Court Opinion

ID: 9533127
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:28:37.049411+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:55.453804
License: Public Domain

UDALL, Vice Chief Justice
(specially concurring).
I join in the specially concurring opinion of Justice JENNINGS with regard to the admission of the testimony of the defendant Hodges. But in addition to the views expressed on that matter I cannot fully agree with the majority’s treatment of the issues raised by instruction No. 4. Nevertheless, I do share with the majority the opinion that the instruction was erroneous insofar as it required the jury, upon finding that the driver’s view was obstructed or his control interfered with, to impute the negligence of the driver or a single offending passenger to all of the other adults as a matter of law. For that reason alone I agree that the case must be remanded for a new trial.
However, I cannot agree that, upon this record, a proper instruction incorporating the provisions of A.R.S. § 28-893 would unlawfully permit the jury to speculate as to the facts. Moreover, I cannot agree that, under our statute, there can be no inference of negligence when it is shown that more than three persons occupy the front seat of a vehicle. I shall discuss this point first.
The majority cite a 1919 opinion of the Washington Supreme Court for the proposition that no inference of negligence can arise from the mere overcrowding of an automobile, Dillabough v. Okanogan County, 105 Wash. 609, 178 P. 802 (1919),1 Washington at that time had no statute like A.R.S. § 28-893. They next say that the presumption is that a person is complying with the law, and then imply that, in the absence of direct evidence that the driver’s vision is obstructed or his control interfered with, there can be no finding that our statute is violated. This construction renders virtually meaningless that clause of the statute which states :
“No person shall drive a vehicle * * when there are in the front seat such *115number of persons, exceeding three, as to obstruct the view of the driver * A.R.S. § 28-893, subd. A. (Emphasis added.)
I do not assert that the presence of more than three persons in the front seat of a motor vehicle is per se a violation of the statute. However, in my view the jury can reasonably infer that interference with the driver’s view or control occurs whenever more than three persons, including children, occupy the front seat of a motor vehicle. Thus, whenever the presence of more than three persons in the front seat is shown, it is proper to instruct the jury in the terms of the statute, and to permit it to decide whether the presence of more than three persons resulted in obstruction of view or interference with control, and consequently in a violation of the statute. Warren v. Hale, 203 Ark. 608, 158 S.W.2d 51 (1942) is authority for this position under a statute identical to our own.2 See also Lee v. Smith, 253 Minn. 401, 92 N.W.2d 117 (1958) where, under an identical statute, evidence that there were two adults and two children, 7 and 8 years of age, in the cab of a truck, plus evidence of some shuffling around as the occupants adjusted themselves in their seats was held sufficient to justify the jury in finding that the statute was violated.
In this case there was no direct evidence that there were more than three persons occupying the front seat of the death vehicle. It is undisputed, however, that thirteen prsons were crowded into the car. The majority say that a conclusion by the jury that the statute was violated would be un-permitted speculation. This ignores the rule in this state that an inference can be based upon an inference, in a civil case, if the first inference is established to the exclusion of every other reasonable theory, New York Life Ins. Co. v. McNeely, 52 Ariz. 181, 79 P.2d 948 (1938) ; Buzard v. Griffin, 89 Ariz. 42, 358 P.2d 155 (1961). Here the given fact is that thirteen people occupied the car, the first inference that more than three occupied the front seat, and the second inference, based upon the first, that thereby the driver’s view was obstructed or his control was interfered with. If the first inference excludes every other reasonable theory, this chain of inference is permitted.
The only alternative theory to the inference that more than three persons occupied the front seat is that ten persons were piled three deep in the rear passenger compartment of a small 1937 model sedan, while three persons lounged in the front seat. I find this an unreasonable theory, especially in view of the facts that several of the adults had been drinking, that the *116vehicle ran through two stoplights just prior to the collision with the train, and that no ■effort was made to stop for the train although its oscillating headlight could be seen for several hundred yards before it reached the crossing. The presumption that a person obeyed the law vanishes in the face of •compelling circumstantial evidence that the law is being violated. Cf. Helton v. Industrial Commission, 85 Ariz. 276, 336 P.2d 852 (1959). The jury could properly find, from the facts appearing in this record, that the driver of the death vehicle was violating A.R.S. § 28-893.

. In my opinion this case does not support the proposition for which it is cited, and is factually distinguishable from the situation before us.

. A.R.S. § 28-893 is a section of the Uniform Act Regulating Traffic on Highways. Therefore constructions of courts in other states having this act should be especially persuasive, that the ends of uniformity may be served.