Court Opinion

ID: 9643381
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:27:30.094262+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:00.180100
License: Public Domain

ON appellant’s motion for rehearing.
BEAUCHAMP, Judge.
The appellant’s very able motion and oral argument in its behalf have called for a complete review of the entire record in this case. This we have done and it is our conclusion that the original opinion properly disposed of every issue presented in the appeal.
The only statement in the original opinion which we would now modify is that which says that the difficulty arises “over the fact that Harris, at a low rate of speed, drove his ear in front of appellant’s car and into that portion of the highway over which appellant’s car was rightly traveling and approaching.”
In considering all of the evidence on this point it plainly *601appears that Harris drove his car from a side road into the main highway when there was no other car in sight except the one driven by appellant, and it was at least three-tenths of a mile away. Some witnesses place it further. However slow the Harris car was going, it had righted itself and, according to some of the witnesses — which the jury had a right to respect— it had traveled sufficiently far in that lane to have passed a beer joint on the corner to its left. Even if the jury should believe that the Harris car was struck by appellant’s immediately after it had righted itself in its proper .lane, it is without dispute that appellant had plenty of room and was a sufficient distance away to have avoided the crash by swerving to the left. No sober man would have overlooked this and the only conclusion which the jury could reasonably reach was that because of his intoxicated condition he was unable, as the doctor testified, to judge properly either the distance or direction. Appellant presented no evidence to explain the accident, nothing wrong with his brakes, no obstruction, no claim that he was misled by the Harris car’s movements, no showing that he at any time applied his brakes. The evidence of the markings on the higway is quite conclusive that he did not. Instead of the evidence failing to show “causal connection” it would be more properly expressed, under the evidence of this case, to say it was the direct result of intoxication and nothing else because we find no other excuse indicated. This, of course, is said in view of the jury’s finding.
In his motion for rehearing appellant concedes the correctness of the court’s charge in presenting this issue to the jury. A review of the charge on the subject convinces us that it was an admirable one. Appellant’s able counsel has so expressed himself in a fair presentation of his case.
We believe the proper conclusion was reached in the original opinion and the motion for rehearing is accordingly overruled.