Court Opinion

ID: 9625355
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:37:38.352301+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:07.073531
License: Public Domain

CARTER, J.
I concur in the judgment of affirmance because it appears beyond question from the record that the *689issues of negligence and contributory negligence were issues of fact and their determination was within the province of the trier of fact. I can see no real factual distinction between this case and the case of Gray v. Brinkerhoff, 41 Cal.2d 180 [258 P.2d 834], where the majority of this court held that the issues of both negligence and contributory negligence were issues of law and reversed a judgment for defendant based upon a jury verdict. The attempt of the majority to show a factual distinction between this ease and Gray v. Brinkerhoff, supra, is clearly misleading. The factual difference, if any, is clearly in favor of plaintiff here, because defendant testified that she saw the plaintiff at all times after she commenced making the turn from Perkins Street into State Street where her car struck plaintiff while he was in the crosswalk on State Street. In Gray v. Brinkerhoff, supra, defendant testified that he did not see plaintiff until after the impact because the traffic was heavy and a post obstructed his view.
It is quite obvious that the only justification for the attempt of the majority to distinguish the Gray case from the case at bar is that the majority does not see fit to decide the factual issues in this case as it did in the Gray case.
There can be no doubt that the majority decision in Gray v. Brinkerhoff, supra, has created considerable confusion in the law involving accidents at street intersections, as several decisions have already been rendered by District Courts of Appeal attempting to apply the rule of the Gray case, and in each of said cases this court has granted a hearing. (See Shoemake v. Wilsey, *(Cal.App.) 266 P.2d 807.) As pointed out in my dissenting opinion in Gray v. Brinkerhoff, 41 Cal.2d 180, 186 [258 P.2d 834], the only way to rationalize the majority decision in that case is that the majority of this court usurped the function of the trier of fact and determined the issues of fact contrary to the determination reached by the jury and trial court. Otherwise the judgment in that case as well as in the case at bar would have been affirmed.

A hearing was granted by the Supreme Court on April 14, 1954.