Court Opinion

ID: 9754019
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:38:53.36576+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:55:17.248392
License: Public Domain

KERN, Associate Judge, dissenting,
with whom NEBEKER and BELSON, Associate Judges, join *:
Appellees presented at trial two separate and distinct versions of their actions leading up to the intersectional collision which resulted in a jury verdict favorable to them: One version, testified to by Mrs. Jones, the driver of the automobile, and her passengers, was that she came to a complete stop at the intersection of 0 Street (which she was travelling and which was controlled by a stop sign) with 12th Street, Northwest. She and her front-seat passenger looked in both directions and saw nothing, and then *54she “proceeded to go across [and] ... [a]ll I can remember is that I saw a bright light and the impact.” (Record at 179). The flash of light came from the right (Record at 214, 244) and turned out to be a bus owned by WMATA and operated by Mr. Porch, the appellants. Since 12th Street to the right of Mrs. Jones was level (Record at 219) and the bus and the streets were well-lighted (Record at 293-94) and no one in the auto saw the large bus (Record at 224, 243), the failure on appellees’ part to see what was clearly there to be seen required the court to rule as a matter of law that Mrs. Jones was eontributorily negligent. Frager v. Pecot, D.C.App., 327 A.2d 306, 307 (1974).
The second version of what Mrs. Jones did at the intersection of 12th and 0 Streets on the night of the collision contained in appellees’ ease was presented by a kind of mystery witness, Mrs. Adams,1 who was partying in her home on 12th Street north of the intersection where the bus and the auto collided, (Record at 388) and who twice testified that “the accident happened so quickly” that the details of it were difficult for her to recall. (Record at 387-88.) Her version (Record at 385) was that the auto of Mrs. Jones stalled once she drove into the intersection. Mrs. Adams’ assertion that Mrs. Jones stalled was at odds with the testimony of Mrs. Jones — the driver of the car — that she had proceeded across the intersection in a normal fashion after stopping. (Record at 196.)
Then, the question becomes whether this second version by appellees constituted sufficient evidence to put to the jury the issue of whether the bus driver had a last clear chance to avoid the accident. See Phillips v. D.C. Transit System, Inc., D.C.App., 198 A.2d 740, 741 (1964). The doctrine of last clear chance “presupposes a perilous situation caused by the negligence of both the plaintiff and the defendant ....” Hunter v. Robinson, D.C.App., 294 A.2d 481, 483 (1972), quoting Griffin v. Anderson, D.C.Mun.App., 148 A.2d 713, 714 (1959).
The majority, in order to apply last clear chance, necessarily must ignore the version of events testified to by the driver of the auto, Mrs. Jones, and rely instead upon the testimony of Mrs. Adams. Her testimony as to the stalling of the auto in the intersection appears to supply for the majority evidence of the requisite position of peril in which Mrs. Jones and her passengers were placed. Mrs. Adams’ testimony (Record at 380) that the bus “was really rolling”, despite her further testimony (Record at 387) that “I can’t tell you how fast it [the bus] was going,” supplies the majority evidence of negligence on the part of appellants, which contributed to the placing of appel-lees in a situation of peril.2
However, we have heretofore held that last clear chance requires also that “after the situation had been created there was a time when the defendant [appellants here] could, and the plaintiff [appellees] could *55not, avoid the accident. The doctrine [of last clear chance] is not applicable if the emergency is so sudden that there is no time to avoid the collision, as the defendant is not required to act instantaneously.” Id. at 483 (emphasis added).
At this point, the majority, without citation to the record, employs the following ipse dixit:
[l]n the instant case there is some evidence from which the jury could infer that by measures such as sounding the horn, braking and swerving to avoid impact, the appellant could have avoided the collision ....
However, there is simply no evidence of record that the bus driver could have avoided the collision as soon as he realized Mrs. Jones was not going to stop at the stop sign.3 Thus, the majority is reduced to asserting in effect that the jury here may speculate that the driver of the bus had time not only to brake and swerve but also to blow his horn and that by such “means” the accident could have been avoided.
The majority’s suggested evasive action, considering the reaction time and distances involved, would require extraordinary clairvoyance and dexterity. But more importantly, the majority’s resort to conjecture highlights the failure of the facts in this case to satisfy one of the necessary prerequisites for applying the last clear chance doctrine — that the defendant had the time and the opportunity to avoid the accident.
That the passengers in the auto driven by Mrs. Jones suffered severe injuries as a result of the collision is highly regrettable. That the majority abandons its judicial responsibilities by upholding jury verdicts where the evidence is so lacking that the jurors can only speculate is equally regrettable. See Washington Gas Light Co. v. Jones, D.C.App., 332 A.2d 358, 361 (1975) (Harris, J., dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.4

 Judge Harris was a member of the Division majority in this case and participated in the en banc argument. He concurred in the dissent prior to his retirement from the court on February 5, 1982.

. This witness was not identified in pretrial papers (Record at 191) and required the issuance of a subpoena to attend the trial (Record at 359-60.) Another witness, the sole eyewitness to the collision who was not in either vehicle, was standing on 12th Street north of the intersection across from the Adams house. He did not see Mrs. Adams that night and would have remembered had he seen her, according to his testimony, since he knew her. (Record at 441-42.)

. Parenthetically, I note that the federal court of appeals here has held in Gulf Oil Corp. v. Reed, 118 U.S.App.D.C. 212, 334 F.2d 960 (1964), that a trial court incorrectly permitted a case to go to the jury on the issue of negligence and proximate cause when the only evidence of negligence was that the defendant exceeded the speed limit at the time of the accident.
Here the only evidence of defendant’s negligence was that the bus “was really rolling”— an opinion by a lay person who was unable to estimate the speed in terms of mileage. Indeed, the trial court struck the testimony by the witness that the bus was exceeding the speed limit. (Record at 387.) Assuming the testimony that the bus was really rolling was enough to permit a jury to infer the bus was exceeding the speed limit there was no evidence that exceeding the speed limit on 12th Street, which is one-way north and had very light traffic at the time (Record at 289-90), caused the accident.
Put another way, there must be some evidence, under the teaching of Judge Edgerton in Gulf Oil, that the accident might not have occurred but for the bus exceeding the speed limit. None was presented in the instant case.

. The only evidence on this point was testimony by the bus driver, Mr. Porch, that he first saw the car when he was 40 feet from the intersection. (Record at 292). Assuming he should have at once realized she would be in his path and therefore taken evasive action there is nothing to show he could have done anything which would have been effective to avoid striking the auto of Mrs. Jones. If he was proceeding at the speed limit, 25 miles per hour, he was traveling at almost 37 feet per second.

. I do not take up the various errors asserted by appellants to have occurred during trial that allegedly denied their right to a fair trial since none raised an issue requiring en banc consideration and determination. As I understand it, the court as a whole was concerned about the propriety of a judge refusing to enter a judgment notwithstanding the verdict in an inter-sectional collision case when it was asserted that the evidence of negligence and proximate cause was insufficient.