Court Opinion

ID: 9541495
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:25:59.232326+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:02:59.959866
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing
Wickens, J.
By a petition for rehearing it is urged that appellant was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law, and that we have failed to consider appellees’ argument thereon.
We have now given additional consideration to the subject of contributory negligence. Again, it is the obligation of this court to consider only that evidence favorable to the party against whom the motion was directed and the reasonable inferences therefrom.
*679All facts which the evidence tends to prove must be accepted as true, and the court must draw against the party-requesting the instruction all inferences which a jury might reasonably draw. If a witness makes contradictory assertions we do not undertake to determine which are true. Kraus v. Kraus, Executor, Etc. (1956), 235 Ind. 325, 329, 132 N. E. 2d 608; State Farm, Life Insurance Co. v. Spidel (1964), 246 Ind. 458, 202 N. E. 2d 886, 888, 889, Vol. 4, Ind. Dec. 312, 314.
Contributory negligence is determined and governed by the same tests and rules as negligence of the defendant. Negligence which is so clear and palpable that no verdiet could make it otherwise is said to be negligence as a matter of law. Jenney Electric Mfg. Co. v. Flannery (1912), 53 Ind. App. 397, 408, 98 N. E. 424.
Before we could affirm the judgment because of contributory negligence as a matter of law we would be required to find that the trial court had before it evidence, without conflict, which led but to one conclusion, that the plaintiff was herself guilty of negligence which contributed to and caused or partly caused her own injury.
We fail to find evidence or reasonable inferences to be drawn from the evidence to establish such hypothesis. Additionally we cannot say as a matter of law that the negligence, if any, of the plaintiff was a proximate cause of her injury.
Therefore petition for rehearing is denied.
Prime, C. J., Carson and Faulconer, JJ., concur.
Note. — Reported in 213 N. E. 2d 726. Rehearing denied in 215 N. E. 2d 692.