Court Opinion

ID: 9659021
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 21:26:59.02152+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:03.141796
License: Public Domain

*887TEIGEN, Chief Justice.
I dissent with the result reached by the majority in this action. The majority have granted a new trial upon the grounds that an instruction objected to was misleading and constitutes reversible error. The instruction relates only to the question of the contributory negligence of the plaintiff, if any. In other words, it relates to an affirmative defense. However, before the plaintiff is entitled to recover a judgment against the defendants, she has the burden of establishing by a fair preponderance of the evidence that the defendants were negligent and that their negligence was a proximate cause of her injury. The defendants in their separate answers deny that the defendant Freitag as the driver of the transport truck was negligent. The action was tried before a jury in the district court. The jury returned a verdict in favor of the defendants for a dismissal of the action, and judgment was entered in accordance with the verdict. The plaintiff has appealed from the judgment and from an order denying new trial, and specifies a number of claimed errors. The defendants say that substantial justice requires that the case be affirmed on this appeal without further expense or delay to the prevailing defendants and without further disappointments to the appellant; that error, if any, is not reversible error.
It is well-established that a judgment will not be disturbed because of errors committed upon a trial of an action if the record discloses that the unsuccessful party would not have been entitled to judgment in any event. Nogart v. Hoselton, 77 N.D. 1, 39 N.W.2d 427; Baird v. Nelson, 60 N.D. 503, 235 N.W. 351; Walton v. Mattson, 22 N.D. 532, 135 N.W. 176; Prairie School Tp. v. Haseleu, 3 N.D. 328, 55 N.W. 938.
The plaintiff’s cause of action is based on the alleged negligence of the defendant driver of the transport in failing to maintain a proper lookout for oncoming traffic, failing to yield the right of way, and failing to have the transport properly lighted. The question arises, does the record made in this case present any evidence of negligence on the part of the defendant-driver? In an action for personal injuries on account of alleged negligence of a defendant, the failure of proof of negligence entitles the defendant to a dismissal of the action. Goulet v. O’Keeffe, N.D., 83 N.W. 2d 889; Ferm v. Great Northern Ry. Co., 53 N.D. 543, 207 N.W. 39.
We have also held that where the evidence in a negligence case does not affirmatively establish some circumstance from which the defendant’s negligence may fairly be inferred, it is error to submit the case to the jury. Garraghty v. Hartstein, 26 N.D. 148, 143 N.W. 390. The undisputed and conceded evidence establishes that the transport truck driven by the defendant-driver had turned onto U. S. Highway #81, from an east-west road leading into Gran-din, North Dakota; that the point of impact was 234 feet north of the center of the intersection from where the defendants’ transport had entered U. S. Highway #81. The transport at that point was rear-ended by the automobile in which the plaintiff was riding. Two hundred thirty-four feet is more than three-fourths the length of an ordinary city block. The front end of the transport was over 284 feet north of the center of the intersection. The evidence also establishes without contradiction that the transport was proceeding on its right side of the highway, and that it was equipped with approved reflectors at the rear. The transport was the semitrailer type, and a majority have properly found that it was not required by law to be equipped with taillights if it was equipped with approved reflectors. The evidence establishes, again without contradiction, that it was so equipped. The reflectors mounted on the rear end of the trailer were introduced in evidence at the trial. There is no evidence that the defendant-driver violated any of the laws of the road, either in respect to his driving or his equipment. The *888evidence does not establish he owed a duty to this plaintiff which he violated. The plaintiff has totally failed to prove by any evidence that the defendant-driver was negligent. Certainly it cannot be said that the defendant-driver was negligent in failing to yield the right of way to an oncoming automobile that was far enough away from the intersection at the time the defendant-driver entered it to permit him to move his vehicle from a stopped position at the intersection to a point on the highway 234 feet distant therefrom before the oncoming automobile, traveling at a speed of from 40 to 50 miles per hour, caught up. I feel that if the jury had returned a verdict favorable to the plaintiff, it would have to be reversed on the ground of insufficiency of the evidence to sustain it, for the reason that the evidence as a matter of law does not establish actionable negligence. I fail to see how reasonable men could draw but one conclusion, to wit, that the defendant-driver was not negligent, and this, I think, is what the jury found.
In McDermott v. Sway, 78 N.D. 521, 50 N.W.2d 235, this Court quoted with approval from Shearman and Redfield on Negligence, Section 3, page 9, the following principle:
[Ajctionable negligence consists of a duty the violation thereof and a consequent injury. The absence of any one of the three elements is fatal to the claim.
We have often held that actionable negligence is a failure to observe a legal duty existing in favor of the person who brings the action. Where there is no duty, there can be no actionable negligence. Mikkelson v. Risovi, N.D., 141 N.W.2d 150; Larson v. Meyer, N.D., 135 N.W.2d 145; Avron v. Plummer, N.D., 132 N.W.2d 198; Belt v. City of Grand Forks, N.D., 68 N.W. 2d 114; O’Leary v. Brooks Elevator Company, 7 N.D. 554, 75 N.W. 919, 41 L.R.A. 677. The verdict of the jury for a dismissal of the action was therefore correct as a matter of law. Since the claimed error specified by the plaintiff and appellant related to matters which would not add anything material to plaintiff’s proof, the specified errors were not prejudicial. I would therefore affirm the judgment and the order denying a new trial.