his headlamps to the shoulder and, if he could not then have seen forward because the hood was blocking his vision (which I doubt), he could have stepped out of his car and examined the shoulder (which was at that point at least 8 feet wide). Then he could have resumed his seat behind the wheel and moved the car off of the hard surface. I doubt if there is a person licensed to drive in Maryland who could not have accomplished this maneuver safely and within 30 seconds. According to the opinion appellee's car was stopped on the highway for at least 3 minutes.
In holding appellee’s vehicle to have been “disabled” so as *18to come within the exclusion of § 244 (b) of Art. 66J2 the majority, in my judgment, have gone far afield. I cannot believe the statute means that a vehicle which may be disabled from proceeding along the highway at 50 miles per hour is, in the circumstances here present, also disabled to the extent that it is impossible (or impractical) to move it from the hard surface to the shoulder, especially with all lights ablaze, the engine running and everything in working order except the hood, which appellee had no difficulty pushing down but which would not stay down, at highway speeds, without being fastened.
I would have reversed without a new trial, as would Judge Mar bury and Judge Raine, who concur in the views expressed herein.