Court Opinion

ID: 9722929
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:56:17.577959+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:42.182977
License: Public Domain

Currie, J.
{dissenting). I respectfully dissent from the opinion of the court herein solely on the ground that I believe that Tyrer’s negligent speed was not a proximate cause of the accident as a matter of law.
*576The test of whether a negligent act constitutes a proximate cause of an accident is whether the same was a substantial factor in causing the accident. Pfeifer v. Standard Gateway Theater, Inc. (1952), 262 Wis. 229, 55 N. W. (2d) 29. Restatement, 2 Torts, p. 1161, sec. 432 (1), states:
“Except as stated in subsection (2), the actor’s negligent conduct is not a substantial factor in bringing about harm to another if it would have been sustained even if the actor had not been negligent.” (The exception stated in subsection (2) is not material to a fact situation as is here presented.)
In an automobile accident case, when a jury in its answer to a question in the special verdict has found a driver negligent as to speed, the question of causation can fall in any one of the following three categories:
(1) The evidence is in dispute as to whether, if the driver had been going at a lawful speed instead of an unlawful one, he would either have been able to have stopped his car or turned or swerved the same sufficiently to have avoided the accident; or, in the absence of direct evidence on this point, a legitimate inference can be drawn from the other facts in evidence that if the driver had been going at a lawful speed he could have taken effective action to have avoided the accident. The causation question under such a situation is clearly one for the jury.
(2) The evidence is undisputed that if the driver had been driving at a lawful, instead of an excessive, speed he would have been able to have stopped his car or turned the same sufficiently to have avoided the accident. Here, clearly, the excessive speed was a substantial factor in causing the accident, and if the jury should have answered the causation question in the negative it would be the duty of the trial court to change the answer and find causation as a matter of law.
(3) The evidence is undisputed that even if the driver had been proceeding at a lawful, instead of at an excessive, speed *577the time interval was too short to have permitted him to have stopped his car or taken any other effective action to avoid the accident, such as turning to one side or the other. In such a situation speed could not possibly be a substantial factor in causing the accident, and, if the jury should have answered the causation question in the affirmative, it would be the duty of the trial court to change the answer and find that speed was not a proximate cause as a matter of law.
The facts of the present case clearly place it in the last of the above three mentioned categories. At, and near, the scene of the accident the black-top pavement of Highway 51 is 22 feet wide and that of Highway V is 26 feet wide. The vision at the southwest corner of the intersection is badly obstructed. The land to the south of Highway V at this intersection is considerably higher than the traveled portion of “V” which land forms an embankment at the intersection which obstructs the view. Furthermore, there was a field of corn planted which extended up to .the fence lines at the southwest corner of the intersection. This embankment of soil is higher than the hood of an automobile, though not quite as high as the top of a car, but the corn was, of course, higher than the top of the car traveling on “V.” The distance from the west fence line to the west line of the pavement of Highway 51 is 28.8 feet, but the embankment extended somewhat to the east of the fence line. The arterial stop sign was 32 feet west of the west line of the pavement of Highway 51. The operator of a car approaching from the south on his own right or east side of the paved portion of 51, therefore, only would have a view of a moving car entering the intersection from the west on Highway V for a maximum distance of 28.8 feet plus another 12 or 13 feet (the latter being the distance from the west edge of the pavement to a point one or two feet east of the pavement center line), or approximately 40 to 42 feet. Forty feet probably would be the more accurate distance because of the *578embankment at the southwest corner of the intersection projecting into the highway limits east of the fence line.
As to the speeds of the respective vehicles, Eloi Schmitt testified that he was going 45 miles per hour when he saw the arterial stop sign on the west side of Highway 51, and then reduced his speed so that he was going 25 miles per hour when the impact occurred. His father, who was a passenger in the car, estimated the speed of the car to be 35 to 40 miles per hour when the car passed the stop sign. One of the photographs clearly shows that the frame of the Tyrer car was bent inward a distance of approximately two feet as a result of the impact. Assuming that the average speed of the Schmitt car from the point where it first became visible to a driver, such as Tyrer, approaching from the south, as it traversed the approximately 40 feet of the intervening distance to a point one to two feet east of the center line of the paved portion of Highway 51 to have been 25 miles per hour, the Schmitt car would only have been visible to Tyrer for approximately one second. This is because an automobile traveling at a speed of 25 miles per hour travels a distance of 36.75 feet per second, according to the chart of the state motor vehicle department received in evidence as an exhibit. Whether one second of time (1.1 seconds at the most) would have been sufficient to have permitted Tyrer to have done anything to avoid the accident after the Schmitt car first became visible, assuming Tyrer to have been going at a lawful speed, is dependent on what would have constituted a lawful speed under the circumstances then prevailing.
The Tyrer car was just ahead of the Herheim car at the time of the impact and, as a result thereof, the Schmitt car swerved to the south and struck the left front fender of the Herheim car so as to cause some damage to that vehicle. Mrs. Herheim testified that she was going at the time of the accident 30 to 35 miles per hour. Questions as to her negli*579gence were submitted to the jury and the jury absolved her of any negligence, including speed. Therefore, we have a determination by the jury, that a speed of 30 miles per hour at this intersection was nonnegligent as to cars approaching from the south on the arterial.
Even if we did not have this jury determination that 30 miles per hour was a lawful speed for a vehicle approaching the intersection from the south (as were the Tyrer and Her-heim cars), it could well be held as a matter of law that a reduced speed of 30 miles per hour constitutes a lawful speed for a vehicle approaching this obstructed intersection to the south so long as no other vehicle approaching on Highway V was in sight. Except for the obstruction of the view at the intersection, a speed of 65 miles per hour would have been lawful during daylight hours. Busy arterial highways, such as 51, carry a very heavy traffic load during the daylight hours, and operators of cars should not be required to reduce speed below 30 miles per hour until some vehicle is sighted on the intersecting highway that poses a potential threat of danger. To permit a jury to find a lower speed than 30 miles per hour was required would tend to impede traffic. Operators of vehicles on arterial highways have a right to assume that any driver approaching on the intersecting nonarterial county highway will not only physically stop at a point between the arterial stop sign and the paved portion of the arterial which will afford a reasonable view of approaching traffic on the arterial, but that such driver will not plunge ahead until after having made such observation and having concluded that he can safely do so. Kraskey v. Johnson (1954), ante, pp. 201, 207, 63 N. W. (2d) 112.
According to the chart of the motor vehicle department introduced in evidence, a distance of 83 feet is required for a vehicle traveling 30 miles per hour to stop under ordinary conditions, which distance is apportioned as between reaction distance and stopping distance on the basis of 33 feet *580for the former and 50 feet for the latter. Therefore, it would have been a physical impossibility during the one second available to Tyrer after the Schmitt car first became visible, to have taken any effective action whatever to have stopped, or to have swerved sufficiently out of the path of the oncoming Schmitt car, as to have avoided the accident. It, therefore, follows that Tyrer’s speed could not have been causal as a matter of law, because it was in no sense a substantial factor in producing the accident.
Inasmuch as neither Tyrer’s negligence in passing at an intersection, nor his speed, was causal, the judgments as to the defendant Home Mutual Casualty Company, the insurer of the Tyrer automobile, should be reversed and the causes of action dismissed as to such defendant.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Brown concurs in this dissenting opinion.