Court Opinion

ID: 9686747
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:04:39.353422+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:21.873920
License: Public Domain

*162Dethmers, C.J.
{dissenting). The opinion, of Mr. Justice Black states the facts in these cases. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to plaintiffs, as we must in considering defendant’s claimed right to directed verdicts, I would add or re-emphasize the following: Plaintiff Judy Pritchett, walking east from the front of the school, stopped 2 feet west from the west edge of the 20-foot pavement, looked both north and south, saw a line of cars approaching from the north and waited for them to pass, looked both ways again, saw no automobiles approaching, and proceeded east, after which she did not again look either to right or left, then crossed the west half of the pavement and took a step or two (about 25 inches) beyond the center line into the east half of the pavement, when she was struck by the left front fender of defendant’s southbound automobile, which she had not seen at any time before the impact. A big block north from the point of impact defendant’s automobile had passed another southbound automobile but had returned completely to the west half of the pavement as it approached the school.
Defendant relies on a line of decisions, the most recent Denman v. Youngblood, 337 Mich 383, holding even young children guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law for undertaking to walk across a street in front of approaching vehicles without maintaining a reasonable and proper lookout for them. In Denman, the defendant’s automobile approached on its right side of the street and was still there when it struck the infant pedestrian. Distinguishable is the instant case, in which plaintiff, before being struck, had crossed the west half and entered upon the east half of the pavement where defendant’s southbound automobile had no right or reason to he, so far as the proofs show, and where plaintiff might reasonably have assumed that she *163would be safe from southbound vehicles even if she had looked and seen defendant’s automobile approaching on the west half of the pavement after it had completed the passing of the other southbound automobile as above noted. Under such state of facts, the question whether an ordinary, reasonable and prudent person under like circumstances and in the position of plaintiff, even had she looked and seen defendant’s automobile coming, might not have concluded that she could cross the west half of the pavement in safety, as plaintiff succeeded in doing, and thereafter be in a place of safety, and, hence, whether her negligent failure to so look and see was a proximate cause of the accident and, therefore, contributory negligence, has been held to present a question of fact for the jury, not to be disposed of by the court as a question of law. Rowland v. Brown, 237 Mich 570; Dreyfus v. Daronco, 253 Mich 235; Lawrence v. Bartling & Dull Co., 255 Mich 580; Sanderson v. Barhman, 264 Mich 152; Rak v. Lake 271 Mich 274; Leete v. Gould, 308 Mich 345; Gibson v. Traver, 328 Mich 698; Knoellinger v. Hensler, 331 Mich 197. Consequently, I agree with Mr. Justice Black that defendant was not entitled to a directed verdict because the question of plaintiff’s contributory negligence was not one of law but one of fact to be determined by the jury.
Defendant seeks reversal and new trial on the ground that a finding, presumably made by the jury, that plaintiff had crossed the center line before being struck would be against the great weight of the evidence. Examination of the pertinent portions of the testimony does not so persuade us.
I do not differ with Mr. Justice Black’s conclusions with respect to the question of damages.
Defendant claims reversible error, entitling him to new trial, in the court’s instructions to the jury and particularly in the following portion:
*164“If you find from the evidence that the plaintiff, Judy, by tbe exercise of reasonable care and caution, should have seen the defendant’s automobile as it approached her, and that under the existing circumstances and conditions the plaintiff was not'exercising reasonable care and caution for her own safety, in continuing to proceed on the highway, or attempting to cross in front of the defendant’s motor vehicle, then and in that event, the plaintiff would be guilty of contributory negligence and would not be entitled to recover damages in this case, unless, however, the plaintiff had successfully negotiated the right hand portion of the highway and crossed the center line of the highway.”
This, the defendant contends, amounted to instructing the jury that, as a matter of law, plaintiff was free from contributory negligence if she “had successfully negotiated the right hand portion of the highway and crossed the-center line of the highway.” This resulted in tailing from the jury the determination of the question whether plaintiff’s actions ■ or failures to act amounted to contributory negligence if the jury found that she had crossed the center line. A holding by the trial court that plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law would have been erroneous because, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to her, she had crossed the center line and, accordingly, as above considered, the question was one of fact for the jury under the above-cited authorities. By the same token, it was error for the court to charge the jury that, if they found that plaintiff had crossed the center line, in such case she was, as a matter of law, free from contributory negligence, thus depriving the defendant of a jury determination of the latter question. The right of a jury decision of this question and to have the court refrain from deciding it ad*165versely to Mm, as a matter of law, was as fundamental to defendant as to plaintiffs.
Plaintiffs urge the familiar principle that the charge of a court must be considered as a whole and error will not lie upon detached sentences which, when construed with the rest of the charge, are not objectionable. Hayes v. Coleman, 338 Mich 371. The difficulty here is that, despite the extended statement of the nature and effect of contributory negligence contained in the portions of the instructions relied upon by plaintiffs as curing the above noted error, consideration thereof was to all practical intents and purposes eliminated from the jury’s deliberations by the court’s instruction, in effect, that it had no application to the case if the jury found that plaintiff had crossed the center line. Nothing in the instructions served to correct that error. This is not a case, therefore, in which it may be said that the portion of the charge in question is erroneous only if detached from the rest of the charge but no longer objectionable when construed with the entire charge. It was controlling of the rest of the charge, erroneous, and, therefore, prejudicial to defendant’s rights. For this reason the eases should be reversed and remanded for new trial, with costs of this appeal to defendant.
Carr and Kelly, JJ., concurred with Dethmers, C. J.
Kavanagh, J., took no part in the decision of this case.