Court Opinion

ID: 9768499
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 06:06:16.58956+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:41.375359
License: Public Domain

MARTIN, Justice
(dissenting).
Appellees’ attorney, in the following statement in regard to the issue of appellee failing to keep a proper lookout, summarized the facts necessary to determine whether the trial court correctly rifled there was no evidence to support the jury finding that appellee failed to keep a proper lookout and that such failure to keep a proper lookout was the proximate cause of appellee’s injury.
“The question is this: Can. a man be properly convicted of failing to keep a proper lookout when (1) he is driving a motor scooter at a safe speed, under proper control, in a legal place, in the outside lane of traffic, on the right side of a truck which is on the inside lane of traffic; (2) when the truck driver fails to yield the right of way on the outside lane to the motor scooter; (3) turns his truck to his right in front of a motor scooter in order to enter a private drive at a time when such movement could not be made with safety to the driver of a motor scooter?”
*612The above proposition is supported as to each element thereof by jury findings in the .cause. The jury further convicted appellant of failing to keep a proper lookout and found that such was the proximate cause of the collision..
The jury findings of fact convict the appellant of violating Article 6701 d, Section 60(a),, Vernon’.s Texas 'Civil Statutes— “The driver of a vehicle shall drive as nearly as practical entirely within a single lane and shall not be moved from such lane until the driver has first ascertained that such movement can be made with safety.” Appellant is also convicted by the jury findings of fact of violation of Article 6701d, Section 68(a) requiring that no person shall “ * * * turn a vehicle to enter a private road or driveway or otherwise turn a vehicle from a direct course or move right’ or left upon a roadway unless and until such movement can be made' with saféty.”
The jury, on sufficient evidence, placed appellant in the west or inside lane of-the street and placed appellee on his scooter in the east or outside lane of the street and on the right side of the truck. These facts must be taken as established in arriving at a correct disposition of the issue of whether the trial court correctly disregarded the jury finding that appellee failed to keep a proper lookout and that the same was the proximate cause of his injuries. Appellant’s counsel stresses the fact that appellant signaled he was going to make a turn to the right. ■ As .to such signal, undér the applicable law' hereinafter cited, appellee was only required to foresee that appellant was going to legally- change- to the - east lane' of the street after, he first ascertained that■ such movement could he made in safety. (Emphasis added.) There was nothing in-.the-mere signal itself, made while approaching an ■ intersection, that would cause the appellee to foresee that appellant was going to make an abrupt turn-across appellee’s lane of traffic, in attempting to drive into a private driveway. In placing stress merely on the giving o.f a signal, appellant wholly fails to attach any significance to Section 60(a), supra, which prohibits a driver -from moving from the lane in which he is driving, “until the driver has first ascertained that such movement can be made with safety.” Appellant likewise wholly disregards Section 68(a), supra, and its application to the facts in the cause. Appellant, under the applicable law, was not required merely to signal for a right turn but he was also required to first ascertain that such movement could be made with safety.
Since appellee was not required to foresee that after making a signal' for a turn, appellant would violate at least two provisions of the law by (1) not first ascertaining that he could change lanes with safety and (2) by driving directly across appellee’s lane to enter a private driveway, the trial court correctly set aside the jury’s answer tó Special Issue 'No. 17 as to proximate cause. Appellant’s mere signal as to his intention to turn did not give him a license to violate with impunity all other provisions of the law governing His conduct. There is no evidence in this record establishing that appellee could foresee that appellant would'violate the law and cut across appellee’s lane of traffic into a private driveway. Nor is appellee required to foresee such violation .of ’the -law by appellant •under- this record. Other -than the element of appellant having given a signal-, the facts in this cause as to the legal principle involved are identical with the facts shown in Minugh v. Royal Crown Bottling Co., Tex.Civ.App., 267 S.W.2d 861; writ refused. The cause here in. issue should be governed by the rule enunciated in such decision. Also see Volkmer v. Curlee, Tex.Civ.App., 261 S.W.2d 870; Seinheimer v. Burkhart, Tex.Com.App., 132 Tex. 336, 122 S.W.2d 1063, Syl. 4—5; Davis v. Younger Bros., Inc., Tex.Civ.App., 260 S.W.2d 637.
This cause is an appeal from a judgment of the: trial, court setting aside two jury issues because there was no evidence, to support the same. It is apparent that if such judgment is reversed and judgment is rendered for appellant in this court, ap-pellee has been wholly deprived of his right to raise the issue of insufficiency of the evidence to support the two jury issues in *613question. Since the trial court set aside the two jury issues below, an assignment on the part of plaintiffs,, appellees herein, as to the insufficiency of the evidence to support such issues was not required in the trial court and consequently is not in the record here. 22 Tex.Law Review 359 and cases there cited. : As stated by this court in Trinity Universal Ins. Co. v. Hargrove, Tex.Civ.App., 256 S.W.2d 966, 967, in regard to a like situation, “the application of sound principles of law should not,require an appellant (appellee here) to assign error as to ■' a .judgment not yet in existence.” •
The judgment of the trial court should h.e affirmed.