Court Opinion

ID: 9568939
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:08:55.200538+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:16:17.484439
License: Public Domain

Judge LEWIS
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. I find the trial court, did not err in granting defendants’ motion for directed verdict and refusing to apply the doctrine of last clear chance at the conclusion of plaintiff’s evidence. Plaintiff’s evidence was insufficient to invoke the doctrine of last clear chance.
*106Both the majority and the appellee rely upon the testimony of an accident reconstruction expert to support their contention that defendant reasonably could have avoided hitting plaintiff. Using that same testimony, I conclude that, even though plaintiff may have had a last “possible” chance to avoid injury, she did not have the last “clear” chance. The distinction is significant, as the majority points out. Citing Sink v. Sumrell, 41 N.C. App. 242, 249, 254 S.E.2d 665, 670 (1979), the majority concedes: “We recognize, as defendant points out, that there is a distinction between last ‘clear’ chance and last ‘possible’ chance.” However, the majority, stating that “[e]very case must turn on its particular facts,” interprets those alleged “facts” presented by the accident reconstruction expert in a manner which requires “a réasonably prudent man in a like situation” to exercise a higher standard of care than that required by North Carolina law. Id.
The expert testified that “the average walking speed of pedestrians and . . . also the walking speed that I measured for [plaintiff]” was four feet per second. The accident occurred when plaintiff was fourteen feet into the roadway. Therefore, according to the expert’s projections, it would have taken the plaintiff 3.5 seconds to reach the point of impact. According to the plaintiff’s expert, the average reaction time for drivers at night is two seconds. The expert also stated that the time needed to stop defendant’s vehicle after applying the brakes “would have been about one second.” Under ideal conditions using the expert’s projections, if the defendant had attempted to stop the car immediately, as soon as plaintiff entered the roadway, it would have taken defendant a total of three seconds to see plaintiff and then to stop her car before impact. This leaves only one-half of one second difference between the time that plaintiff reached the point of impact and the time required for defendant to be able to stop her car. These calculations are estimates made by a person who was not present at the time of the accident and who has relied on the “average” gait of pedestrians and of plaintiff, and has relied on “an average coefficient of friction” to determine the emergency stopping distance. The slightest variation in any of these “averages” could easily produce a different calculation with an additional one-half of one second. This is, I believe, an improbable last possible chance and certainly not a last clear chance to avoid the accident.
The majority and the plaintiff quote that portion of the expert’s testimony in which the expert states that it takes “5 seconds for *107the pedestrian to go from 6 feet off the pavement to the point of impact.” Figuring a reaction time of two seconds and that the car was “in a skid for the last second,” the expert stated “[t]hat still leaves an additional two seconds or ample reaction time for the driver to have seen the pedestrian. . . .”
The court in Artis v. Wolf examined a situation in which “no evidence indicates that [the defendant] should have expected [the plaintiff] to walk on into danger.” 31 N.C. App. 227, 229, 228 S.E.2d 781, 782, disc. rev. denied, 291 N.C. 448, 230 S.E.2d 765 (1976). The same court held that the defendant “may have had the last ‘possible’ chance but he did not have the necessary last clear chance to avoid the accident.” Id.
According to the majority: “The crux of the issue before us is whether defendant-driver, by the exercise of reasonable care, should have discovered plaintiff’s perilous position and her incapacity to escape in time to avoid injury." The court in Sink, supra, defined the last clear chance doctrine, placing proper emphasis on the ability of the defendant to be able to avoid the accident:
In order for the last clear chance doctrine to apply, there must be evidence that a reasonable person under the conditions existing had the time and means to avoid injury to the imperiled person. . . .
41 N.C. App. at 249, 254 S.E.2d at 670. (Emphasis added.)
The decision of the trial court to grant defendants’ motion for directed verdict was correct based upon the insufficiency of plaintiff’s own evidence of last clear chance.