Court Opinion

ID: 9452151
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:31:28.392365+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:05.318029
License: Public Domain

GIBSON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
Respectfully, I must dissent. I am prompted to dissent because I take a much more critical view of the activities of Donald Adams, the driver of the tractor-trailer truck, than does the majority. Though I appreciate Judge Blackmun’s fine analysis of the Arkansas comparative negligence statutes, I am not convinced that the majority’s application of the facts of this case to that law is correct.
Truck driver Adams was well aware that he was being followed by another vehicle. With this knowledge and in the dark of the early morning hours Adams proceeded to completely block a busy Federal highway with his dirt caked 53-foot truck. Absolutely no room was left for approaching automobiles to by-pass the tractor-trailer unit on the 24 foot roadway and the 10 foot shoulders. Adams apparently expected approaching motorists to see the side of his truck, come to a complete stop, and wait for him while he proceeded with the slow process of turning around his bulky rig. Whatever label one may choose to attach to Adams’ willful act of blocking the highway, to me it represents the absolute summit of inconsiderate driving, and, approaches the maximum level of grossly negligent conduct, bordering on criminal misbehavior. It indicates a callous and wanton disregard for the safety of the traveling public, which I, only with difficulty, can imagine an equal. No doubt Adams needed to turn around. Yet the duty was upon him to turn around without endangering the lives of fellow motorists. His complete failure to discharge this duty cannot be justified by the argument that he could have turned around in an even more dangerous location. The fact remains that this dark and dimly lighted truck stretched across a gray-black topped highway was a potential death trap for all but the most prudent of drivers.
Even accepting that the deceased was in fact exceeding the speed limit at the time of the collision and that he kept less than an adequate lookout (which facts are only supported by less than overwhelming inferences), his negligence to me, does not approach the degree of willful misconduct evidenced by Adams. I am not convinced that the willful and wanton acts of Adams carried out with utter disregard of the rights and lives of others driving on their proper side of the highway can be or should be equated with ordinary negligence, or is even applicable to the comparative negligence concept.
However, assuming for the purpose of discussion only that the Arkansas comparative negligence doctrine is applicable to the factual context of this case, I feel the trial court erred as a matter of law in equating the somewhat speculative and ordinary negligence of deceased with the clear, obvious, and in my mind, grossly negligent misconduct of Adams.
For that reason I would reverse the judgment of the trial court, and remand for a new trial.