Court Opinion

ID: 9794896
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:13:49.037012+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:22:02.136998
License: Public Domain

PER CURIAM.
The petition for rehearing is denied. The only part of the petition which requires comment is directed to our holding that the following instruction to which the plaintiff duly excepted was not erroneous:
“I instruct you that a person does not comply *252with, the duty to keep a reasonable lookout by simply looking and not seeing that which is plainly visible and which would have been seen by a reasonably prudent person under the same or similar circumstances. I therfore [sic] instruct you that if at the time of the accident the stop sign would have been timely seen by a reasonably prudent person under the same or similar circumstances, then the defendant Carter would not be liable even though you found that the defendant Carter was negligent in some regard.”
The effect of the instruction was to inform the jury that if Suess, the driver of the ear in which the plaintiff was riding, was negligent in failing to see the sign, Carter’s negligence, if any, became irrelevant. On reconsideration of the question we are of the opinion that, if there was evidence that Carter was negligent, the jury might have properly found that the concurrent negligence 'of Suess and Carter caused the accident; for proximate cause is usually a jury question. But we are also of the opinion that there was no evidence that Carter was negligent.
In Lovins v. Jackson et al, 233 Or 369, 378 P2d 727, we said that these sign regulations are not intended to fix standards of care, but are merely directives to the employees of the State Highway Commission. The plaintiff in that case was an employee of the Commission who was injured when a motor vehicle collided with a State Highway Department truck on which the plaintiff was engaged in work incidental to the operation of sanding a highway. The defendant pleaded contributory negligence of the plaintiff in failing to comply with a regulation of the Commission which required the placing of “Men Working” signs on the highway in the vicinity of the operation.
*253The regulation was adopted in pursuance of the Commission’s general authority to “provide a uniform system of marking and signing” highways in the state. ORS 483.040. In the opinion the requirement of uniformity of signs was emphasized. That requirement is equally applicable to the instant case which, however, is governed also by ORS 483.204 (1) which authorizes the Commission to “designate main traveled or through highways by placing at the entrance thereto from intersecting highways signs and markers notifying drivers of vehicles to stop or yield the right of way before entering or crossing such designated highways * * Subsection two of that section makes it the duty of the driver of a vehicle approaching from the direction which the stop sign faces to stop before entering the favored highway.
The legislature in conferring such power upon the Commission was concerned, of course, both with the safety of the traveling public and the expeditious movement of motor vehicles. But the regulation does not have the force or effect of law. It is only after the Commission has acted that the statute becomes effective at the places and on the highways where stop signs of a size and design fixed by the Commission are erected.
No doubt it was the duty of Carter, as an employee of the Commission, to follow the regulation, but this was not a duty that he owed to the plaintiff or any other member of the public. So far as the relationship between the Commission and its employees is concerned, these regulations, as we said in the Lovins case, are mere directives imposing a duty upon the employees of the commission for the Commission’s benefit only.
It is well established that a civil remedy can *254be invoked by reason of a statute, ordinance or regulation only by members of the class for whose benefit the statute, ordinance or regulation was adopted: Akers v. Chicago St. Paul M. & O. Ry. Co., 58 Minn 540, 544, 60 NW 669, 670; Exner v. Sherman Power Const. Co., 54 F2d 510 (2d Cir, 1931), 80 ALR 686. Since the regulation here in question did not create a duty in the defendant'Carter for the benefit of the plaintiff, its violation by 'Carter was not only not negligence per se, but was no evidence of negligence: DiCaprio v. New York Cent. R. Co., 231 NT 94, 131 NE 746, 16 ALR 940; Mansfield v. Wagner Electric Mfg. Co., 294 Mo 235, 242 SW 400; Robertson v. Yazoo & M. V. R. Co., 154 Miss 182, 122 S 371.
This is not to say that the defendant Carter owed no duty towards the plaintiff. His conduct, as the petition for rehearing concedes, is to be measured by that of a reasonably prudent man engaged in a like undertaking. More precisely, it may be premised, he was required to erect a sign which would serve the purpose of giving an effective warning to motorists that they were approaching a main traveled highway and should stop. The regulation of the Commission called for a sign at the place in question 30 inches by 30 inches. The sign which Carter erected measured only 24 inches by 24 inches. But the plaintiff’s own evidence, as we stated in our former opinion, and as the petition for rehearing does not dispute, disclosed that at a point 163 feet east of the sign it was clearly visible to a motorist proceeding towards it. If placing such a sign in such a position had been in strict compliance with a regulation of the Commission we doubt •than anyone would have charged either the Commission or Carter with negligence. The case is no different simply because Carter did not follow the Commission’s *255directive. The evidence does not justify a finding that what Carter did constituted a failure to measure up to his duty towards the plaintiff. He moved for a directed verdict and the motion should have been granted. In these circumstances the instruction complained of, however erroneous, could not be a ground for reversal.
Petition denied.
The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Rossman did not participate in the foregoing opinion.