Court Opinion

ID: 9711700
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:37:02.755786+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:06.823622
License: Public Domain

Currie, J.
(concurring). Since our decisions in Quady v. Sickl (1952), 260 Wis. 348, 51 N. W. (2d) 3, 52 N. W. (2d) 134, and Hephner v. Wolf (1952), 261 Wis. 191, 52 N. W. (2d) 390, counsel in a number of subsequent automobile cases have cited such decisions as holding that the causal negligence of any operator of a motor vehicle who at night collides with a vehicle stopped or parked on the paved portion of a highway is, as a matter of law, at least equal to that of the operator of the other vehicle. The opinion in the *595instant case should clarify such misunderstanding of the holding in the Quady v. Sickl and Hephner v. Wolf Cases, and make it plain that the decisions in those two cases were based upon the particular facts there presented. In fact, the comparison of negligence in the Quady Case on appeal did not involve the negligence of the operator of the vehicle which was struck from the rear but the negligence of the driver of the truck approaching from the opposite direction who did not dim his lights.
In the ordinary case of a moving motor vehicle colliding at night with another vehicle parked or stopped wholly or partially in the proper lane of travel of the moving vehicle, the comparison of negligence of the operators of such two vehicles presents a jury issue in which it will not be held as a matter of law that the negligence of one is at least as great as that of the other.
The opinion in the case at bar also adheres to the principle so well established in the prior decisions of this court, that failure of the operator to reduce his speed to the extent necessary to enable him to stop within the distance he can see ahead because of obstruction of vision due to blinding lights of an approaching car, smoke, fog, etc., before any vehicle or obstruction is sighted by him in his lane of travel, presents an issue of negligence as to speed and not as to management and control. On the other hand, once the operator sights a stopped or slowly moving vehicle obstructing his lane of travel ahead, failure to timely and adequately apply his brakes, or to turn sharply to the right or left, so as to avoid a collision, presents an issue of management and control.