Court Opinion

ID: 9815313
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 00:39:02.545879+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:34.505423
License: Public Domain

On Application for rehearing.
Troop, J.
Plaintiff, appellee herein, requests a reconsideration of the decision issued in this cause on January 14, 1964, urging that a particular ruling be made respecting the decision of the trial court sustaining a motion to direct a verdict in his favor and against the defendant on his cross-petition.
Having previously held that the judgment of the trial court entered in favor of the plaintiff, notwithstanding the verdict of the jury favorable to the defendant, was not in final appeal-able form, it follows that the cause necessarily would be remanded. The trial court had also ruled that a new trial would be granted should the judgment notwithstanding the verdict fail to be sustained. Nothing in the record could possibly be *243construed as an abuse of discretion in the trial court’s decision sustaining the plaintiff’s motion for a new trial and the cause was remanded to permit it.
At this point the trial court was in position to proceed with an entire new trial or dispose of any phase of it according to law and within the range of its discretion. Counsel for plaintiff, in support of their motion for reconsideration, urge that this court rule specifically upon the ruling of the trial court dismissing the cross-petition of the defendant. This is possible since the trial court overruled the motion of the defendant, appellant herein, to vacate the judgment dismissing the cross-petition and to grant the defendant a new trial.
It is to the final order dismissing the cross-petition that this opinion is addressed. The cross-petition of the defendant, Mauger, in practical effect is a separate cause of action in which he becomes a plaintiff suing as a defendant, May, the plaintiff in the original action. If a plaintiff is guilty of negligence, or, it may be said, is contributorily negligent in any action, he may not recover against a defendant even though that defendant may be clearly negligent.
The language of the trial court is unequivocal respecting the negligence of Mauger, defendant in the principal cause, and plaintiff in the cause arising out of the cross-petition. The trial court speaks, as follows:
“The court finds from the undisputed evidence in the case that the defendant Mauger was guilty of negligence as a matter of law in failing to yield the right of way to the plaintiff when the plaintiff, from the undisputed evidence, was proceeding in a lawful manner in a westerly direction on route 33 and was intending to proceed in the same direction at the intersection and that the defendant after stopping at the stop sign approaching route 33 admitted that he looked eastwardly where he had an unobstructed view for approximately one mile and claiming that he saw no approaching traffic, but that the evidence clearly shows there was approaching traffic in the form of the approach of the May car and that the defendant thereupon proceeded at a slow speed to cross the intersection and drove in front of the May automobile and that said negligence of the defendant was a proximate cause of the accident in question.”
Examination of the record discloses ample support for the *244conclusions reached by the trial court in finding the defendant negligent as a matter of law. It is noted that the record is completely silent as to a posted speed for the area in which the accident occurred, which is necessary if prima facie negligence on the part of the plaintiff is to be established. The admissions of the defendant afford the basis for other conclusions of the trial court.
The trial court committed no prejudicial error in directing a verdict for the plaintiff and dismissing the cross-petition of the defendant. The final order refusing to grant a new trial on the cross-petition is sustained.
The motion of the plaintiff-appellee, Robert E. May, for reconsideration is sustained and the original order of this court, issued, January 14, 1964, is modified to limit the new trial, granted by the trial court, to the issues as made upon the petition and. answer of the parties. The order remanding the cause to the trial court for a new trial is adhered to as modified herein.

Motion sustained.

Duffy, P. J., and Duffey, J., concur.