Court Opinion

ID: 9530479
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:00:11.602696+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:07.552370
License: Public Domain

Robb, J.,
(dissenting): I am unable to agree with the majority of the court as to the insufficiency of the evidence in this case. Plaintiff testified he did not have time to remonstrate after the increase in speed, hitting the rough spot in the blacktop, and defendant’s “fighting the steering wheel,” which could only mean he had lost control of the car, and thus plaintiff made no remonstrance, but neither did the plaintiff in O’Brien v. Jones, 183 Kan. 170, 172, 326 P. 2d 257, where, because of acceleration to an excessive speed of 110 miles per hour over a distance of six-tenths of a mile, plaintiff, as here, did not have time to remonstrate.
In Fyne v. Emmett, 171 Kan. 383, 233 P. 2d 496, a concurring opinion by the Honorable Hugo T. Wedell (joined in by three other Justices) made clear that the petition in that case was sufficient when it alleged intoxication of a driver, refusal to heed a passenger’s request to slow down and immediately thereafter opening the throttle to the maximum capacity of the motor, and failure to guide the car, and further that a driver guilty of so acting with a realization of the imminence of danger and with a reckless disregard for the safety of his passengers, in legal contemplation, is under the guest statute.
*725From the Perry and Huskey cases it appeared there had been a definite standard fixed whereby speed, standing alone, would not be a sufficient allegation under the guest statute irrespective of how fast it might be because speed constitutes only negligence, and when other facts or circumstances were attendant which invoked the wantonness rule, then something more than negligence was present but it was yet short of malice or willfulness, and that such case was not to be determined as a question of law but was to be submitted to the trier of the fact. My opinion is that in addition to the element of speed there are substantial facts and circumstances such as wet blacktop, which was conducive to skidding and did not furnish any element of friction for braking purposes, sprinkling rain, front tires with very little tread so as to handicap the application of brakes to the front wheels and slight elevations and rough spots which from plain logic would contribute to or cause skidding of the automobile. I believe these are sufficient to require submission of the case to the jury and the order of the trial court should be affirmed.
Wertz, J., joins in the foregoing dissenting opinion.