Court Opinion

ID: 9629053
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:36:24.243734+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:15.073470
License: Public Domain

Durham, C.J.
William Young, plaintiff below, was injured when his bicycle was struck by a van driven by Theda Carter. Young appeals from a jury verdict for Carter, claiming that the trial court improperly instructed the jury.
On September 9, 1977, William Young, then age 11, was riding his bicycle in a crosswalk when he was struck. The accident occurred in the late afternoon at a busy 4-way-stop intersection. Young, a paper boy, had picked up a load of newspapers from storage bins near the intersection. He *148rode his bicycle off the curb and started across the street in the crosswalk. Carter, who had stopped at the opposite side of the intersection, drove through it and struck Young with the left front corner of her 3/4-ton passenger van. Young was thrown to the pavement, and suffered a concussion and severe facial lacerations. He and his parents brought suit against Carter and her husband.
At trial, there was testimony that Young had difficulty keeping his balance after jumping the curb, and did not see the van until just before it hit him. There was also testimony that Carter was watching other vehicles as she drove through the intersection, and did not see anyone in the crosswalk. The jury returned a special verdict which found no negligence on the part of Carter. Young appeals.
Young assigns error to the trial court's refusal to give his proposed instruction regarding the "duty to see." The proposed instruction reads: "Every person has a duty to see what would be seen by a person exercising ordinary care." WPI 12.06. The trial court did issue a general negligence instruction:
Negligence is the failure to exercise ordinary care. It is the doing of some act which a reasonably careful person would not do under the same or similar circumstances or the failure to do something which a reasonably careful person would have done under the same or similar circumstances.
Ordinary care means the care a reasonably careful person would exercise under the same or similar circumstances.
Instruction 2 (WPI 10.01, 10.02). The court also issued an instruction regarding the plaintiff Young's duty of care:
It was the legal duty of the plaintiff, William S. Young, to exercise reasonable care, at all times, for his own safety and protection and to keep a reasonable lookout ahead and see all vehicles that were there to be seen.
Instruction 8.
Young first argues that the trial court's failure to issue his proposed "duty to see" instruction prevented him from arguing his theory of the case. We find this contention *149unconvincing.
As is clear from Young's closing argument, his theory was that Carter's failure to see the boy in the crosswalk was negligence:
She had a clear, unobstructed view of this whole area. She did not see what was there before her to be seen; namely, Bill Young on his bicycle proceeding across the crosswalk. . . . And her failure to see is and was the proximate cause of this accident.
Young had no difficulty in arguing this theory under the court's general negligence instruction:
Now, negligence is also defined as not only the doing of some act that a reasonably careful person would not do under the same or similar circumstances, it is also defined as the failure to do something which a reasonably careful person would have done under the same or similar circumstances; and the failure, the negligence in two directions in this case on the part of the defendant, not only did she do something which a reasonably prudent person wouldn't have done, but she also failed to do something, and that failure was she failed to look ahead. She failed to see what was there to be seen.
Thus, the instructions as given adequately allowed Young to argue his theory of the case. Levea v. G.A. Gray Corp., 17 Wn. App. 214, 562 P.2d 1276 (1977).
Young next argues that the court's failure to give a "duty to see" instruction applicable to the defendant Carter may have led the jury to conclude that only the plaintiff Young had a duty to "see what was to be seen." In effect, Young argues that the instructions as given unfairly emphasized the duty of the plaintiff. This argument is also without merit. Although it is error to issue instructions which generate an "extreme emphasis in favor of one party", Samuelson v. Freeman, 75 Wn.2d 894, 897, 454 P.2d 406 (1969); Hinkel v. Weyerhaeuser Co., 6 Wn. App. 548, 553, 494 P.2d 1008 (1972), such overemphasis is not present here. The defendant's duty of care was defined for the jury in instruction 2, the general negligence instruction. So long as the instructions allowed Young to argue his theory of the *150case, the number of instructions necessary to fairly present Young's theory was a matter within the trial court's discretion. Enslow v. Helmcke, 26 Wn. App. 101, 104, 611 P.2d 1338 (1980).
There is no indication here that the trial court abused its discretion. Accordingly, the trial court's refusal to give Young's proposed instruction was not error.
The judgment is affirmed.
Johnsen, J. Pro Tern., concurs.