Court Opinion

ID: 9621035
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:50:45.06976+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:14.910537
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR RE-HEARING
(No. 2473;
*25Clarence A. Swainson and Vincent Mulvaney, Cheyenne, in support of Petition for Rehearing.
*26OPINION ON REHEARING
Riner, Justice.
A petition for rehearing has been filed by counsel for respondent. As so often is the case with such filings the same points are undertaken to be re-argued which were presented at the oral argument and by the briefs of the parties heretofore submitted, and which were given full and careful consideration by the court before the original opinion herein was prepared and filed. Ordinarily in such a situation no useful purpose would be sub-served by adding to or altering what was said in that opinion. In this instance however counsel seem to think that we have “failed to take into consideration that the case at the time of its submission to the court is based solely on evidence submitted by plaintiff.” Counsel are in that respect very gravely mistaken.
After reviewing the pleadings in the case we pointed out that the case went to trial in the district court with a jury in attendance and “after plaintiff had submitted his evidence and had rested” the defendant “without producing further evidence in the case in his behalf moved for a directed verdict” and that motion was sustained.
We thereupon proceeded to follow the rule on review established by previous decisions of this court and made applicable “under the circumstances this record presents.” That rule required us to “accept as true the evidence in favor of the plaintiff together with such inferences as might reasonably be drawn therefrom.” That rule of course is not applied where both sides in a contested case have presented their evidence except where there exists a substantial conflict in the evidence and the jury or trier of fact has resolved the conflict in favor of plaintiff. Counsel surely must know that this is so.
*27It is repeatedly insisted for respondent that if Wilhelm had stopped his car in obedience to the stop sign on the county road leading to its intersection with highway No. 87 on which Cukr was driving his Cadillac car the accident would not have occurred.
But there was no proof in the record by evidence so far as is drawn to our attention as to what Wilhelm did, or did not do, just before his entry upon highway 87. No eye witness who saw the accident happen was produced by the plaintiff. Respondent concedes that this is true. That being so, we were obliged to apply and be guided by what is frequently referred to as the “Eye witness rule in death cases.”
Under such situations 25 C.J.S. 1207, § 80 says that: “* * * the general rule is that there is a presumption, in the absence of eyewitnesses to the accident or other evidence sufficient to dispel or rebut it, that decedent, acting on the instinct of self-preservation, was in the exercise of ordinary care.”
In support of this view decided cases from more than 25 different jurisdictions are cited.
And the Supreme Court of the United States speaking by Mr. Justice Sutherland in Miller v. Union Pac. R. Co. 290 U.S. 227, 54 S.Ct. 172, 78 L.Ed. 285 has said:
“If, as here, there be no evidence which speaks one way or the other with respect to contributory negligence of the person killed, it is presumed that there was no such negligence. Looney v. Metropolitan Railroad Co., 200 U.S. 480, 488, 26 S.Ct. 303, 50 L.Ed. 564.”
In Hooton v. City of Burley, -Ida. -219 P. (2d) 651 the Supreme Court of Idaho has very well said in its consideration of this point:
“In an action for damages for a wrongful death, the presumption which arises in favor of the instincts of self-preservation and the known disposition of men to avoid injury or personal harm to themselves constitutes a prima facie inference that the person killed was at the *28time in the exercise of ordinary care and was himself free from contributory negligence, and the law presumes unless the contrary is shown, that such deceased person exercised the measure of care which it was his duty to exercise, Adams v. Bunker Hill & Sullivan Mining Co., 12 Idaho 637, 89 P. 624, 11 L.R.A., N.S., 844; Geist v. Moore, 58 Idaho 149, 70 P. 2d 403.
“This presumption which arises in favor of self-preservation and the known disposition of men to avoid injury is rebuttable. Geist v. Moore, 58 Idaho 159, 70 P. 2d 403. “Contributory negligence is a matter of defense, and the burden of proving such is on the party pleading such defense. Sec. 5-816, I.C.; Knauf v. Dover Lbr. Co. 20 Idaho 773, 120 P. 157; Burns v. Getty, 53 Idaho 347, 24 P. 2d 31; Madron v. McCoy, 63 Idaho 703, 126 P. 2d 566.
“Negligence or contributory negligence, and the proximate cause of the death or injury, are questions of fact and unless the proof is such that reasonable minds could not differ, the question of negligence or contributory negligence is one for the jury.”
See also the additional cases reviewed in the original opinion heretofore filed herein.
Complaint is made for respondent that we should not “assume” “that plaintiff was not keeping a proper lookout” and “that he did not have his car under proper control.” Counsel apparently overlooks the statement made by Mr. Cukr immediately after the accident as testified to by one of plaintiff’s witnesses' that “he (Cukr) didn’t see the (Wilhelm) car till he hit it.” If that is true, as we are obliged to consider that it is under the present record, we fail to see why it was not a reasonable inference from the obvious fact that the Wilhelm car was on highway 87 directly in front of the approaching Cukr automobile. 60 C.J.S. 847 § 357 declares upon ample supporting authority that:
“It is the duty of a driver of a motor vehicle at an intersection to keep his vehicle under such complete control *29as to be prepared for conditions which he may reasonably expect to find there.”
Cukr was familiar from his daily service as a bus driver with the fact that vehicles came out of the intersecting county road upon highway 87.
Counsel also insists that we were at fault in not giving proper attention to the cases of Madge v. Fabrizio 179 Md. 517, 20 A. 2nd 172, and especially Hogan v. Nesbit 216 Ia. 75, 246 N.W. 270 which we are told is the leading case and “directly in point” as regards “stop sign at an intersection.” Evidently counsel overlooked these statements in the case last mentioned:
“On the other hand, F. W. Reisner, testifying for the appellee, stated that the appellant’s intestate did not stop his automobile before crossing the intersection. * * * Furthermore, this witness said that the appellee swerved his car to the left at the intersection in an apparent attempt to avoid hitting the car driven by the appellant’s intestate. There is no contradiction of Reis-ner’s testimony on the issue that the appellant’s intestate did not stop his car before entering the intersection.”
No such facts appear in the record before us.
We find it clear upon examining the opinions in these cases once more that there were in those cases eye witnesses to the accidents and who testified in both of them. Consequently they were not regarded as helpful in the case at bar as it at present stands in this court.
There is no need of prolonging this opinion though much more could be said in disapproval of the views now urged for respondent in the case at bar. The petition for rehearing should be denied, satisfied as we are upon re-examination of the matter that the case was properly decided and that we need not alter the opinion originally handed down herein.

Denied.

Kimball, C. J., and Blume, J., concur.