Court Opinion

ID: 9690400
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 19:11:08.33526+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:56.560176
License: Public Domain

SUMMERS, Justice
(concurring).
Although I arrive at the same result, I do not agree with some of the findings or the reasons assigned for the legal conclusion expressed. In my view the law and facts are as follows:
On November 22, 1968 Marshall Laird and his wife, Gracie, were traveling in their 1968 Dodge pickup truck in a westerly direction on Louisiana Highway 112 about 10.3 miles east of ÍDeRidder. He was driving, and when they reached a point where highway employees were constructing baffles in the roadside ditch, he pulled over to his right, or the north side of the highway, and stopped. He stopped to talk with, and seek information from, Noah Laird, his nephew, who was one of the workmen.
While talking to Noah, and N. E. Johnson, the highway gang foreman, Laird’s truck was struck from the rear by a van truck and trailer driven by Ralph Hare, Jr., an employee of Red River News Company. At the time Hare was delivering papers and ■ magazines in the course and scope of his employment. As a result of the collision, Laird and his wife suffered personal injuries and incurred medical expense. The truck was extensively damaged.
A direct action was brought by Laird and his wife against The Travelers Insurance Company, the liability insurer of Red River News Company. Travelers answered with a general denial and pled Laird’s contributory negligence. Alternatively, as third party plaintiff, Travelers made Marshall Laird and his liability insurer State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company third-party defendants In this third-party demand, Laird’s action in stopping on the highway was alleged to be “proximate negligence” making him a joint tort-feasor with Ralph Hare, Jr., liable as such, in solido with his insurer State Farm, for one-half of any recovery obtained by Gracie Laird against Travelers. Judgment was prayed for accordingly.
Travelers also intervened as subrogee to recover $1,100 paid to Red River News Company as collision insurer of the van truck. The intervention was dismissed, presumably because of an intercompany arbitration agreement between Travelers and State Farm advanced in an exception to this demand.
The trial judge was of the opinion that the cause of the accident was Hare’s failure to maintain a proper lookout and see what he should have seen while traveling at 55 to 60 miles per hour, noting that he *222could easily have seen and avoided the stopped Laird vehicle. Damages were awarded to Marshall Laird and Gracie Laird for personal injuries and medical expense, in the sum of $30,000 and $10,000, respectively. Travelers’ third-party demand was dismissed.
On Travelers’ appeal to the Third Circuit, that court found Laird guilty of negligence for violating the statutory prohibition against stopping on the highway, when it was practicable to stop off of the highway. La.R.S. 32:141(A). Hare was also found to be negligent in not maintaining a proper lookout.
In addition, the Court of Appeal was of the opinion that as between Laird and Hare, Hare had the last clear chance to avoid the collision. Thus, in the opinion of the Court of; Appeal, Laird was entitled to recover against Travelers, the insurer of Hare’s employer. However, Laird’s negligence was found to make him a joint tort-feasor with .Hare, liable as such in solido with Hare for the injuries to Gracie Laird. Travelers was therefore entitled to recover from Marshall Laird, in contribution, one-half of any amounts recovered by ■Gracie Laird from Travelers.
Finding the $30,000 trial court award to Marshall Laird for pain, suffering and disability to be manifestly excessive, the .award was reduced by the Court of Appeal to $20,000. The $10,000 award to Gracie Laird was affirmed. Judgment was awarded in favor of Travelers for $5,000 against Marshall Laird and his insurer for one-half of the $10,000 award in favor of Gracie Laird. 251 So.2d 73.
Certiorari was granted upon the application of Marshall Laird and State Farm. 259 La. 873, 253 So.2d 212. Travelers also applied for and was granted certiorari. 259 La. 873, 253 So.2d 213.
My understanding of the facts are substantially in accord with the trial court and Court of Appeal.
It was about 11 a. m. on November 22, 1968. Marshall Laird was driving his Dodge pickup truck in a westerly direction on La. Highway 112. His wife, Gracie, was a passenger in the truck with him. The day was clear and the road surface was dry.
Twenty feet of the road, the traveled portion, was surfaced with asphalt. At the site of the collision the road ran through rolling hills, “like a roller coaster.” When Laird reached a point about ten miles east of DeRidder, he saw three large highway warning signs, two along the north shoulder of the road, or to his right, about 40 or 50 feet apart; and one on the south shoulder, to his left, opposite the first sign on the right. These signs were about four feet high and three feet wide. They read; “MEN WORKING”, “ROAD WORK AHEAD”. Each had a red flag flying from its top.
*224The signs were posted at the crest of a a slight hill. At least 600 feet (the trial judge found the distance to he 900 feet) west of the crest of this hill, Highway Department employees were at work in the ditches alongside the highway. Here Laird stopped his pickup truck, parking as far as he could on the right-hand side. Because of a narrow shoulder, however, half of the truck remained on the asphalt or traveled portion of the road.
Although the truck motor was stopped, Laird retained his foot on the brake pedal to activate the rear brake light. He then engaged in conversation with his nephew, Noah, asking directions to Elmer Perkins’ house, -Noah having told him some time before he . could pick up a hound dog pup there. ;
N. E. Johnson, the work crew foreman with whom • Laird was acquainted, came over from the ditch south of the road to shake hands .and chat. As Johnson stood at the side of the truck at least two cars went by — pone going in each direction, both withopt incident. Then, as he talked, glancing;,up and down the highway keeping.a lookput fpr ¡traffic, Johnson heard the Red River Nevys,Company van truck and trailer approaching from the east. The van truck was traveling at 55 to 60 miles per hour and the driver appeared not to observe Johnson or .the Laird pickup truck, for he neither changed directions nor altered speed.
When Johnson realized that the van truck driver was inattentive, he moved back to the south shoulder of the road, at the same time hollering and waving his hands in a vain attempt to attract the driver’s attention and divert him from the northern or westbound lane and a collision with the Laird pickup. The driver did not react, however, until a few feet before the impact, when he applied his brakes and turned slightly to his left, too late to avoid a violent collision with the pickup.
The impact precipitated the pickup truck a distance of 150 feet across the ditch and into the woods. The van truck and trailer were separated — the truck coming to rest in the south ditch 74 feet from the point, of collision, the trailer in the woods north of the road.
Although the length of time .Laird was stopped varied according to- the witnesses who made estimates, we are satisfied he was there for approximately five minutes. There was ample space in the south, or eastbound lane, and the unoccupied portion of the north, or westbound lane, to permit Hare to maneuver around the pickup-truck safely and with ease.
Whether Hare could see the pickup truck before he came over the crest of the hilL is not made clear. Since the hill was-not a steep one, it is reasonable to infer that, he could have seen the pickup even before-he reached the crest. However, this is unimportant, for there was ample distance *226between the crest of the hill and the stopped pickup to enable Hare to see it as he reached the crest of the hill in sufficient time to either stop or go around the pickup. And since no traffic approached from the opposite direction at the time, going around the pickup presented no problem, two vehicles having previously negotiated the maneuver without incident.
The fact is that Hare was inattentive to the road ahead as his own testimony and Johnson’s testimony make clear. Just prior to and as he came over the crest of the hill, Hare became concerned about a companion who was following him at a distance in another Red River News Company vehicle. Hare was looking for this vehicle in the rear view mirror of his truck and his attention to the road ahead was diverted thereby. His own testimony supports the conclusion that he could have avoided the collision if he had not been looking back. He testified that he did not see the warning signs, the pickup- truck or Johnson hailing him. His view ahead was unobstructed and he should have seen what was obvious, clear and directly in his path. To fail to do so was gross negligence.
The -real problem these facts present concerns the charge that Laird was guilty of contributory negligence which continued to-the moment of the impact, and, therefore, he cannot recover for his injuries and damage. Moreover, the contention is made that Laird’s negligence makes him a joint tort-feasor with Hare, responsible as a solidary obligor for one-half of the damage incurred by Gracie Laird, the guest passenger.
Laird was negligent for violating the rules of the road as set forth in Section 141 (A) of Title 32 of the Revised Statutes which provides:
Upon any highway outside of a business or residence district, no person shall stop, park, or leave standing any vehicle, whether attended or unattended, upon the paved or main traveled part of the highway when it is practicable to stop, park or so leave such vehicle off such part of said highway, but in every event an unobstructed width of the highway opposite a standing vehicle shall be left for the free passage of other vehicles and a clear view of such stopped vehicle shall be available from a distance of two hundred feet in each direction upon such highway.
Laird’s violation consisted of stopping on the traveled portion of the highway when a nearby graveled side road, forty feet away, with no traffic, could have provided a safe stopping place. It was therefore “practicable to stop . . . off such (traveled) part of said highway. . . . ”
This statute, as we have held, was designed to protect life and property on the highways. It is a safety measure. The violation of its provisions is negligence per se, and this negligence is actionable if it is a legal cause of the collision. Dixie Drive *228It Yourself System v. American Beverage Co., 242 La. 471, 137 So.2d 298 (1962). At the same time, we recognized in the Dixie Case that there is no universal formula for determining legal cause.
Laird’s action was in fact a cause of the collision, in that his truck was struck from the rear because it was parked in the path of Hare’s truck on the traveled portion of the highway in violation of the rules of the road. But for this fact, it may be said, the collision would not have occurred. Nevertheless, Laird’s negligence was not for that reason a legal cause of the collision in the sense that he should answer for the resulting injuries and damage. This is so for several reasons.
In the first place, his negligence was passive, too far removed in point of time from the events leading directly to the collision. Five minutes elapsed from the time when he stopped until the collision occurred. Secondly, although negligent per se for having violated the rules of the road by stopping on the traveled portion of the highway when it was practicable to stop on the side road, this per se negligence is in this case a technical status which did not bring about a result the statute was designed to protect against. The statute was designed to prevent blocking traffic in such a manner that it could reasonably be expected or foreseen that an accident would result. But this reasonable expectation did not .exist here because the road, was not blocked in such a manner that traffic was obstructed. At least fifteen feet of clearance on the traveled portion of the highway remained. This was more than sufficient to permit any reasonable driver to go around Laird’s pickup truck without incident, the view was unimpaired and no other vehicles were approaching to create a maneuver problem.
Violation of the quoted statute by the stopped motorist under these circumstances is not a legal cause of the collision, when the collision occurs as a result of gross inattention to the road by the approaching motorist — that is, when the collision results from rash actions no reasonable person could be expected to foresee. Here Hare declared that he did not see the Laird truck until the moment of impact, did not see Johnson waving and hollering to attract his attention and did not see the warning signs placed at a sufficient distance to enable him to stop or take necessary precautions to go around Laird’s truck. Such gross disregard of the duty to keep a proper lookout can neither be anticipated nor guarded against.
In such cases the technical violation of the statute prohibiting stopping on the highway becomes a passive cause, too remote in point of time or sequence of events to remain legally viable. Instead, the subsequent negligent conduct, which intervenes between the original negligent act and the resulting wrong, is more proximately re*230lated to the injury. This later negligence then puts in motion a new chain of events, and becomes the independent and primary cause of the injury flowing directly therefrom, making the actor chargeable with all legal responsibility for the consequences.
Applying these principles to the facts of this case, Laird’s conduct is not a legal cause of the collision and the damage resulting therefrom. Nor did his negligence contribute in legal contemplation to tbe collision and damage. Instead, Hare’s speed, inattention and failure to keep a proper lookout were the immediate and primary cause of the collision. Thus, Travelers must respond in damages to Marshall Laird and his wife Grade. Travelers’ third-party claim against Marshall Laird for contribution is also without merit.