Court Opinion

ID: 9624372
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:01:08.472807+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:52:05.321100
License: Public Domain

SCHAUER, J., Dissenting.
I would affirm the judgment. Here again, in my opinion, is a case in which application of the last clear chance doctrine has been extended past reasonable bounds and the doctrine has become not one of last clear chance but one of last possible chance. (See Peterson v. Burkhalter (1951), 38 Cal.2d 107 [237 P.2d 977], and my dissent at page 114; Rodabaugh v. Tekus (1952), 39 Cal.2d 290 [246 P.2d 663], and my concurrence at page 297.)
Viewing the evidence most favorable to the application of the last clear chance doctrine, there is here a plaintiff who, having negligently placed herself in a position of peril (she disregarded the defendants’ arterial right of way, drove at 5 miles an hour into the path of the bus, stopped, and then started lip again, slowly), endeavors to escape therefrom and a defendant who is charged with negligence in failing to anticipate correctly, within a matter of seconds or fractions of seconds, what course plaintiff will take in the endeavor to escape the position of peril. Plaintiff was driving a relatively light and maneuverable automobile; defendant driver was operating a heavy and unwieldy bus. If plaintiff had either remained standing in the middle lane or had started her slow progress forward from such middle lane to the inner lane, then at once halted, and the bus had followed the course which it actually did follow, the collision would have been avoided. If plaintiff had progressed a little more rapidly the collision would have been avoided. If the bus driver had elected to take the outer lane the collision would have been avoided. To state that the bus driver, required to make such rapid and nice anticipations of plaintiff’s possible conduct and such nice calculations of what his own conduct should be, *630and to translate his conduct into control of the heavy and rapidly moving bus, had a clear chance to avoid the accident is, in my opinion, unrealistic and inaccurate. Where, as here, plaintiff has at least as much chance to avoid a collision as does defendant, I find no field for application of the last clear chance doctrine.
Decisions of this kind suggest a need for legislative study of the several facets of the problems involved. In this state, what is the annual toll of, and loss from, traffic accidents not industrially incurred ? Can our society devise a better method for protecting or compensating the injured and their families than the common law tort action? If so, who should bear the primary burden of such protection? How far should it be spread? And in what forum enforced?
The above are but queries for future solution. The judgment here, on the present recognized concepts of law, should be affirmed.
Respondents’ petition for a rehearing was denied May 7; 1953. Edmonds,' J., and Schauer, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.