Court Opinion

ID: 9724251
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:50:03.512455+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:58.544880
License: Public Domain

MOORE, Chief Justice
(concurring specially) .
I respectfully dissent from division I of the majority opinion but agree with division II and a reversal.
We have frequently said a defendant may offer evidence of a legal excuse for his violation of the rules of the road as charged by plaintiff. In our polcstar case of Kisling v. Thierman, 214 Iowa 911, 916, 243 N.W. 552, 554, we said: “By the term ‘legal excuse’ is meant: * * *. 3. Where the driver of the car is confronted by an emergency not of his own making, and by reason thereof he fails to obey the statute. * *
Since Kisling in numerous cases we have reviewed the necessary elements of “not of his own making.” These rules are now firmly established. One who claims excuse on the ground of sudden emergency not created by his own act has the burden to prove it. It is not upon plaintiff to disprove it. Erickson v. Thompson, 257 Iowa 781, 789, 135 N.W.2d 107, 112, and citations. There is an emergency in every collision of motor vehicles. But the emergency which excuses a violation of a statute must be one to which the violator did not contribute; it must be one “not of his own making.” Baker v. Wolfe, Iowa, 164 N.W.2d 835, 839, and citations. In Rice v. McDonald, 258 Iowa 372, 380, 138 N.W.2d 889, 894, we said: “It is well settled that a person is not entitled to the benefit of the emergency rule if it clearly appears he either had actual knowledge of a dangerous situation or in the exercise of reasonable care could have such knowledge in time to act in relation thereto.”
Each case must stand upon its own facts. There must be substantial evidence of a sudden emergency. A scintilla of evidence is not enough to create a jury question as to the existence of such an emergency. *532Mass v. Mesic, 256 Iowa 252, 254, 127 N.W.2d 99, 101 and citations.
Simcox, defendant’s driver, testified he saw the lights of plaintiff’s tractor-trailer when he was between 200 and 300 feet from it; he could have stopped his vehicle within 100 feet; he reached for his cigarettes on the seat beside him; when he again looked ahead, plaintiff’s vehicle had driven from the shoulder onto the south lane of the highway; plaintiff’s vehicle was not then more than a tractor-trailer length ahead of him and it was too late to avoid the accident.
The record is clear and undisputed that defendant’s driver diverted his attention from the highway for such a period of time that plaintiff’s large, loaded tractor-trailer moved from its position on the shoulder of the road onto the south lane of the divided highway and was moving in an easterly direction when defendant’s driver discovered he was faced with an emergency. That emergency was, at least in considerable part, of his own making.
In Karr v. Samuelson, Inc., Iowa, 176 N.W.2d 204, cited in the majority opinion, there was evidence defendant’s vehicle emerged suddenly from a farm field and that plaintiff immediately applied his brakes in an effort to avoid the collision. Defendant made no contention the court erred in giving a sudden emergency instruction. Karr is readily factually distinguishable from the case at bar.
Goman v. Benedik, 253 Iowa 719, 113 N.W.2d 738, cited by the majority, does not involve an assigned error that a sudden emergency instruction should not have been given. In Goman, after plaintiff truck driver had sounded his horn, defendant suddenly drove her Plymouth car from the shoulder onto the pavement in the path of the truck when it was so close a collision could not be avoided. Goman also is readily factually distinguishable from the case at bar.
Under the record here I would hold a jury question was not engendered on the issue of sudden emergency. Strong support for such a holding is found in Baker v. Wolfe, Iowa, 164 N.W.2d 835; Erickson v. Thompson, 257 Iowa 781, 135 N.W.2d 107; Overturf v. Bertrand, 256 Iowa 596, 128 N.W.2d 182; Mass v. Mesic, 256 Iowa 252, 127 N.W.2d 99; Wachter v. McCuen, 250 Iowa 820, 96 N.W.2d 597.
RAWLINGS and LeGRAND, JJ., join in this special concurrence.