Court Opinion

ID: 9717173
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:59:42.588432+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:51.841258
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the majority's holding that it was reversible error to give Final Instruction 10 over Kreigh's objection. My agreement is premised solely upon the fact that there was absolutely no evidence to support the instruction which dealt with failure to yield. The undisputed evidence is that Kreigh not only yielded but came to a complete stop.
It is of no moment that Schick utilized the instruction to argue that in stopping rather than yielding and proceeding, Kreigh was negligent. The jury was clearly and properly instructed that argument of counsel is not evidence and that their verdict should be premised solely upon the evidence.
I do not agree with the narrow constraints placed upon the statute to the ef-feet that its intended purpose serves only to protect pedestrians and vehicles approaching upon the preferential roadway, as well as the vehicle which is required to yield. The protection of drivers following the yielding vehicle may not be a paramount objective of the statute; nevertheless, a following driver may, in the exercise of reasonable care under particular traffic conditions, be permitted without liability to momentarily divert his eyes to the oncoming traffic, in the expectation that the preceding vehicle will yield but will not come to a complete stop unless there is a necessity to do so. To this extent, I believe that following drivers are within the protective contemplation of the statutory requirement to yield.
Furthermore, I am unable to agree that the instruction in question prejudiced Kreigh in that it precluded the jury from determining whether or not Kreigh's conduct in stopping constituted negligence. To be sure, as noted by the majority, the instruction does not preclude a complete stop. But even more to the point, the jury could not have been misled in the manner suggested because in Final Instruction 9, the jury was told that if the plaintiff unneec-essarily impeded or blocked the normal and reasonable movement of traffic, such conduct would constitute negligence. For this reason I do not agree that the jury would have been unlikely to find negligence on *1066the part of Kreigh but for the giving of the erroneous instruction No. 10.
However, because I am unable to conclude that the erroneous instruction had no impact upon the verdict, I am constrained to concur in the reversal and remand for a new trial.