Court Opinion

ID: 9625566
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:44:51.644591+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:11.104289
License: Public Domain

ELLETT, Justice
(dissenting).
I am unable to agree that the trial court erred in granting a judgment notwithstanding the verdict. There is no way for the plaintiff’s driver to run into the Hatch truck without being guilty of negligence.1 Hereafter plaintiff and his driver will be referred to as plaintiff and Hatch and his drivers as defendant.
Defendant had stopped at a truck rest stop and after inspection had proceeded along the ramp to enter the freeway. This ramp was 1,400 feet long and practically parallel with the freeway. Defendant’s truck was 58 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 9 feet high, and was fully lighted both front *606and rear. It was loaded with liquid cargo and the speed had to be slowly increased because of the baffles inside the cargo tank. It attained a maximum speed of 23 miles per hour as it entered the freeway and after it had traveled 190 feet down the right-hand lane it was struck from the rear by plaintiff’s truck which was, and had been, traveling at a speed of 70 miles per hour.
The plaintiff had been driving his truck for three days without a relief driver. He had covered approximately 2,400 miles and had driven from 13 to 17 hours per day. Whether he suffered from fatigue or was asleep or simply inattentive to his driving does not matter as he cannot be held free from negligence in either case.
There were gouge marks in the surface of the freeway made by a part of plaintiff’s truck which showed that immediately after impact it was veering to the right.
There were two eastbound lanes on the freeway at the place in question and the collision occurred in the right-hand ■ lane. It thus appears that the plaintiff was in the left-hand lane and struck defendant’s truck by veering to the right into the lane in which defendant’s truck was traveling.
The plaintiff never did see defendant’s truck until after impact, and how the jury could fail to find him negligent is beyond my understanding.
The obstruction mentioned in the prevailing opinion as having been testified to by the highway patrol officer was a sign which denoted the truck stop exit. That sign was more than 1,000 feet west of the point of impact, and could not have had any bearing on the failure to see the Hatch truck.
In my opinion the trial court was correct in ruling as he did and he should be affirmed.

. Comparative negligence is not involved herein and contributory negligence is a defense to the action.