Court Opinion

ID: 9830161
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:56:20.973497+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:14.697828
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
In support of the motion for rehearing, appellees’ attorneys have filed a very able argument with an exhaustive digest and review of the decisions in support of their contentions. The first of these is that Mrs. Goodnight is entitled to the legal presumption that' she did, under the circumstances, exercise due care for her own safety and look for on-coming automobiles; and that tbe jury were entitled to weigh such presumption against evidence to the contrary. We agree with counsel that because Mrs'. Goodnight was, by the accident, bereft of .all memory as to what occurred, she is entitled to the same presumptions in her favor that would have obtained had she lost her life. The rule that one is presumed to have used ordinary care for his own protection against injury is of universal recognition and inures to the benefit of the injured party on the issue of contributory negligence, unless tbe evidence shows tbe contrary. And the cases cited by appellees go no further, wo think, than to hold that, in the face of such settled presumption of due care, and that the deceased stopped, looked, and listened before going into a place of danger, if there he any interim wherein the witness failed to see the deceased just prior to the injury, the presumption then becomes available. Or, if the evidence on the issue of failure of the deceased to look be uncertain, equivocal, or conflicting, or comes from interested witnesses, the jury may weigh such presumption against it in support of the verdict.
But such presumption does not obtain as against direct and positive testimony of an eyewitness as to what actually occurred. Because of appellees’ earnest insistence on this issue, we have again carefully reread the entire testimony of the witness Hector. While he did not recollect with accuracy every detail as to what transpired between the time the bus stopped and the collision occurred, it is clear, we think, that he saw Mrs. Goodnight at all times from the instant •she discovered the loss of her purse, until she was struck by Jordan’s car. Though he testified on cross-examination that she. did look back towards Kyle before she was struck, she did so only when the car was immediately upon her, and too late to escape injury, and the jury in effect so found. He was a disinterested witness, and his testimony *933was positive that she did not look out for her own safety as she ran into the highway around the front end of the bus. Under this state of the evidence we think the presumption insisted upon by appellees was overthrown.
The other contentions made were given careful consideration in our original opinion, and a further discussion of them here would add nothing to the views already expressed. Appellees’ motion is therefore overruled.'
Overruled.