Court Opinion

ID: 9741748
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:01:20.026515+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:25.904668
License: Public Domain

PORTER, Justice
(dissenting).
I would hold that Robinson’s contributory negligence was more than slight as a matter of law when compared with that of Patrick W. Mudlin.
SDCL 20-9-2 requires that the negligence of plaintiff and defendant first be considered and determined. If, under the evidence, both parties could be held negligent, the negligence of plaintiff must be compared to that of defendant to determine, in the words of the statute, whether “the contributory negligence of the plaintiff was slight in comparison with the negligence of the defendant . .” Crabb v. Wade, 84 S.D. 93, 167 N, W.2d 546 (1969); Nugent v. Quam, 82 S.D. 583, 152 N.W.2d 371 (1967). This comparison is ordinarily for the jury, but where the negligence of plaintiff “equal[s] or nearly equal[s] the negligence or want of care exercised by defendant,” Crabb v. Wade, supra, the comparison is for the court.
Plaintiff’s negligence did not consist solely in failing to take defensive actions as he walked along his vehicle. It was also negligent for plaintiff to get out of his vehicle and walk in the street in a lane of traffic when all the while his vision of oncoming traffic in the lane in which he was walking was obstructed by the steam cloud. While plaintiff may have been trapped next to his own vehicle, he was at least equally responsible with defendant for creating the trap. This conclusion does not rest on differing versions of the evidence or the inferences to be drawn therefrom. It is undisputed that plaintiff walked in the travelled portion of the street without an effective lookout for his own safety. He did so even though he could have exited his vehicle through the passenger door and thereby could have avoided getting into the street at all. Nothing about the circumstance required him to be in the street.
The evidence, taken in the light most favorable to plaintiff, indicates that defendant was speeding and that defendant drove too close to plaintiff’s vehicle. The conclusion that must be drawn from the facts so stated is that neither party saw the other, and that this joint failure to see combined to produce plaintiff’s injuries. However plaintiff had more reason to expect a car to come along in the lane in which he was walking than defendant had reason to expect a pedestrian in the street where plain*757tiff was. Plaintiff also had reason to know that the vision of any driver approaching in the traffic lane would be obscured by the steam cloud which was already obvious to plaintiff. It cannot, therefore, be said that plaintiff’s negligence was slight, or “small in quantum,” Nugent v. Quam, supra, when compared with that of defendant.
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion and would reverse the judgment with directions that the complaint be dismissed.