Court Opinion

ID: 9671920
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:45:27.834201+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:13.007585
License: Public Domain

Dethmers, J.
(dissenting). Plaintiff testified that he did not see defendant’s approaching automobile until he, the plaintiff, “was almost through the intersection.” Defendant moved for a directed verdict on the ground of plaintiff’s contributory negligence as a matter of law. The judge of the common pleas court, in his opinion denying that motion, stated, in effect, that if defendant’s automobile had been shown to have been where plaintiff could have seen it approaching the intersection, then it would have been necessary, under the circumstances of this case, to hold plaintiff guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law for failure to see it, but that, as a prerequisite to such holding, the burden of proof was on defendant to show where her automobile “was at all times prior to the accident” and to show that it had been where plaintiff could have seen it. That is an erroneous conception of the law. The burden was on plaintiff to establish his freedom from contributory negligence, Yackso v. Bokulich, 333 Mich 412, and to present proofs, including those relating to the respective locations of the 2 automo*428biles approaching the intersection, upon which determination thereof could be made. Defendant needed to prove nothing. For failure of plaintiff to sustain that burden of proof, defendant’s motion should have been granted.
No proofs appear in the record here as to where defendant’s automobile came from before entering the intersection. Assuming, as does Mr. Justice Boyles and as testified by plaintiff, that it had “apparently turned out from a house” 60 to 100 feet distant from the intersection, plaintiff would, nonetheless, have been guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law for failure to see defendant’s automobile while it was approaching from plaintiff’s right for that distance of 60 to 100 feet. In Levine v. Schonborn, 336 Mich 312, defendant’s automobile entered an intersection from behind plaintiff and then turned left, thereafter approaching plaintiff, for a distance of 50 feet, from her right. We held her guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law for failure to have seen defendant’s automobile while it travelled those 50 feet. Here, indulging plaintiff’s guess as to where defendant’s automobile came from, plaintiff, at all events, had an opportunity to observe it travelling toward him for a distance of from 60 to 100 feet but failed to do so until too late. Under Levine v. Schonborn, supra; Molda v. Clark, 236 Mich 277; Franks v. Woodward, 258 Mich 447, and cases therein cited, plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law, barring his right to recover.
The judgment should be reversed, with costs to defendant.
J. Reid and Kelly, JJ., concurred with Dethmers,