Court Opinion

ID: 9608797
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:17:40.913607+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:09:04.293190
License: Public Domain

Hill, J.
We are here concerned with an automobile collision that occurred shortly after a right turn made onto a one-way street from a private driveway.
The principal question presented is whether the driver of the car turning from the driveway was negligent because she failed to yield the right of way as required by RCW 46.60.190, or, otherwise stated, whether she had such a reasonable margin of safety that she was entitled to enter the street from the driveway and was properly and lawfully upon the street when her car was hit in the rear. RCW 46.60.190 reads as follows:
“Emerging from alleys or private property or across sidewalk area. It shall be unlawful for the operator of a vehicle to emerge from an alley, driveway, building exit, private way, or private property, or from off the roadway of a public highway, onto the roadway of a public highway or across a sidewalk or into the sidewalk area extending across any such alley, driveway, building exit, private way, or private property without bringing the vehicle to a full stop and yielding the right of way to all pedestrians upon the side*421walk and all vehicles upon the public highway. [1937 c 189 § 92; RRS § 6360-92.]”
The undisputed facts are: Mrs. Frances M. Fleischauer. who will be referred to as though she were the only defendant, after completing her work as a hat-check girl at the Spokane Elks Club at about one o’clock in the morning, drove her Cadillac out of the nearby parking lot on the north side of Riverside avenue onto that avenue. At that point Riverside avenue, which runs east and west, was divided by a parkway or island; the portion of the avenue north of the parkway was twenty-four feet in width and was for west-bound traffic only. It was this portion of the avenue onto which Mrs. Fleischauer drove her car from the exit driveway of the parking lot'. She stopped before entering upon Riverside avenue, her car at this time being headed south. She could see to the east (on her left) a distance of one block. She made a right turn onto the avenue and proceeded slowly westward along this avenue until the front of her car was about thirty feet beyond the exit driveway. The rear of her car was then about twelve feet beyond the exit driveway, at which point it was sideswiped by a car driven by Patrick Queen. Queen’s car left skidmarks for eighty-three feet before the point of impact, and careened on for one hundred fifteen feet, jumping a curb onto the parkway and finally striking a tree with such force as to push its motor back about a foot and a half. Mrs. Fleis-chauer was proceeding so slowly that one witness testified he thought she was parked. Her car stopped almost at the point of impact.
The plaintiff, Will W. Bown, was a passenger in the Queen car. He sues the Fleischauers for serious personal injuries sustained as a result of the collision. It is his position that any negligence of Patrick Queen cannot be imputed to a guest in the Queen car, and that if Mrs. Fleischauer was negligent in failing to yield the right of way to the Queen car, he is entitled to recover.
The trial court held, as a matter of law, that RCW 46.60-.190 did not apply because Mrs. Fleischauer had, before the *422collision, entered lawfully and properly upon the highway and was a preceding car so far as the Queen car was concerned, and that there was no evidence of any negligence on her part.
The issue then becomes: Is there sufficient evidence of negligence on the part of Mrs. Fleischauer to take this case to the jury?
As indicated in Nelson v. Molina (1959), ante p. 412, 334 P. (2d) 170, and the cases therein cited, a disfavored driver is not absolved from negligence in failing to yield the right of way just because he gets out of the intersection before a collision occurs; but his negligence is established if he enters a street or highway at such a time and place as to produce an emergency situation in which the favored driver is unable, in the exercise of reasonable skill and judgment, to avoid a collision.
Here it is undisputed that Mrs. Fleischauer stopped before entering Riverside avenue, with her car standing where the parking lot exit driveway crosses the sidewalk, and she could see at least a block to the east. She testified that she saw no car coming (although the plaintiff contends that she should have seen the Queen car). It is likewise undisputed that she made her right turn and proceeded slowly westward, and that at the time of the collision the front of her car was approximately thirty feet west of the exit driveway and the rear of her car was twelve feet beyond that driveway.
It is likewise undisputed that there was room for the Queen car to have passed to the left of the Fleischauer car.
If the Queen car was more than a block away when Mrs. Fleischauer started her turn, she was justified, even though being the disfavored driver, in assuming that she had an ample margin of safety to enter Riverside avenue, make her right turn, and proceed on her way. Comstock v. Smith (1935), 183 Wash. 94, 48 P. (2d) 255.
What then is the evidence on which the jury must find that the Queen car was within a block of the driveway when Mrs. Fleischauer entered Riverside avenue?
*423None of the four occupants of the Queen car is able to say how far away that car was when they first saw the Fleischauer car. The plaintiff had his head turned, talking to the two passengers in the back seat, one of whom says she was asleep. The driver Queen’s distinct recollection blacks out two blocks from the scene of the collision. He testified, “I have a vague memory of seeing the back end of a car, and that is about all I can tell you about it,” and the other passenger in the back seat testified,
“. . . I got a split second vision of a car sitting approximately crossways in the street. I can’t say which way it was sitting—just a split second vision of it, and grabbed my head and turned around, and that is the last thing I know.”
There is nothing here to establish where the Queen car was when the Fleischauer car entered Riverside. Not even the testimony quoted above, which places the Fleischauer car crossways in the street just before the impact, casts any light on the point in issue; such testimony, furthermore, seems completely incredible in light of the position of the cars at impact as shown by reports of the police officer and witnesses who were present and by the photographs taken at the scene of the accident.
The plaintiff’s case must rest on an inference from the testimony of the witness, Richard L. Dennison, who had the “split second vision” to which we have just referred. He insists the Queen car was traveling approximately twenty-five miles per hour. The inference is that if the Queen car was traveling at that speed, it must have been within a block of the Fleischauer car when it entered Riverside avenue, and that Mrs. Fleischauer cannot be heard to say that she did not see what was there to be seen.
An officer, by way of impeachment, testified that Denni-son told him at the hospital that the Queen car was going “pretty fast.”
It was stipulated,
“ . . . that traveling at 20 miles an hour on dry pavement, with good braking surfaces, a car can come to a dead *424stop in 21 feet after application of the brakes. . . . And at 30 miles an hour a car could come to a dead stop 46 feet after application of the brakes; and at 40 miles an hour a car could come to a dead stop 82 feet after application of the brakes. . ' . . At 50 miles an hour you come to a dead stop after applying your brakes in 128 feet; 60 miles an hour you come to a dead stop after applying your brakes at 185 feet, . . ,.-70 miles an hour you come to a dead stop in 251 feet after applying your brakes.”
Disregarding the impeachment, these stipulations and other circumstances—coupled with, the undisputed testimony of eighty-three feet of skidmarks on dry pavement before impact, and careening for one hundred fifteen feet further until stopped by a tree; and the testimony of five disinterested eye witnesses whose estimates of the Queen car’s speed were from fifty to seventy miles an hour—satisfy us that thereis no credible testimony or inference therefrom that places the Queen car within a block of the Fleischauer car when it started out of the parking lot and onto Riverside avenue; and that there is no evidence of any negligence on the part of Mrs. Fleischauer.
Whether or not the Queen car, regardless of its speed, was in sight when Mrs. Fleischauer came onto Riverside avenue, it is undeniably true that Mrs. Fleischauer had time to travel a distance of between twelve and thirty feet beyond the parking lot exit driveway before being hit. She was traveling so slowly that she stopped almost on the point of impact. It is likewise certain that the Queen car could have safely passed on her left.
If this be considered an “entrance from a driveway case,” there is- no evidence thát Mrs. Fleischauer did not have an ample margin of safety to enter onto Riverside avenue; nor is there evidence that she created an emergency situation which caused the favored driver to lose control of his car; nor any situation where the reasonable exercise of driving skill by the favored driver would not have avoided the collision.
The trial court was correct in concluding that there was no evidence to support a finding of negligence on the part of Mrs. Fleischauer.
*425It is also urged that the trial court erred in denying the plaintiff’s motion for a default judgment. The motion was served and filed on July 30th (all dates, 1956). In the affidavit in support of the motion, counsel for the plaintiff stated that on June 30th the defendant was served personally with a summons and complaint; that on July 5th the attorneys for the defendant served notice of appearance, but thereafter failed to serve any pleadings or make any further appearance in the action. A motion to make more definite and certain was served and filed by the defendant on August 10th. After hearing argument of counsel on August 20th, the trial court on that date denied the motion for default, and granted the motion for a bill of particulars.
The rule is well established in this state that the granting of or refusal to grant a motion for default rests within the sound discretion of the trial court. Paine-Gallucci v. Anderson .(1949), 35 Wn. (2d) 312, 212 P. (2d) 805; Garrett v. Nespelem Consolidated Mines (1943), 18 Wn. (2d) 340, 139 P. (2d) 273.
 In this case there is no statement of facts by which we may determine whether the trial court abused its discretion. The following quotation from Garrett v. Nespelem Consolidated Mines, supra, disposes of the plaintiff-appellant’s contention (p. 343),
“We cannot agree with counsel for appellant that the statute (Rem. Rev. Stat., § 411 [now RCW 4.56.160, Judgment by default.]) does not permit any latitude for the exercise of discretionary power in the matter of granting or denying a petition for an order of default. The statute does not divest the trial court of discretion. The only limitation upon the exercise of the discretionary judicial power to grant or deny the petition is that it must not be abused.
“In this case, there is no statement of facts by which we may determine whether the trial court abused its discretion in denying the petition for an order of default, and, in the absence of an affirmative showing to the contrary, the presumption is conclusive that the discretion was rightly exercised. . . .” (Italics ours.)
The judgment of dismissal is affirmed.
*426Weaver, C. J., Mallery, Donworth, Finley, and Foster, JJ., concur.