Court Opinion

ID: 9624573
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:09:45.022763+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:50:43.020232
License: Public Domain

STRUCKMEYER, Justice
(dissenting).
I am unable to agree in the reversal of this cause being of the view that the decision of the majority is unsound in principle and contrary to the better reasoned cases not only of this state but elsewhere.
That the case may be placed in the proper perspective certain facts, which are substantially undisputed, should be emphasized. The defendant, Nancarrow, was traveling west on east Speedway, a heavily traveled through boulevard in the City of Tucson, Arizona, at dusk or very shortly thereafter. Speedway had four lanes of traffic, two for eastbound travel and two for westbound travel. Nancarrow was in the outside or north lane following a car that was 50 or 60 feet ahead in the same lane of travel. In the middle of the 5900 block he saw two children about 6y£ years of age running north across the highway directly in the path of his vehicle and between his vehicle and the car he was following. He veered to the left while applying his brakes and struck a third child, about 3Y2 years old whom he never saw who was trailing behind the two older children.
An independent and impartial witness who was approaching the scene of the accident from the opposite direction testified:
“Q. And what did you see next ?
“A. I saw the two children running across the street, and I slowed down, and I got in the North lane, and, as I anticipated a left turn in here, and then I saw the object in the air, * * *.
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“Q. Did you see the first car strike the boy?
“A. No. I didn’t see the initial impact. “Q. What was the first thing you saw?
“A. When the body was in the air.
“Q. Did you see any children in the street ?
“A. Yes. I saw two children running south, [sic] about forty or fifty feet ahead of me, and I had just turned on my lights, and as I approached the Wyseman’s area, I saw an object in the air-—I don’t know what it was—I didn’t know what it was at that time.
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“Q. And you were going in an easterly direction?
“A. Yes.
“Q. And how fast were you traveling?
“A. About twenty-five miles an hour.”
THE INSTRUCTION ON THE DUTY OF A PEDESTRIAN TO YIELD THE RIGHT OF WAY
The majority find two grounds for reversal. First, they find error in the trial court’s instruction to the jury in the language of A.R.S. § 28-793, subsec. A concerning the duty of a pedestrian to yield the right of way to motor vehicles. The court instructed:
“Now in considering the conduct of the defendants on the issue of whether or not the defendants were negligent, you are instructed that the law of Arizona provides that every pedestrian crossing a roadway at any point other than within a marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection shall yield the right of way to all vehi*216cíes upon the roadway. * * (Emphasis supplied.)
Under the liberal rules of pleading allowed in this state, plaintiffs were not required to specify in their complaint specific acts of negligence and they did not. They alleged common law negligence, the failure to use ordinary care, in this language:
“ * * * that at said time and date the defendants were driving and operating their automobiles in such a negligent and careless manner as to cause their automobiles to strike Eric James (Rickey) Esquivel, causing the injuries and damages set forth hereinafter.”
Negligence is defined as the doing of an act or the failure to do an act which a reasonable man should realize involves an unreasonable risk of causing harm to another. Alires v. Southern Pacific Co., 93 Ariz. 97, 378 P.2d 913; Salt River Water Users’ Assoc. v. Compton, 39 Ariz. 491, 8 P.2d 249. It is the risk reasonably to be perceived which defines the duty to be obeyed. Bryan v. Southern Pacific Company, 79 Ariz. 253, 286 P.2d 761, 50 A.L.R.2d 1. Whether defendant’s conduct constituted negligence, [whether defendant was acting as a reasonable, prudent man], is to be tested in the light of all the facts and circumstances existing at the time of the accident. One of the circumstances was that defendant was driving on a through boulevard in the middle of the block.
In Arizona the driver of a motor vehicle does not have the duty to anticipate the presence of others unlawfully using the highway except under special circumstances where a duty to anticipate might be required, Krauth v. Billar, 71 Ariz. 298, 226 P.2d 1012; Nichols v. City of Phoenix, 68 Ariz. 124, 202 P.2d 201; Alabam Freight Lines v. Phoenix Bakery, 64 Ariz. 101, 166 P.2d 816, and a motorist is entitled to assume that others using the highway will obey traffic regulations. Cf. Haner v. Wilson-Coffin Trading Co., 49 Ariz. 402, 67 P.2d 487.
It is, of course, fundamental that a defendant has the same right as a plaintiff to have his theory of the case fully explained to the jury:
“We reiterate that it is the duty of a trial court to instruct the jury on all phases of the law applicable to the various fact situations developed during the course of the trial, [citations].” Layne v. Hartung, 87 Ariz. 88, at p. 94, 348 P. 2d 291, at p. 294. Overruled on another point in Odekirk v. Austin, 90 Ariz. 97, 366 P.2d 80.
Anything less would, of course, be a substantial denial of the equal protection of the law.
It was accordingly the defendant’s absolute right to have the jurors told that in Arizona the legislature has required pedestrians to cross at intersections or marked crosswalks. In no other way could it be brought to the attention of the jurors that the defendant did not have the duty to anticipate the presence of persons unlawfully crossing the highway. And it can hardly be otherwise, for if a driver of a motor vehicle must anticipate that children will not be using the proper crosswalks traffic flow will be brought to a standstill. A jury, irrespective of the speed limit, could find a defendant negligent for the reason that he failed to drive at a speed sufficiently slow to avoid an accident.
The majority argue that the instruction contradicts the instruction which told, the jury that a year old child is incapable of contributory negligence. I could not agree less. The defendant, Nancarrow did not in his answer allege that the deceased child was contributorily negligent and the record plainly shows that no issue of that nature was presented to the jury. The defendant did raise the question of the contributory negligence of the child’s parents. The trial court clearly advised the jury of the distinction in this language •:
“ * * * the law conclusively presumes that a child of the age of the plaintiff’s child, Rickie Esquivel, is incapable of contributory negligence. Hence, you need consider the defense of contributory negligence only in respect to the conduct of the plaintiff’s parents.”
*217An examination of the claimed erroneous instruction establishes beyond possibility of argument that the trial court precisely limited the jury’s consideration of the Statute, A.R.S. § 28-793, subsec. A to a determination of the issue of whether defendants were negligent. There was, therefore, no inherent inconsistency between the two instructions, for the one told the jury that the deceased child could not be negligent and the other was specifically limited to the defendant’s negligence. To conclude that the two instructions are incompatible and confusing is to presume as the majority seem to, that the jury was incapable of understanding the plain English language used by the court. If this is the law, then every case is in danger of being reversed simply because the appellate court may arbitrarily assume that juries do not have the intelligence to apply the clear, unequivocal instructions submitted to them by trial judges. This kind of nonsense brings discredit upon courts and leaves the public with little faith in the judicial processes.
One further word before ending the discussion on this point. The majority cite and quote from Gilbert v. Quinet, 91 Ariz. 29, 31, 369 P.2d 267. There a bus ran into a 6 year old child. The majority do not recognize that the factual situation is dissimilar in two very significant aspects. It was daylight and the child did not appear suddenly in the defendant’s line of traffic. In the decision the court states the facts:
“There were two cars parked, one on either side of the street, near the accident scene, but both were south of the location of the accident and in no way interfered with the bus driver’s visibility. * * * As the defendants’ bus approached at from twelve to fifteen miles per hour the plaintiff started to run across the street toward his home, traveling diagonally in a southwest direction. The child crossed the east parking lane, the northbound traffic lane and most of the southbound traffic lane before he was struck by the right front fender of the bus. The defendant driver testified that he first saw the child when he was a little to the left of the bus and about in the middle of the street.” (Emphasis supplied.) 91 Ariz. at 31, 369 P.2d at 268.
We said:
“A bus driver who fails to keep a proper lookout * * * is not any less negligent when he runs into a knowledgeable seven year old than when he runs into a toddling two year old, though in the former case he may have a defense of contributory negligence.” 91 Ariz. at 33, 369 P.2d at 269.
We criticized the giving of an instruction which in effect told the jury that the bus driver was under no duty to anticipate the presence of the child because the child’s presence in the street was readily apparent long before the bus driver saw him and hence the instruction miscast the issues and was not applicable to the case.
THE INSTRUCTION ON UNAVOIDABLE ACCIDENT
The court below instructed the jury:
“In law we recognize what is termed an unavoidable or inevitable accident. These terms do not mean literally that it was not possible for such an accident to be avoided. They simply mean an accident that occurred without having been proximately caused by negligence.
“Even if such an accident could have been avoided by the exercise of exceptional foresight, skill or caution, still no one may be held liable for any injuries resulting from it. No one may be held liable for injuries resulting from an unavoidable accident. Whether or not the accident in this case was unavoidable is of course a question of fact for you to determine and in giving this instruction I do not imply any opinion or suggestion as to what your findings should be.”
The Supreme Court of California in discussing a case in which the identical instruction was given affirmed a judgment for the defendant without dissent stating:
“No precise formula can be drawn for deciding whether an error in instructions has resulted in a miscarriage of justice. *218For this purpose the appellate court must review the entire record, including the evidence, and in each instance the determination whether the error requires a reversal depends upon all the circumstances of the particular case. * * * ” Bridgman v. Safeway Stores Inc., 53 Cal.2d 443, 2 Cal.Rptr. 146, 150, 348 P.2d 696, 700.
In 1965 in our leading case of City of Phoenix v. Camfield, 97 Ariz. 316, 400 P. 2d 115, we followed California holding that to claim error in the giving of an unavoidable accident instruction “a plaintiff must show prejudice,” 97 Ariz. at 324, 400 P.2d 115. We approved in principle the California rule saying:
“In California although the instruction is error the question of whether the giving of the instruction is reversible depends on whether the error is prejudicial. [citations].” 97 Ariz. at 324, 400 P.2d at 121.
Subsequent to Camfield and Bridgman, in Trickel v. Rainbo Baking Co. of Phoenix, 100 Ariz. 222, 412 P.2d 852, I dissented for the same reason I am dissenting here—that an unavoidable accident instruction “is hut a reiteration of the legal principle that negligence is the failure to exercise ordinary care; * * 100 Ariz. at 231, 232, 412 P.2d at 858. There I pointed out that the overwhelming weight of the evidence tended to establish that the child darted in front of the Rainbo Baking Company truck and that the jury could have found that the defendant was free from negligence. I could find no prejudice in the giving of an unavoidable accident instruction being of the opinion then that the majority in taking the plaintiff’s version of the evidence substituted its judgment for that of the jury.
This case completely departs from Cam-field and the California cases from which the doctrine of prejudice was taken since no serious attempt has been made to justify the decision as to how or why the instruction was prejudicial. All the direct testimony and reasonable inferences establish that it is a child “darting” case. As to this it has been repeatedly held that where-a child of tender years suddenly darts into-the street in front of an automobile, a plaintiff is not prejudiced by the giving of an instruction on unavoidable accident. Dietz v. Mead, 52 Del. 481, 160 A.2d 372; Baca v. Baca, 71 N.M. 468, 379 P.2d 765; Shaw v. Null, Tex.Civ.App., 397 S.W.2d 523; Carraway v. Johnson, 63 Wash.2d 212, 386 P.2d 420.
For the foregoing reasons I dissent.