Court Opinion

ID: 9620630
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:44:48.838381+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:30:18.401035
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent to the majority opinion.
This court has said:
“Where the admitted facts fail to show a causal connection between the acts of negligence and the injury alleged to have resulted therefrom, the existence of proximate cause is a question of law for the trial court.”
See Sturdevant v. Kent, Okl., 322 P.2d 408; Cheatham v. Van Dalsem, Old., 350 P.2d 593, and Billy v. Texas, O. & E. R. Co., Okl., 263 P.2d 187.
There is no conflict in the evidence since the only facts are those alleged in the petitions. The sole question for determination is: Were the negligent acts of the defendant as alleged the proximate cause of the injury?
The pertinent allegations of the petitions are contained in numerical paragraph VI as follows:
*856“That plaintiff, perceiving the said condition of danger, caused by said defendants and each of them as aforesaid, made a sudden emergency stop to avoid collision with the said defendant Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Company’s switch engine and was immediately struck from the rear by a vehicle operated by one Blankenship who was then struck by a vehicle operated by one Margaret Lee Allen, said collision throwing the said plaintiff against the steering wheel of the said vehicle and back against the seat and causing him injuries and damages as more particularly hereinafter set out.”
There are two petitions filed in these consolidated actions, but inasmuch as the allegations of negligence are the same in both we shall consider only one of these petitions.
We have held that proximate cause must be the efficient cause. Hunter Construction Co. v. Watson, Okl., 274 P.2d 374.
This court has held that where the negligence complained of merely furnishes a condition by which injury is made possible and subsequent independent action causes the injury, the existence of such condition is not the proximate cause. City of Okmulgee v. Hemphill, 183 Okl. 450, 83 P.2d 189; Jafek v. Public Service Co. of Oklahoma, 183 Old. 32, 79 P.2d 813, and Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Robertson, 207 Okl. 80, 247 P.2d 501.
If an intervening negligent action entirely supersedes the original act of negligence, the causal connection between the first negligent act and the injury is destroyed. Stout v. Rutherford, Old., 341 P.2d 266.
Analyzing the particular allegations of the plaintiff’s petition, it specifically states that plaintiff’s car was “immediately struck from the rear by a vehicle operated by one Blankenship * * Obviously, the stop made by plaintiff was an emergency stop making it impossible and unnecessary for plaintiff to give any stopping signal. 5 Am.Jur., par. 349, pg. 445. Emergency stops are events which must be anticipated* by following cars. No doubt this was the reason that subsection (a) of Sec. 121.3,. 47 O.S.1951 as amended 1953 and 1955, was. enacted. The pertinent part of such section reads:
“ * * * and no person shall drive any vehicle upon a highway at a speed greater than will permit him to bring it to a stop within the assured clear distance ahead; * * *.”
This statute provides that the violation' of any of the provisions of this section is. a crime and punishable by a fine or imprisonment.
It is obvious from the allegations of the-petition that the driver of the car approaching from the rear was driving in disregard' of this statute, i. e., at a speed which would' not allow him to stop within the assured' clear distance ahead (that between him and' the car in front) or that he was negligently disregarding what occurred (the emergency-stop of the car in front).
Either of these conditions constituted’ negligence on the part of the driver of the car following. The statute was enacted for the very purpose of assuring that a car following had distance enough to stop, and' emergency stops must always be anticipated. Especially is this true in approaching ai railroad crossing.
In the State of Washington there is apparently no statute such as quoted above, and in spite of such statutory absence, I think the Supreme Court of that state laid' down the correct rule in the case of Miller v. Cody, 41 Wash.2d 775, 252 P.2d 303, 305,. where it said in the body of the opinion r
“Where two cars are traveling in the same direction, the primary duty of avoiding a collision rests with the following driver. In the absence of' an emergency or unusual conditions,, he is negligent if he runs into the car ahead. Tackett v. Milburn, 36 Wash.2d 349, 218 P.2d 298. The following' driver is not necessarily excused eveni in the event of an emergency, for it *857is his duty to keep such distance from the car ahead and maintain such ■observation of that car that an emergency stop may be safely made. Ritter v. Johnson, 163 Wash. 153, 300 P. 518, 79 A.L.R. 1270; Larpenteur v. Eldridge Motors, Inc., 185 Wash. 530, 55 P.2d 1064; Cronin v. Shell Oil Co., 8 Wash. 2d 404, 112 P.2d 824.”
In the case of Cronin v. Shell Oil Co., 8 Wash.2d 404, 112 P.2d 824, 828, one of the cases cited in the Miller case, supra, the •court said in the opinion:
“In the case of Ritter v. Johnson, 163 Wash. 153, 300 P. 518, 520, 79 A.L.R. 1270, it appeared that the defendant (appellant before this court) was traveling at thirty miles an hour, two car lengths behind another car. There was considerable traffic on the road, and we held that, under the circumstances, the defendant ‘was required to maintain careful and continual observation of the car ahead of ■ him in order to avoid a collision with that machine.’ We stated: ‘The rule laid down by this court equally requires the driver of an automobile to keep such distance from a car ahead of him and maintain such observation of such car that an emergency stop may be safely made.’ The judgment against the defendant was affirmed.”
This same opinion quotes from Blashfield on Automobile Law as follows:
“ ‘A motorist has right to follow another motorist at reasonable and safe distance. However, he must govern his speed or keep back a reasonably safe distance so as to provide for the contingency of a car in front suddenly stopping, maintaining a proper lookout for the car immediately preceding him, and so that he can stop without a collision, or can turn out sufficiently to pass the vehicle in front without going across the street in the way of traffic approaching from the opposite direction, as that will naturally result in collision with such traffic.’ ”
I think the rule quoted above about emergency stops is much stronger where a statute such as our own exists.
Again, attention should be called to the fact that the statute referred to is a criminal statute. It is well settled that an intervening criminal act between the injury and the negligence destroys the causal connection, for the negligent actor is never required to anticipate the performance of a criminal act. In 38 Am.Jur. on Negligence, Sec. 71, it is said:
“Wrongful acts of independent third persons, not actually intended by the defendant, are not regarded by the law as natural consequences of his wrong, and he is not bound to anticipate the general probability of such acts, any more than a particular act by this or that individual. The rule applies a fortiori to criminal acts. Therefore, as the facts are ordinarily against a defendant presented, no recovery can be allowed for an injury which resulted from the criminal act of a third person, although there existed at the time a condition which made the act possible or less difficult to accomplish, and which was produced by the negligence of the defendant.” (Emphasis ours.)
This text is sustained by many authorities, apparently without dissent, in 78 A.L.R. 472.
There is support for this in the decisions of this court. In the case of Stephens v. Oklahoma City Ry. Co., 28 Okl. 340, 114 P. 611, 615, 33 L.R.A.,N.S., 1007, this court said:
“ * * * The mere fact that the concurrent cause or intervening act was unforeseen will not relieve the defendant guilty of the primary negligence from liability; but, if the intervening . agency is something so unexpected or extraordinary as that he could not or ought not to have anticipated it, he will not be liable and certainly he is not bound to anticipate the criminal acts of others by which damage is inflicted, and hence is not liable there*858for. 29 Cyc. 501 — 512; Sofield v. Sommers, 9 Ben. 526, Fed.Cas. No. 13, 157; Andrews v. Kinsel, 114 Ga. 390, 40 S.E. 300, 88 Am.St.Rep. 25.”
Under the allegations of the petition it is evident that the negligence of the driver of the car following entirely superseded that of the railroad and destroyed the causal connection between defendant’s negligence and the injury, and that such negligence of the driver in the rear was the proximate cause of the injury and not that of the railroad.
I believe the judgment of the trial court should be affirmed, and I therefore respectfully dissent.