Court Opinion

ID: 9794285
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:03:12.929057+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:13:40.369832
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Justice
(concurring).
I concur, for one reason, that it is not clear whether the driver of plaintiff’s truck saw or should have seen the two signs. One kerosene torch, I am satisfied, would not illuminate two signs which were 18" x40" and off the highway, sufficiently to make them readily readable. The fact that a police officer could read them apparently was because of his headlights and not because of the torch. There is no indication as to the comparative strength of the .officer’s headlights and those of the truck. Had the officer’s headlights been on the bright beam and the truck’s on dim, considerable variation in visibility on this dark night might prevail. I do not believe the jury should be charged with an imputation that because one person’s headlights made visible an object on the side of a road on a dark night that the same would be true of another person’s headlights. Furthermore it appears that the truckdriver had travelled this road periodically. It is significant that the trenching operation was moving south and it is reasonable to believe that a reasonable person may have believed it had not moved so far south and relied entirely on the torches that theretofore had warned of the south-shifting windrows, and that the fact of their absence on this particular night reasonably may have lulled the driver into a false sense of security that well might insulate him against contributory negligence in the jury's estimate.