Court Opinion

ID: 9701816
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 22:39:14.984073+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:09:35.155393
License: Public Domain

Murphy, C. J.,

dissenting:

The Court holds in this case that in an action by a passenger against a favored driver “if the evidence before the Court is sufficient to support a conclusion that the speed of the favored driver was a proximate cause of the accident, then this becomes a jury question.” The Court concludes that the evidence that Redmiles was exceeding the posted speed limit by 20 miles per hour was evidence of negligence from which, without more, a jury could properly conclude that such excessive speed was a contributing cause of the accident. Most respectfully, I dissent.
I agree, of course, that the boulevard law does not relieve the favored driver from the duty to observe that degree of ordinary care for his own safety, and that of his passenger, which one expects of a normally prudent driver under the circumstances. In other words, it is well settled that the boulevard law does not insulate a favored driver from liability to his passenger for his negligence which constitutes a proximate cause of an accident. Last year the Court, in Kopitzki v. Boyd, 277 Md. 491, 495, 355 A. 2d 471, reaffirmed the well-established rule of our cases that “while the *171excessive speed of the favored driver will not ordinarily be considered a cause contributing to the accident,... if there is evidence from which a jury could find that the favored driver was inattentive, and that but for his inattention the accident could have been avoided, the favored driver’s negligence becomes a jury issue ....” The “inattention” doctrine applicable to favored drivers in boulevard cases has always recognized that the evidence of inattention or lack of due care, to be legally sufficient to constitute a proximate cause of an accident, must not be based on “nice calculations of speed, time or distance.” Brown v. Ellis, 236 Md. 487, 495, 204 A. 2d 526 (1964); Harper v. Higgs, 225 Md. 24, 36, 169 A. 2d 661 (1961). That the Court does not premise its holding in this case upon the inattention doctrine is plain; manifestly, to have done so on the evidence adduced at the trial would have been to accord to that doctrine new heights and different dimensions, spelling the demise of the favored status of the driver on the boulevard.
What the Court does today is change or abandon the long-standing rule that excessive speed will ordinarily not be considered a proximate cause of an accident in boulevard cases. Since the only evidence of Redmiles’ negligence is that of excessive speed, and there are no circumstances associated with it making it anything more than an ordinary, garden variety case of excessive speed, the rule fashioned by the majority is that, in the most ordinary case, excessive speed can constitute a contributing cause of an accident sufficient in itself to carry a case to the jury as against the favored driver. To so hold is to scrap the eminently sensible rule that nice calculations of speed, time or distance will not be considered in boulevard cases in assessing the proximate cause of an accident. That virtually all cases involving evidence of excessive speed on the part of the favored driver, regardless of circumstances, will become jury questions is the practical result of the Court’s decision, a consequence which I deem both unwise and unfortunate.
I think Judge Moore's opinion for the Court of Special Appeals in this caso was correct and I would affirm the judgment.