Court Opinion

ID: 9732135
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:09:18.131896+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:22:20.884055
License: Public Domain

Broadfoot, J.
(dissenting). We are presented with a situation where there was a violation of a safety statute on the part of the parked Rice truck in failing to equip the same with reflectors, and a collision happened as a result of the Gilbertson automobile running into the rear of such truck. Thus the very accident occurred which the violated statute was intended to prevent.
A particular negligent act, such as the violation of the safety statute in the instant case, constitutes a proximate cause of the accident if such act was a substantial factor in producing it. Pfeifer v. Standard Gateway Theater, Inc. (1952), 262 Wis. 229, 236, 55 N. W. (2d) 29.
4 Blashfield, Cyc. Automobile Law and Practice (perm, ed.), p. 141, sec. 2643, states that the question, of whether failure to have proper lights on a parked vehicle constitutes a proximate cause of an accident resulting from another vehicle colliding therewith, is usually for the jury to determine. For an annotation on the subject of failure to have *209taillights or reflectors on parked or moving vehicles, see Anno. 21 A. L. R. (2d) 7, at page 66 et seq.
Prosser/ Law of Torts (2d ed.), p. 281, sec. 50, states that “where reasonable men could not differ as to whether the defendant’s conduct was, or was not, a substantial factor in producing the result” the determination of the question of causation is for the court; but “in cases where reasonable men might differ — which will include all but a jew of the cases in which the issue is in dispute at all — the question is one for the jury.31 (Emphasis supplied.)
Restatement, 2 Torts, p. 1172, sec. 434, in discussing the functions of the court and jury in passing on the question of causation in negligence cases, states:
“If the evidence is conflicting or, although not contradictory, is open to two or more reasonable inferences as to what actually took place, the case must be left to the jury.”
In the instant case there was no conflict in the testimony as to the driver Gilbertson’s conduct and the jury were entitled to draw the inference that, if the parked truck had been equipped with proper reflectors, Gilbertson might have been warned thereby of the presence of the truck in time to have avoided the collision.
We consider the case of Miles v. General Casualty Co. (1949), 254 Wis. 278, 36 N. W. (2d) 66, to be directly in point. In that case a stalled truck, which was owned by the defendant Goodrich Company, stood partly on the north shoulder and partly on the north traveled portion of the highway, and the driver failed to put out flares or fusees as required by statute. A wrecker stopped on the north side of the highway, a little to the east of the stalled truck, for the purpose of hooking a chain onto the truck in order to tow it away, when one Kern approached driving his automobile in a westerly direction. Kern did not see the wrecker in time to avoid an accident and collided with it. In discussing the question of causation this court stated (p. 286) :
*210“While it is true, as contended by the Goodrich Company, that the principal cause of the accident was the heedless and reckless driving of Kern, it was clearly a question for the jury under the circumstances of this case to determine whether the absence of the lights was a substantial cause of the end result. Being a jury question it was one which the jury might decide either way.”
In Umnus v. Wisconsin Public Service Corp. (1952), 260 Wis. 433, 51 N. W. (2d) 42, a widow sought to recover for the wrongful death of her husband who fell through an unguarded opening in the floor of a building under construction. It was therein determined that the failure to guard such opening with a railing constituted a violation of the safe-place statute. The question of whether such failure constituted a proximate cause of the death of decedent was considered at some length in the opinion of this court because no one saw the decedent fall through the opening. This court, in its opinion, stated (p. 438) :
“Leaving contributory negligence out of the question for the moment, our decisions, and those of other jurisdictions over the years, demonstrate that when one owing a duty to make a place or an employment safe fails to do it and that accident occurs which performance of the duty was designed to prevent, then the law presumes that the damage resulted from — was caused by- — the failure. The presumption may be rebutted, but if not rebutted by evidence, the plaintiff has met his burden of proof. ‘If the very'injury has happened which was intended to be prevented by the statute law, that injury must be considered as directly caused by the nonobservance of the law.’ 38 Am. Jur., Negligence, p. 838, sec. 166.”
The above-quoted portion of the opinion in Umnus v. Wisconsin Public Service Corp., supra, was quoted with approval in the later case of Van Pool v. Industrial Comm. (1954), 267 Wis. 292, 295, 64 N. W. (2d) 813.
*211While this court in the Umnus Case stated that there is a “presumption11 of causation arising from the occurrence of the accident, where a safety statute has been violated which was intended to prevent the very type of accident which occurred, this is but another way of stating that the plaintiff has in such a situation established a prima facie case in so far as meeting the burden of proof is concerned on the issue of causation. Such prima facie case permits the jury to find that the defendant’s act of negligence, in violating the safety statute, constituted a proximate cause of the accident. Therefore, in the instant case, the plaintiff made out a prima facie case on the causation issue. The defendant Rice could have rebutted such presumption by introducing evidence that the driver Gilbertson was not looking ahead at the time of the collision. But the failure to introduce any evidence as to Gilbertson’s lookout certainly did not destroy such prima facie case on the part of the plaintiff, and prevent the jury from answering the causation question in plaintiff’s favor.
We of the minority would reverse, with directions to reinstate the verdict and grant the plaintiff judgment thereon.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Brown and Mr. Justice Currie concur in this dissent.