Court Opinion

ID: 9517680
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:28:36.98686+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:06:42.974935
License: Public Domain

CORYN, J., dissenting: I disagree with the majority opinion in this case, as I believe that the trial court was correct in granting the defendant’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. There was no significant conflict of evidence in this case, and all the evidence on the issue of liability came from the testimony of the plaintiff and defendant. The testimony of the plaintiff and defendant do not contradict one another. The only conflict in the evidence is in the opinion by the plaintiff of the distance from the intersection where the accident occurred to the hill to the south of this intersection, and the measurement of this distance by Deputy Sheriff William Dummett. Defendant testified that he was driving his automobile in a southerly direction on a preferred gravel road at an estimated speed of forty-five miles per hour. He says he had a fairly good view of the intersection, but did not see plaintiff’s truck until he was ten to fifteen feet from said truck, at which time he took his foot off the accelerator, but did not have time to apply the brakes before the impact. Plaintiff stated he was driving his half-ton pickup truck in an easterly direction along a gravel road, and was approaching the intersection of this road with a north-south gravel road, and that the traffic upon the road he was traveling was required by a sign to stop for traffic on the north-south road. It was a clear, sunny day. He stated that there is a hill seventy-five to one hundred feet south of this intersection, and that it is difficult for a driver approaching this intersection from the west, as he was, to see to the south because of an embankment on the south side of the east-west road. Neurohr stated that he came to a stop at the intersection, and looking to his left, observed the Richmond car about 300 feet to the north on the preferred gravel road. He said he figured he had time to cross the intersection. Therefore, he kept his eyes to the right because of the hill which was seventy-five to one hundred feet south of the intersection, and then shifted gears and proceeded into the intersection at a speed of approximately five to ten miles per hour. The vehicles collided in the intersection. He said he merely glanced at the defendant’s vehicle, as he was more worried about traffic that might be coming from his right. Neurohr testified that he never again looked back to his left after this glance, and that he was looking to his right when the accident occurred. Neurohr made no estimate of the speed of the defendant’s vehicle. The hill to the south of this intersection was measured by Deputy Sheriff William Dummett to be 258 feet from the center of the intersection, rather than seventy-five to one hundred feet as stated by the plaintiff. In an automobile negligence case, a plaintiff is required to prove that he was exercising due care for his own safety at the time of the occurrence, or, to phrase it another way, that the plaintiff was free from contributory negligence at the time of the occurrence. Contributory negligence is conduct for which the plaintiff is responsible amounting to a breach of the duty which the law imposes on persons to protect themselves from injury, and which, concurring and cooperating with actionable negligence for which the defendant is responsible, contributes to the injury complained of as a proximate cause. The standard by which conduct for which the plaintiff is responsible is measured is the conduct of an ordinarily prudent person under the same or similar circumstances. Whether due care has been exercised, or whether the plaintiff has been guilty of contributory negligence, depends on the circumstances of each particular case. 28 ILP, §§ 121, 122, 123, Negligence. I am of the opinion that under the evidence in this case the only logical conclusion that can be reached is that the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law. The plaintiff was an experienced driver familiar with the intersection at which the accident occurred. When he stopped at the stop sign and made a momentary glance to his left he discovered defendant’s vehicle approximately 300 feet from the intersection. The plaintiff made no estimate of the speed of the defendant’s vehicle, and the only evidence in the record regarding this speed is the defendant’s testimony that he was traveling approximately forty-five miles per hour. At a speed of forty-five miles per hour, a distance of 300 feet will be traveled in four and one-half seconds, as an automobile moves sixty-six feet each second at forty-five miles per hour. Having discovered this danger in the presence of defendant’s vehicle, a reasonably prudent man, in my opinion, would wait until the known danger from his left had passed, and then keeping an eye to his right for cars coming over the crest of the hill to the south, would have proceeded safely into and through the intersection. That the defendant’s vehicle constituted an immediate hazard within the meaning of the applicable statute (c 95½, Ill Rev Stats § 167 (c)) would have been evident to the plaintiff had he taken a longer look or made additional looks to his left before entering the intersection. In Ritter v. Nieman, 329 Ill App 163, 67 NE2d 417, at 171, the duty of a motorist obliged to stop at a stop sign was defined in the following language: “What is the purpose of a stop sign? Certainly, it does not signify that a motorist should stop, and then blindly proceed through a protected intersection without determining that he can do so with reasonable safety. The operator of a motor vehicle, when he stops at a preferred highway, should ascertain if he can proceed safely across such highway. If he cannot, he should not enter it. Merely stopping some place near a stop sign does not necessarily discharge one’s duty. There is no virtue in stopping at a place where one cannot see. A stop sign is a challenge to a motorist to stop at a point where, by the use of one’s faculties, one can definitely ascertain if he can safely proceed into the protected ' thoroughfare.” In the Hering v. Hilton case, 12 Ill2d 559, 147 NE2d 311, the suit proceeded to trial on a single count of ordinary negligence. At the close of the plaintiff’s evidence, the defendant was permitted to file an affirmative de"fense alleging that his work in maintaining the public roads for Bushnell Township, because of the doctrine of governmental immunity, relieved him from liability for ordinary negligence. Subsequently, the plaintiff filed an additional count to his complaint charging the defendant with wilful and wanton misconduct. The trial court denied the defendant’s motion for a directed verdict on the wilful and wanton count, and the jury returned a verdict awarding the plaintiff damages in the amount of $7,000. The defendant appealed from the judgment entered on this verdict, and the Appellate Court reversed the ease, holding that the defendant was not guilty of wilful and wanton conduct as a matter of law.. The Illinois Supreme Court reversed the Appellate Court, and in so doing stated; “It is evident that the stop sign alerted defendant to the dangers of the intersecting highway, and imposed upon him a duty of waiting until he could traverse the preferred highway with safety. This the defendant failed to do. After his initial stop, he failed to keep a lookout, even though he knew that a vehicle was approaching from the west, and he entered the intersection without again looking in that direction to ascertain if it was safe to proceed, and without heeding a warning of plaintiff’s car horn. Inasmuch as such conduct plainly involved an unreasonable risk with a high probability of danger, of which defendant should have had knowledge, the wilful and wanton count could have been properly submitted to the jury.” The underlying principle upon which I base my opinion that the trial court was correct in determining that the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law in the instant case is that “[0]ne cannot knowingly expose himself to danger and subsequently recover damages for an injury which, by the employment of reasonable precaution and circumspection, he might have entirely avoided.” Carter v. Winter, 82 Ill2d 275, 204 NE2d 755, at 284.