Court Opinion

ID: 9548736
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:08:05.375958+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:19:22.808481
License: Public Domain

GOODWIN, J.
Defendant appeals from a judgment for damages arising out of an automobile collision. The only issue is whether defendant was entitled to a directed verdict based upon the alleged contributory negligence of the plaintiff.
Plaintiff made a left turn against oncoming traffic. He said he looked but did not see the defendant’s vehicle. The accident occurred at night, and there was evidence that one or more other vehicles had passed through the intersection immediately preceding defendant’s vehicle. The plaintiff argued that the defendant’s automobile may have been masked by other automobiles proceeding in the same direction. The court submitted to the jury the issues of the defendant’s negligence and of the plaintiff’s contributory negligence.
There was no evidence that the defendant was driving at an excessive rate of speed, so there was no reason for him to forfeit his right of way at the intersection. The principal issues on trial concerned the keeping of a proper lookout by the respective drivers.
In Moudy v. Boylan et al, 219 Or 448, 347 P2d 983 (1959), the factual situation closely resembled the facts in the ease at bar. The question of lookout was not pressed, and, because of the failure of the record to include blackboard illustrations of the testimony, we did not review the jury’s determination of the facts. The case is consistent, however, with the general rule in automobile collision cases that lookout is ordinarily a jury question. Casto v. Hansen et al., 123 Or 20, 261 *369P 428 (1927) (a motorcycle-automobile collision); Martin v. Harrison, 182 Or 121, 180 P2d 119, 186 P2d 534 (1947) (a pedestrian-automobile collision).
In the case at bar, the plaintiff testified that visibility was unobstructed, and that he could see an automobile for four blocks. The plaintiff’s admitted failure to see the defendant’s automobile therefore is evidence that he failed to maintain a proper lookout. It is not, however, conclusive evidence of such a failure. A jury would still have to decide whether, under all the circumstances, the defendant’s automobile would have been clearly visible to a motorist using ordinary care.
The rule is stated in 2 Blashfield, Automobile Law and Practice 271, § 104.4 (3d ed 1965):
“A motorist must use his eyes and see seasonably that which is open and apparent. He cannot say that he looked, but failed to see what was clearly visible, or could have been seen by the exercise of ordinary care. However, it has been held that it is only where an automobile is plainly visible that the driver of another automobile cannot be heard to say that he looked for the first automobile and did not see it.
“The duty of keeping a proper lookout imposes on the driver the obligation to see whatever there may be in the line of his vision, for a reasonable distance, which will affect his driving, as measured by what a reasonably prudent man would have seen. A driver who has an unobstructed view will be held in law to have seen persons or objects which, by the exercise of ordinary care, he should have seen, but he is not deemed to have seen a vehicle in his path where his attention was required to be directed in another direction.
“* * # * (Footnote references omitted.)
 The rights of motorists on city streets are not absolute. Drivers approaching intersections in city *370traffic must anticipate danger from many quarters. Human vision cannot simultaneously comprehend all points of the compass. Accordingly, a motorist is not held as a matter of law to be under a duty to look in a specific direction at a specific time. Britton v. Jackson et al, 226 Or 136, 359 P2d 429 (1961); Phillips, Gdn. v. Creighton, Adm., 211 Or 645, 316 P2d 302 (1957). The standard of lookout required is that of the reasonable motorist under the same or similar circumstances. The determination of what a reasonable person would have done is properly left to the jury unless .the court can say without hesitation that no reasonable person would have proceeded as the plaintiff did under all the evidence. Martin v. Harrison, supra. Whatever our individual notions of due care may be, we cannot say as a matter of law that other reasonable persons could not disagree. Accordingly, the question in this case was properly submitted to the jury.
Affirmed.