Court Opinion

ID: 9696711
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:55:47.496882+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:25.792488
License: Public Domain

*314Moore, J.
I dissent.
I. The majority opinion sets out only part of the testimony of defendant and apparently assumes it created the only problem by way of instructions for the trial court to submit to the jury the question of decedent’s contributory negligence.
In addition to the positive testimony of defendant that he did not know decedent was about to make a right turn and he figured decedent was going to do something of the sort in the way of stopping or turning, the record discloses other testimony that decedent, as he approached the driveway, slowed the truck to “just a walk” when defendant was approximately 60 feet behind him. The testimony of David Fellows so indicates. Fellows also testified he was driving about 100 feet back of defendant’s vehicle and when he observed decedent slow down he did not know what decedent was going to do and did not know whether he was going to make a turn or stop.
The witness, Max Welding, testified when he observed the truck he thought it was turning short of the driveway.
Thus the trial court was faced with properly instructing the jury upon the question of whether defendant knew or might have known the decedent was about to stop, turn or only suddenly decrease the speed of his vehicle.
With such a record, plaintiff’s counsel filed only one requested instruction regarding the movement of decedent’s truck which refers only to turning. It is Instruction No. 1, in the following form:
“You are instructed that the statutes of the State of Iowa provide that no person shall turn a motor vehicle from a direct, course upon a highway unless and until such movement can be made with reasonable safety and then only after giving an appropriate signal continuously during not less than the last 100 feet traveled before turning, by mechanical or electrical directional devices or by extending the hand and arm upward from the left side of the vehicle when the intention is to turn right, and the law provides that a failure to comply with this provision constitutes negligence.
“In this connection you are instructed that if plaintiff’s decedent in the exercise of reasonable care could not turn off the *315highway with reasonable safety, then he was under a duty to give the signal as above provided and his failure to give such signal would constitute negligence.
“You are further instructed, however, that such negligence on the part of plaintiff’s decedent, if any, would not amount to such contributory negligence as would prevent recovery in this lawsuit unless his failure to signal contributed in some way or in some degree directly to the collision, and if you find by a preponderance of the competent, credible evidence that the defendant had actual knowledge of plaintiff’s decedent’s intention to turn, and there was sufficient time to avoid the collision, then. there would be no contributory negligence on the part of plaintiff’s decedent for failure to give the signal.”
The court in attempting to instruct on all phases regarding the movement of decedent’s truck gave Instruction No. 10, as follows:
“The statutes of the State of Iowa provide that no person shall turn a motor vehicle from a direct course upon a highway unless and until such movement can be made with reasonable safety and then only after giving an appropriate signal continuously during not less than the last one hundred feet traveled before turning, by mechanical or electrical directional devices or by extending the hand and arm upward from the left side of the vehicle when the intention is to turn right.
“The laws of Iowa also provide that no person shall stop or suddenly decrease the speed of a motor vehicle without first giving an appropriate signal to the driver of any vehicle immediately to the rear when there is an opportunity to do so, which signal shall be by mechanical or electrical directional devices or by extending the hand and arm downward from the left side of the vehicle.
“A failure to comply with the foregoing provisions of law constitutes negligence.
“If you find that plaintiff’s decedent was negligent for failure to give such signal, and if you further find such negligence did not contribute in a direct manner to the collision then there would be no contributory negligence on the part of plaintiff’s decedent for failure to give such signal. In this connection *316you may consider whether or not the defendant observed the truck of plaintiff’s decedent prior to the collision and whether from said observation defendant had knowledge that plaintiff’s decedent was going to make a right-hand turn, stop or suddenly decrease the speed of his truck and had sufficient time in the exercise of reasonable care to avoid the collision.
“But if you find plaintiff’s decedent was negligent for failure to give such signal and if you further find such negligence did contribute in a direct manner to the collision under all of the facts and circumstances then there would be contributory negligence on the part of plaintiff’s decedent for failure to give such signal.”
Plaintiff’s counsel took exception to the court’s refusal to give requested Instruction No. 1 for the reason the same is a correct statement of the law and. not fully embodied in the whole or substantially in part in any of the court’s instructions.
A comparison of plaintiff’s requested Instruction No. .1 with the court’s Instruction No., 10 clearly demonstrates the court fairly submitted to the jury for their consideration the question of decedent’s contributory negligence and clear-ly stated any negligence on the part of the decedent would not bar recovery unless it contributed in a direct manner to the collision.
Instruction No. 10 presents to the jurors plaintiff’s contentions as indicated in requested Instruction No. .1 and covers not only turning of the truck but stopping or suddenly decreasing its speed.
In Law v. Bryant Asphaltic Paving Co., 175 Iowa 747, 753, 157 N.W. 175, 177, 7 A. L. R. 1189, we said:
“It is probably true that no instruction or charge to a jury has ever been drawn with such perfect clearness and precision that an ingenious lawyer, in the seclusion and quiet of his office, with a dictionary at his elbow, cannot extract therefrom some legal heresy of more or less startling character. The real test of the meaning and effect of an instruction for the purpose of review by an appellate court ought to be, and we think is, the idea which the language objected to is fairly calculated to convey to the minds of jurors drawn from the ordinary walks of life; and the fact that, upon a minute, technical or hypercritical *317analysis, some other interpretation can be placed thereon, may be disregarded.”
See also Hicks v. Goodman, 248 Iowa 1184, 1189, 85 N.W.2d 6, 8.
Instruction No. 10, in my opinion, fairly conveys the idea that any failure to signal must have a direct causal connection with the accident in order to bar recovery.
IT. In Instruction No. 2 the trial court submitted to the jury plaintiff’s pleaded theory of last clear chance. The jury found for the defendant and necessarily determined defendant was not negligent after discovering decedent in a place of peril. With such a finding no prejudice could possibly result to plaintiff’s case due to the trial court’s failure to give plaintiff’s requested Instruction No. 1.
I would affirm.
Larson, Thornton and Stuart, JJ., join in this dissent.