Court Opinion

ID: 9686729
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:04:00.822527+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:18.796019
License: Public Domain

Black, J.
(dissenting). This case — one of review of validity of a motion for directed verdict against the'plaintiff in a negligence ease — -is typical of-conflicting judicial viewpoints our reports disclose. Certain of us adhere to position that the trial judge cannot on such motion determine whether “the evidence clearly preponderates in favor of the defendants;"* whereas—as in the case defendants rely upon (Carlson v. Brunette)—other members of our Court cling to view that “undisputed” after-the-fact physical facts are decisive as a matter of law in cases like this.
We have a direct example here. The trial judge, having considered (after the jury had disagreed) † defendants’ motion for judgment, concluded in the language of Carlson:
*679“All of the debris caused by the collision was located on the east side of the outer northbound lane of traffic and on the shoulder to the east of the highway. The collision could not possibly have occurred at any other place. Thus the evidence clearly preponderates in favor of the defendants as shown by this undisputed physical fact, and the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law.”

First: Plaintiff’s final turn to the left.

Whatever view one may take of our dear-preponderance approach — in Carlson — to the defendants’ motion for directed verdict and subsequently successful motion for judgment notwithstanding verdict, the undersigned do not regard Carlson as presently authoritative since this plaintiff’s theory and testimony differ from Carlson in one issuable and pivotal respect. In Carlson the plaintiff stood’ like Custer on position that she stayed at all times on her side of the highway and that the collision occurred on that side. Here the plaintiff has duly invoked the doctrine of sudden emergency (not hitherto unknown in such like cases as Loucks v. Fox, 261 Mich 338; Smith v. Maticka, 305 Mich 32; Schneider v. Pomerville, 348 Mich 49). He says that the defendant driver’s conduct in driving toward and onto the left side of the highway at a time when he, the plaintiff, was rightfully driving on his own side of such highway, caused him to make an emergency turn to the left in effort to avoid a collision and that the actionable cause of the ensuing collision — regardless of exact lateral position of the 2 vehicles at time of impact — was the defendant driver’s initial act of negligence as claimed and testified.
In order that the reader may readily perceive the fact-distinction — between Carlson and the case at bar — we quote, as follows, the trial judge’s summary ■of the testimony as given by the respective drivers. *680(plaintiff proceeding south and defendant Hansen— driving a Dodge truck-tractor — proceeding north):
“Plaintiff testified unequivocally that he was driving south on the highway in the inner southbound lane; that the pavement was slippery due to ice; that as he approached the point of collision defendant’s truck headed toward him and came across the center line of the highway thereby creating an emergency which caused him to swerve his'vehicle to his left, but not in time to avoid the collision which occurred either in the southbound side of the southbound side of the highway or possibly a little bit east of the center line; that the collision rendered him unconscious; that he was unable to remember how the accident occurred for a period of months following the collision but that he gradually regained his memory.
“Defendant Hansen testified that he was driving the truck north near the east edge of the pavement; that the highway was icy and very slippery; that he first saw plaintiff’s automobile approaching from the north at a time when it was in the outer southbound lane of the highway and at a point 400 or 500 feet north of his truck; that; the plaintiff’s vehicle started at that point diagonally across the pavement into the easterly northbound lane of traffic and directly in front of his truck which he was unable to stop because of the icy condition; that after the collision his truck was turned nearly completely around and headed south; that thé plaintiff’s car was located southeast of the front of the truck; that the plaintiff’s car was completely demolished; that all the debris caused by the ■ collision, consisting of dirt, oil, gasoline, car cushion, and pieces of chrome off plaintiff’s vehicle, were located on the easterly edge of the pavement, and the shoulder thereof.”
In Loucks, Smith and Schneider, cited above, the motorist — plaintiff or defendant — making such final emergency turn to the left was absolved .from conviction — as a matter of law — of causal negligence. *681The question of his negligence, if any, and causal connection thereof with the grievance complained of, was held in each instance one for the trier or triers of fact.* We believe on authority of Louchs’ rule that it should be so held in the case before us. In Loucks we said (p 343 of report):
“In case of an emergency, a driver is not responsible for the selection of the safer method of avoiding a collision. If a reasonably prudent man would turn onto the wrong side of the road under similar circumstances, defendant is free from liability despite the untoward results. The course he adopted was a natural one in the emergency presented. O’Malley v. Eagan, 43 Wyo 233 (2 P2d 1063, 77 ALR 582); Skene v. Graham, 114 Me 229 (95 A 950); Stack v. General Baking Co., 283 Mo 396 (223 SW 89).”

Second: Final location of vehicles and debris.

The ultimate resting place of debris, following violent collision of motor vehicles proceeding in opposite directions, cannot always be decisive of the exact or even approximate point of impact (Delfosse v. Bresnahan, 305 Mich 621; Albrecht v. Pritchard, 347 Mich 166). This is especially so where, as in the case before us, the pavement is a sheet of ice and the 2 vehicles are shown as having been violently whirled around — after collision — and having been projected some distance from the quite unknown (with accuracy at least) latitude and longitude of *682impact point. One would hardly expect, for instance, that units such as bumpers, bumper braces, glass from headlights, tools, seats and pieces of metal, torn as they must have been from these colliding vehicles and thrown from enclosed portions thereof, would be found later at the exact point of collision. The opposite inference would be of somewhat greater legitimacy — that such units and articles would be apt to slide or skid on the ice before coming to rest. As to skid marks, they are not controlling as a matter of law. At least we so held in Schneider v. Pomer-ville, 348 Mich 49, where judgment for defendant was ultimately upheld on supplemental finding of fact by the trier of facts. Here the evidentiary worth of skid marks — made on ice — is at best for the triers of fact.
In Albrecht v. Pritchard, 347 Mich 166, the participating members of this Court unanimously applied the following rule (taken from Prove v. Interstate Stages, 250 Mich 478, 489):
“Without data on the phenomena of automobile collisions, without textbooks of experience or scientific experiment, without an accepted standard, without even accurate information of the weights and speeds of the instant vehicles and the angle of the blow, this Court has no basis which would justify it in taking judicial notice that plaintiff’s car could not have been thrown into its position by the impact if it were standing still when struck, when it is hardly less mysterious how it got into that position at all.”
The quoted rule, bearing in mind the extremely slippery condition of the highway as shown (one of the witnesses characterized it as “freezing rain”), is just as applicable to the debris found afterward. As was said in Harding v. Blankenship, 274 Mich 118, 122:
*683“The positions of the ears and other such physical facts after the accident are not absolutely determinative of just what happened immediately prior to a collision. Prove v. Interstate Stages, 250 Mich 478.”

Third: The “undisputed physical facts.”

The Chief Justice repeatedly refers to the final resting places of debris, and of the respective vehicles, as “undisputed physical facts.” We suggest in so doing that he ignores plaintiff’s theory and testimony (that if plaintiff was indeed on the wrong side of the highway at impact the emergency created by defendants’ negligence was causally responsible for his being there). In order that proven physical facts may overcome — as a matter of law — testimony •offered in support of a known and recognized theory •of recovery, it is not only requisite that such physical facts be undisputed; they must he adversely decisive of an ultimate fact of the case on which recovery is sought. For reasons given above, these physical facts are not so decisive. In short, and if this collision was caused as plaintiff testified, the jury might lawfully have rendered a verdict for damages in his favor even though (say, in answer to a special question or questions) it found the point of impact to have been on the east half of the pavement and the final position of the 2 motor vehicles and the mentioned debris exactly as related by defendants’ witnesses.
This Court was not constituted to become a supernal jury in law cases. Whatever our members inay conclude — from a transcript on review of a law case — as to the credibility of a party or witness, is quite irrelevant on motion for directed verdict. True, and in the case of review of a motion for new trial (in a jury case) addressed to clear and overwhelming weight of the proof, and in the case of review of an assignment of error counting on the *684rule of clear preponderance (in a nonjury case), we do examine the testimony and on occasion do decide that a verdict or judgment offends either the weight or preponderance. Here we cannot do so. This plaintiff is entitled to have his theory of the case, and the testimony offered in support of that theory, considered and brought to verdict of a jury.. He has not yet been accorded such right since the jury as sworn disagreed. Thus, the 12 “reasonable men” hitherto appointed by the Constitution to weigh these proofs having recorded their disagreement with respect to the question or questions of negligence, and our own membership of 8 “reasonable men” being now in similar disagreement, it would appear under our known and time-tried test that. this Court cannot — either with propriety or courtesy — say that “all reasonable men”* would agree that the defendant driver was not guilty of causal negligence or that plaintiff and the defendant driver were ¡both guilty of such negligence.
¡Convinced that • this motion for directed, verdict was rightfully denied at tria) and that the subsequent judgment for defendants sliould not have been ordered, we vote to reverse and remand for new trial, with' costs to plaintiff.
Smith and Voelker, JJ., concurred with Black, J.

 See present quotation from opinion of the trial judge and corresponding language in Carlson v. Brunette, 339 Mich 188, 192.

 The defendants’ motion for judgment in this ease was presented and granted in pursuance of procedure authorized by statute (CL 1948, § 691.701 [Stat Ann § 27.1471J).

 In Smith the question arose by requested jury instruction addressed to sudden emergency. The Court said (p 39 of report) :
“As we have stated, according to plaintiff’s testimony, when the Maticka car came over to the south side of the road, he turned his ear toward the south of the pavement to avoid a collision. As he did so, the Maticka ear also turned south, whereupon plaintiff tried to turn to the north side of the pavement but was unable to do so before the crash occurred. It was reversible error for the trial court to refuse to give the requested instruction because, if the jury believed plaintiff’s testimony, he was confronted with an emergency, a circumstance to be taken into account in determining the issue of contributory negligence. The charge requested stated the applicable law and should lave been given.”

 For origin and authoritative force of this expression, see Bronson v. Oakes (CCA), 76 F 734, and quotation, therefrom in Normand v. Thomas Theatre Corp., 349 Mich 50, 56-58.