Court Opinion

ID: 9669226
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:44:41.006279+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:54.014917
License: Public Domain

HANNA, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent because I do not believe that the plaintiff stated a cause of action under a res ipsa loquitur theory. Specifically, I do not agree that the plaintiff established that the accident was of the type that ordinarily would not have occurred absent someone’s negligence. Christie v. Ruffin, 824 S.W.2d 534, 536 (Mo.App.1992).
The plaintiff was travelling in the far right northbound lane at a speed of approximately 45 to 50 miles per hour, when a 6 pound rock was projected from the direction of the oncoming traffic lane through the windshield of plaintiffs vehicle. There is no direct evidence that the rock came from another vehicle.
The plaintiffs expert testified that the rock came from an unidentified motor vehicle travelling in the opposite direction. The expert testified that the most probable source of propulsion was from the dual wheels of an oncoming vehicle. He explained that a rock of this size and shape could be captured between the dual tires of a tractor/trailer unit and, due to centrifugal force, released at various points and propelled forward. There was, however, no testimony that a tractor/trailer unit was in the vicinity at the time of the accident.1
Much of the evidence that “[t]he rock was propelled from the oncoming lanes of traffic” by a truck after the rock became “lodged in the tires of a dual-wheeled vehicle,” as the majority states, stretches the limits of legal relevance. Nevertheless, accepting this postulate for the purposes of argument, the evidence falls short of establishing that this accident would not have happened except for the negligence of some unidentified driver. The majority assumes that the driver saw, or should have seen, the rock in the roadway, had time to avoid it, but negligently failed to avoid the rock, causing the rock to become wedged between the dual wheels of his vehicle.
A rock laying in the roadway that is run over by a vehicle does not necessarily amount to negligence on the driver’s part. To reach this conclusion, we must assume that the driver had sufficient time to see and avoid the rock, whether it was laying in the roadway or dropped from a vehicle immediately preceding it. The majority assumes negligence when it is just as likely that the rock was not seen in time to avoid it. There is no evidence as to how the rock may have become wedged between the duals, and to suggest that it got there through the driver’s *531negligence is sheer speculation. Actually, it is more reasonable to expect that a driver would avoid an object in the roadway in order to keep from damaging the tires.
Further, there is no basis to assume that the truck picked up the rock on the roadway. The driver could just as easily have driven over the rock at a location other than the road, such as a rest stop, filling station, or at a place while loading or unloading the vehicle. Negligence cannot be assumed because of any of these activities. We cannot reasonably draw the conclusion, as the majority holds, that the rock wedged between the uninsured motorist’s dual wheels or remained there because of the driver’s negligence. Therefore, I would reverse the judgment.

. The plaintiff did not identify any specific or type of vehicle on the road except a station wagon 100 to 150 feet ahead of him, which he eliminated as the offending vehicle.